mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
Hi everyone! Thanks for joining us for the Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. We don't have a specific topic this week, so feel free to share any general buying or selling questions you may have.
The chat thread will remain open until 2 PM PT at which point we'll close it from additional responses. After that time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that might still be unanswered.
To post your question, click Reply in the lower right corner of this post, type your question, and hit submit between 1-2 PM Pacific Time. The format of our chat mirrors the format of our Community Discussion Boards, where each post will appear in the thread chronologically. The Community Team will review each question as it comes in, and will quote the original question in our reply. This quote and the reply will appear later in the thread, so just keep scrolling down to see our answers.
Missed the chat? Send your questions to the podcast by calling 888-723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com and maybe your questions will make it on the air! Or listen to past episodes while you wait for next Wednesday!
@downunder-61 wrote:Also wondering if the quality of CS agents will be addressed.
So much misinformation and incorrect advice resulting in sellers and buyers being left high and dry because 10 different agents give 10 different answers and usually none of them correct.
Surely someone knows enough about how eBay actually works, to properly train some staff for each country
eBay operates in so issues can be addressed accurately.
Not a big ask, most company's consider this a standard business practice.
I agree with this too, present company EXCLUDED. The quality of the Community team is stellar. I mean that sincerely.
@vrykalak wrote:
I have been meaning to ask: why was "Vacation Mode" deleted,
being replaced by "time away" which is limited to 30 days?
If that was explained in some document I missed, while I was in
hospital, I apologize. Please point me at it and I will be happy.
Hi @vrykalak - I hope you're feeling better! Time Away was announced in last fall's update. You can read about it in more detail here.
Thanks for joining the chat this week! It's now closed but we will keep working through to make sure that questions receive a response.
Thanks!
@rosevelyn wrote:
After all this time, I do not understand why we cannot chat with "the back office" and get our technical issues cleared up. Why are they kept out of reach with no ability to at least discuss issues here?
@rosevelyn - Those teams are incredibly busy fixing bugs, upkeeping the site and creating products, so it's not feasibly for them to be able to take time out of from those priorities.
When you report an issue it is triaged and given a priority based on what is occurring and how many people are reporting it and then we work on a fix from there based on the priority of the tickets we have. Your best bet is to continue to report any new instances of a problem, so that our teams can continue to look at how the bug is prioritized.
@a_c_green wrote:
@rosevelyn wrote:
After all this time, I do not understand why we cannot chat with "the back office" and get our technical issues cleared up. Why are they kept out of reach with no ability to at least discuss issues here?
I can understand how public access to the technical branch of the company could result in no one getting anything done because they'd be responding to a mountain of messages every day.
That said, can you (eBay contacts here) give us a little more insight into what sort of weekly routine you have with the Engineering side regarding problems you report that are raised here?
- When you report a problem, do you have a tracking system into which you're reporting, and a case number that you can follow up on later?
- Do you have regularly scheduled (e.g. weekly) meetings with other branches of the company?
- If you're getting stonewalled or ignored when asking for updates or followups on a reported problem, are you able to escalate the case?
Too often (make that far too often), followup queries here are answered with, "We haven't heard anything yet, but when we do, we'll be sure to update you here!" I get the sense that you're trying your best (God knows you get enough dumped on you here), but you seem hampered in your ability to get traction on fixes for issues you report.
It might be useful for us to confront the higher-ups in person about this during one of the upcoming eBay events, but before that, it would be helpful to get a better sense of what you've been given to work with so far, in terms of how you can report problems, and what else you can do if they're not fixed (or not updated regularly for you).
@a_c_green I'm happy to give some insight!
1. When our tech team confirms a tech issue then it is given an internal number and any customer service agent can check the status of it.
2. We do meet with other teams within the company to work on various projects, we don't typically have regularly scheduled meetings unless it's related to a project we're working on.
3. There are avenues to escalate issues, yes. But ultimately the Community team is not able to or responsible for fixing tech issues. We can do our part to ensure our tech teams are aware of issues, but that is the extent of our role within the Community.
Tech issues are prioritized based on a number of factors, such as member impact, severity, etc. High priority issues will be resolved much quicker than low priority ones. This ensures that the issues causing the highest impact on members are resolved quick.
@pjcdn2005 wrote:
I haven't read through the chat yet as I don't want it to close before I can ask this so I apologize if it has been asked and answered already. When a buyer clicks on contact seller on a specific item there is a list of questions there. I know at one time we could add and edit to those questions. Is that still possible and if so,where do we do that.
I remember when that function started and we were giving the option of adding it...I never enabled it so when I look at my questions on another ID the questions show up but the answers are all blank so there must be a way for me to change that.
Hi @pjcdn2005 - I had to do some digging, but I think I found it! However, it looks like the exact steps may be a bit outdated. Would you mind trying them out and letting me know if I need to get them reported for review?
- Click My eBay at the top of most eBay pages.
- Within the Account tab click Manage communications with buyers (link here).
- Find the Manage questions and answers section and click Edit.
- Select Show Q&A
- Select the different topics shown and review the auto answers; if you don't like an answer, click Don't show to buyers. You can also create your own questions by clicking Add a question.
- Click Submit
Note: The FAQs themselves will not display in the listing; members will need to click the "Ask a question" link on the view item page to see the FAQs.
@lacemaker3 wrote:
Hi, community team.
