Below you will find a recap of our Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team for June 26, 2019. We hope to see you at our next chat!
Search
Can it be explained how Cassini search engine works?
While we cannot go into specific detail about search since our algorithm is proprietary, we do have some information here that may be helpful.
Why do some of our eBay listing show up on Google search?
Google will display items from across the internet if the listing meets their search criteria. Google ultimately would determine what is shown in their search engine so you may want to contact them directly for more information on how search results are selected.
I am following up from the previous two weekly chats on the sponsored (promoted) listings that show up in my search results that have nothing to do with my search parameters. Is there any update or progress being made on this?
We don't have an update on this quite yet, but can confirm that the Promoted Listings team is aware of the issue and it's definitely on their radar to correct.
I frequently see “on their radar” and similar phrases being shared here as a response to concerns that are raised. What exactly does this mean in regards to an estimated time for a fix?
We'd love to provide a timeframe on when this will be fixed (and other issues we report), but the reality is there are a lot of factors at play that can determine and alter those timeframes. A teams current workload, the overall scope of the issue, the time and resources needed to fix the issue, etc. all come into play. All this basically means that specific timeframes simply aren’t usually available. This shouldn't be interpreted to mean that a fix isn't being worked on, just that the time of a fix isn't yet known or isn’t something we feel comfortable sharing here. With that said, anytime we do have a specific ETA, we are happy to share this in our reply.
eBay Account Creation & Suspension
Recently I was searching on eBay using my phone and I was prompted to login with my Google account. This created a new account on eBay; why is that?
When you login in with credentials that do not match an existing eBay account, this will create an account with the email provided.
I received a notice shortly after running my search that my account was suspended. Why was an account created using my Google account info, but then immediately suspended?
This is a known issue our tech teams are working on - you should be prompted to provide additional details such as a registration address, but since this step is being skipped in error, the account lacks any contact information and is being suspended. We will get this resolved as soon as possible!
eBay Money Back Guarantee
Two weeks ago eBay notified me that I won my appeal and a refund was issued to me. I have not seen this refund yet and am wondering if something can be done?
Typically funds from such a decision are available within 2-3 business days. There are situations in which they can be delayed, so we’ll take a closer look to ensure appropriate action is taken if there is an issue with the refund.
On returns for Doesn't Match Description or Doesn't seem Authentic, does the buyer have to provide additional documentation to support their claim?
We do not usually request additional information from a buyer when they are requesting a return. There may be situations where additional documentation may be needed and this will be requested by eBay either automatically when the request is opened or when we are asked to step in. Generally with authenticity concerns it's we simply strive to reset the transaction; we are not experts on what is or is not authentic, so reversing the transaction is the best course of action for all involved. That being said, if there is evidence that the buyer is abusing the returns process we will absolutely take steps to protect our Community.
When a buyer has requested a return claiming damage, shouldn't buyer have to submit photos of damage and photos of packaging?
If you have purchased insurance and would like to pursue a claim with the carrier you can request the buyer provide photos or make the package available for the courier to investigate as you see fit. We would expect a refund be issued to the buyer promptly if you are pursuing reimbursement through shipping insurance. If the claim is denied because the recipient did not comply with the insurance claim then you can work with Customer Service to provide supporting documentation through an appeal.
Why does eBay allow 60 days for the buyer to leave feedback when the buyer can only request a return within 30 days of receiving the item?
We allow members 60 days from the date of payment to leave feedback (whether buyer or seller). A return can be requested for up to 30 days beyond the latest estimated delivery date or the actual delivery date (whichever is applicable). For some transactions that take longer to arrive, we want to allow for the item to arrive and any issues that may arise to be addressed before the window for leaving feedback closes. If you are running into situations where you feel feedback is being used as an extortion tactic beyond the normal return request protection timeframes, we recommend you reach out to Customer Support so they can review the transaction.
Managed Payments
Could I get additional clarification on the Managed Payments policy information that states, "Upon the conclusion of a Dispute investigation and/or re-presentment that results in you being found responsible for the chargeback or other disputed amounts, we charge a $20 payments dispute fee".
- What is defined as a dispute?
- What is "or other disputed amounts..." referring to?
- What procedures, policies and documentation will we need to adhere to and what will need to be presented in order to be found "not at fault/not penalized" in these cases?
These are great questions! While detailed information regarding managed payments questions are outside of the scope of the Community Team, if you have been invited to join or if you are already in managed payments you can call Customer Service and speak to the managed payments team directly.
Can you tell us how many sellers that have joined managed payments are still actively selling on eBay?
We cannot provide you with this type of information.
Are international sellers being required to switch to managed payments?
It's anticipated that payments be rolled out to all members (both domestic and international) by July 2021.
Where is the managed payments team located?
As a global company, we have Customer Service teams all over the world. While we cannot disclose the location(s) of specific teams, we can confirm that regardless of where the managed payments teammate is located they are well trained and thoroughly overseen.
Sales Reports
The daily/weekly/monthly total sales includes taxes collected by ebay, leading to potentially misleading data for a seller’s business. Can you remove this information or give us the option of excluding it from our reports?
Great suggestions! You're right, the downloadable report does give you purchase price, seller/eBay collected taxes, shipping, etc., but no subtotal less taxes. We can't make promises, but we’re happy to suggest it as a potential future enhancement!
Additionally, can you add the shipping total back in to the orders page main view?
We've looked into this one and the Seller Hub team has confirmed that the shipping total was removed as a column. There are not currently plans to add it back, but you can get those details within the individual sales or order record.
Many moons ago, Canadian sellers had to start listing in Canadian dollars. When can we expect Sales Reports Plus to be in Canadian dollars?
There are no current plans that we are aware of to make this change. We will pass along this request to the appropriate teams for consideration.
Listing Code
I feel that the HTML code generated by eBay from the item description contains unnecessary components and interferes with revisions I am trying to make. When I use my own code, eBay adds formatting such as <b>, <p>, <td>, and <tr> that causes unintended changes to my code. How can I prevent this from happening?
Our listing form will make standard adjustments to the information input into the description field and you may need to edit your templates to account for this. Check out this post from our Community for some detailed information on this topic. You may want to reconsider some of the formatting choices you’ve made in your listings as many buyers have come to expect a cleaner, more minimalist look than what may have been used in the past.
Report Buyer/Seller Protection
Can I get clarification on the following quote from the 2019 Spring Seller Update? “We're implementing stronger measures against buyers who don't follow eBay's abusive buyer policy. We're introducing new measures to proactively find abusive buyers, prevent them from filing return requests, and in some cases suspend them. When we find that a buyer violated the policy, we will remove any feedback and defects, including opened cases in service metrics. We've also made it easier for you to report buyers who violate eBay policies. Now when you report a buyer, you can more clearly describe what the buyer is doing to help us investigate potential policy violations and take actions to protect you.” From what I’m gathering, a seller reporting a buyer may have that single transaction deemed by eBay as abusive, but the Service Metric ding and any related feedback won’t be removed unless eBay deems the buyer as abusive. For eBay to determine that the buyer is abusive, it takes a few [unknown quantity, which is understandable] reports founded to be true before eBay takes this action. Am I missing something on how this works?
It looks like your understanding of these protections are correct; a pattern of abuse would need to be established to support the removal of a buyer from our site and/or the application of Service Metric and feedback protections for our sellers.
How does this differ from the protection you offered previously when you identified an abusive buyer?
We’ve made a number of improvements to the options available when reporting a buyer so sellers can more easily let us know when they have concerns. We’ve also introduced additional protections for sellers when they have reason to believe a previously blocked buyer has circumvented their blocked bidder/buyer list and will protect a seller from feedback or defects if they choose to cancel the transaction.
Shipping Options
Was hoping to get an update on the problems I've been communicating for some time now on the shipping options being hidden in the mobile app and the shipping discount problems on the checkout page. Any updates on either one of these?
We've passed your feedback on to the appropriate teams and will be happy to provide an update once it is available.
Is there any plan to allow a seller to Edit the Ship From ZIP Code on the label page?
We've had this question come up a few times and the shipping team let us know that USPS is now requiring a ship from address. To ensure labels printed on eBay comply with this new USPS mandate the new label page requires a full address instead of just a zip code. You can adjust the ship from address on the label page and make adjustments as needed. If you need to use the postal office address in another zip code, you should be able to easily locate this address online for use.
Invoices
Twice this year eBay changed an invoice I sent to a buyer, once before the buyer received it and once after. Both times the buyer was asked to pay more. Why does this happen?
We’ve passed this on when you previously reported this happening and this should now be resolved. Though it's difficult for us to answer questions about why a potential technical issue occurred, we always work to get these situations reported and investigated when they come up.
Selling Manager
How much longer will we have Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro?
By the end of July all business and professional sellers will be moved to Seller Hub and the option to revert back will not be available.
How is it decided who is a "business and professional seller"?