Last week, I asked a question about sellers outside USA/Canada/Australia/EU, who need to provide a Payoneer account to receive payments from Managed Payments (instead of a bank checking account).
That question was answered a few days ago, with a link to an informational post:
Were you asked to link a Payoneer account for payouts? Here’s why.
However, that post primarily addresses one type of sellers (business sellers). There was no specific information provided related to individual sellers (comparable to the info that was provided for business sellers).
Also, my original question was not addressed at all:
Some sellers in Sri Lanka are not able to register for MP, because they are being told that they need to provide a Payoneer Business account. However, these sellers report that had changed their eBay account from Business to Individual, so they should be able to use a Payoneer Individual account, but they are not being allowed to.
- Why are these sellers being required to provide a Business Payoneer account, when that does not match their Individual eBay account?
- What do these sellers need to do, in order to be able to complete their Managed Payments registration?
@lacemaker3 - Thank you for following up and trying to help these members. We really appreciate it!
Unfortunately, because this is getting very much into account specific information, we're not able to provide a general guideline beyond what has already been provided for these accounts.
The best thing thing to do for any members having trouble registering will be to request contact from a payments-trained teammate by accessing any of the Help Pages related to payments and using one of the contact options at the bottom of the page.
@vrykalak wrote:
Last question: why are there commercials for unrelated pages on the bottom of this pagy are really e?
I don't remember them from before.
They are really annoying, because I keep being bounced to one of those pages when I am trying to read messages in this chat.
@vrykalak I apologize but I'm don't understand your question. We don't have commercials on the Community and members shouldn't be automatically redirected to other pages, especially if they aren't eBay related.
@creativecrisis wrote:
I want to second the suggestions from @my-cottage-books-and-antiques . I noticed yesterday that the newsletter feature has changed. This might be good, but I can't really tell since I can't seem to view the newsletter I created. 🙄 Also, it looks like certain functions have been removed from Manage My Store. Are we losing some features? Without notice, subscriber discounts were suddenly moved under the Marketing tab in Seller Hub. Huh?
Will eBay announce and explain the changes to stores, and if so, when? As a store subscriber, paying for a service, I'd appreciate better communication. Or, hey, any communication ...
@creativecrisis - Thank you for the feedback! I haven't received any updates on communication plans for stores/seller hub changes, but this is something I can pass on to the correct team to review.
@clarkphilatelics wrote:
I have brought this up for several weeks in a row. The question remains: What can eBay do about the UPU prohibiting items of value in First Class Mail International? Prior response suggest that either the question is not understood or that eBay does not care. The result of the UPU rule is that the minimum cost to send a lightweight item to Europe is between ten and eleven dollars. Sending First Class would cost less than three dollars. Who is going to offer lightweight items for less than forty or fifty dollars if shipping is more than ten dollars? Since the prohibition does not appear to apply to all companies, why is eBay not out there lobbying for the rule to be rescinded. There must be a less expensive way to ship now that IOSS numbers to prove that tax was paid can be inserted into the address.
I received a query from Germany today about some slides costing less than ten dollars each. What do I tell the person?
Hi @clarkphilatelics - sorry for continuing to misunderstand your question, I'll work on trying to address it directly this week:
What can eBay do about the UPU prohibiting items of value in First Class Mail International? We advocate for and represent shippers' interests. We regularly work with both governmental and non-governmental organizations so they can better understand the needs of small and medium businesses and hopefully enact better policies. If you're interested in being a part of that conversation I'd encourage you to visit eBay Main Street for more ideas on how you can get involved.
As to what, precisely, eBay is doing with regards to the Universal Postal Union's decision, I don't have that information to provide you. If I get an update I will share it here.
Thanks!
@valueaddedresource wrote:
brittanie@ebay - nice to see you still here in the chat this week! I just wanted to check to see if you ever heard anything back on this issue:
There were many reports of GTC listings disappearing/being delayed in relisting and also many reports of auctions ending with bids going to "unsold" even though they had in fact sold - both of which are very similar to the issues that were seen when there were latency issues at the end of February.
However, unlike when it happened in February, I have not seen any official acknowledgement of it being a "tech issue" or site latency.
Was there a tech ticket opened for this and if so, did the tech team find anything out?
@valueaddedresource As mentioned in that thread, I can't take any further action on the reports and they need to go to customer support. I have not been able to confirm a bug ticket has been opened yet, so I have no updates unfortunately.
As for listings going to unsold items, that is a known issue that is being worked on. I do not have any ETA on a fix for that.
The reason you have not seen an official announcement is we have not been contacted by the tech team with information that it is a confirmed latency issue causing either issue. If we do receive confirmation we'll make sure to put an update in the Community.
@downunder-61 wrote:
Also wondering if the quality of CS agents will be addressed.
So much misinformation and incorrect advice resulting in sellers and buyers being left high and dry because 10 different agents give 10 different answers and usually none of them correct.
Surely someone knows enough about how eBay actually works, to properly train some staff for each country
eBay operates in so issues can be addressed accurately.
Not a big ask, most company's consider this a standard business practice.
@downunder-61 - Across our many different lines of business, teammates do receive up-trainings and coaching on their performance as part of our operations.
If you have a specific instance where you'd like to have the contact reviewed, please start a new thread on the board appropriate to the situation (for example if the situation was about selling, please put it in the selling board), tag Tyler or Brian and provide details on when the contact took place, so we can look into it and make sure coaching is provided.