This is based on a variety of factors such as transaction count, sales totals and the information provided by a seller within their account.
Tech Issues
Looking for some help with the many tech issues that haven't been resolved. I don’t want to call in to discuss this at length, so what can I do?
We’re sorry to hear that you've run into some problems while using the site! To ensure you get answers to all of your account specific questions we strongly recommend that you contact our Social Media customer support at either Facebook or Twitter. They'll be able to take a detailed look into your account to find why these issues are occurring and get them reported. You can also give us a call if you don't have a Facebook or Twitter account.
Was glancing through technical issues this morning when I came across this thread: Unable to Pay Appears this technical issue has been happening at least since the end of May and ebay still hasn't fixed the problem. Can you please check into this issue?
Happy to look into this, thanks!
Variation Listings
The custom label is not showing up on sold multi-variation listings on app. The app shows the variation, but not the custom label/sku. It would be very helpful to have the custom label/sku in laptop & app notifications, as well as under sold listings on app. Can you help pass this along?
We've gotten this suggestion to the mobile team in the past and been told that it's not on their roadmap currently. That being said, we'll let these teams know you are looking for this feature so they are aware of the continued interest from our Community.
Shipping Metrics
If a seller leaves something out of a shipment, but ships the missing part out separately with a new label, does eBay go by the first one for the tracking uploaded on time and validated by a carrier metric and the on time delivery metric?
Really good question! If the seller uses eBay labels to print the new label it will overwrite the original information with the newest available. This means in that situation eBay would go by the later date for both tracking upload and on time delivery.
Maximizing Sales From Sitewide Promotions
Mid-July brings with it a big summer retail moment. From Amazon’s Prime Day to Target’s Deals Day to eBay’s Crash Day there will be a lot going on. My question is how will eBay promote the smaller sellers in tandem with the promotion of Deals sellers? When there are deals on televisions, will eBay include prominent links for accessories like HDMI cables, universal remotes, hot air poppers, blu-rays, etc? When there are deals on stand mixers, will eBay include prominent links for accessories like kitchen utensils, cake pans, aprons, etc? When there are deals on large camping gear like tents, will eBay include prominent links for accessories like canteens, hiking boots, lanterns, etc? If the answer to my above questions is a general “no”, then how exactly will - if at all - eBay promote sales for small sellers alongside the mega-Deals sellers? In addition, what can smaller sellers do on their own to piggyback on the high-end deals happening those three weeks? Finally, will eBay publish (in advance) a list of items and/or categories they will be featuring so that we can prepare any relevant inventory we have and run our own promotions?
It’s great to see you working to maximize your success in conjunction with the increased traffic that comes from eBay promotions. While we don't have additional information to provide at the moment, we’re happy to see what we can find out!
Cancellations
Sellers are suffering from cancellations initiated by the buyers, since PayPal does not refund the transaction fee to sellers for cancelled orders. Many buyers are not aware of this; is there something going on from eBay side to notify buyers about the fee being assessed?
There is not any current education provided to buyers about the fees that sellers may incur from PayPal when they request a refund. Depending on the number of cancellations you're encountering, it may be worth considering building that type of loss into your pricing model to see if you can off-set the cancellations you do have with the sales you complete.
Top Rated Seller Grace Period
Is there still a grace period provided to a seller before losing top rated status?
If you are a Top Rated Seller and fall below the sales and tracking requirements for Top Rated Seller status, you may qualify for the Top Rated Seller grace period. During the Top Rated Seller grace period you retain your Top Rated Seller status and benefits, and you have two evaluation cycles to get your transaction count, sales amount, and/or tracking requirements back to minimum program requirements. You're eligible for the grace period if you fall below Top Rated Seller standards due to any of the following:
- You have fewer than 100 transactions with US buyers over the most recent 12-month period
- You have less than $1,000 in sales with US buyers over the most recent 12-month period
- You've uploaded shipment tracking within your promised handling time for less than 95% (but not less than 90%) of transactions with US buyers in the last 3 months
- You're only eligible for the Top Rated Seller grace period when:
- You otherwise have a Top Rated Seller performance rating; and
- You've been a Top Rated Seller for the last 3 (or more) consecutive months immediately preceding evaluation If you don't meet sales and tracking requirements and performance standards after the grace period ends, you will lose your Top Rated Seller status and benefits.
Learn more about becoming a Top Rated Seller here.
Community Login Settings
I am still having trouble with my accounts getting logged into the Community automatically when the box in account settings for this is not checked, and has never been checked.
We’re still looking into this and will update you once we have more information.
mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
