Community Chat, March 20 @ 1:00 pm PT - General Topics

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone! We hope to see you today at 1 PM PT for the Weekly Chat with the Community Team. Bring any general buying and selling questions you might have to discuss 

[mg152]

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
GTC: We know that GTC listings are treated like 30 Day FP listings for purposes of the "Ending Soonest" search order, that is, as they near the end of their 30 day cycle, they rise in Ending Soonest. Does eBay also treat GTC listings like 30 Day FP listings for watchers? To be clear: I believe with 30 Day FP, a watcher receives a reminder that the listing is about to end as the end date approaches. As a GTC listing nears the end of its 30 day cycle, does a watcher receive a similar notice? (I think there is some confusion about this, with some sellers believing that a GTC listing is a "permanent" listing with no end date. Wouldn't it be more accurate to describe it as a 30 Day FP listing that ends at the end of Day 30, and then renews automatically? (I do realize that time frame may change, depending on ebay's solution to the billing sync issue plays out, but that's a couple months in the future)

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques - You're correct in your breakdown of GTC: from a buyer perspective it is presented as a 30 day listing. This means that if a buyer is watching the item they will get the notification that it is ending soon. My personal watchlist has a number of GTC listings that are on my 'someday' list and I get a notice of them ending every month. I really should just buy the first aid kit, with spring on the way. 🙂

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Tyler

Get the first aid kit. I bought 1 a few years ago, misplaced it so I bought another one. I’ve used the second one I bought more in the last 2 months than I ever thought I would. I keep cutting myself, burning myself etc... must be old age. 😀😀

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks trinton. I will hang tight, just as you suggest.

[wooden_flower]

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@wooden_flower wrote:

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@wooden_flower wrote:

Hi,

Buyers can not make repeat purchases in a 30 day period using the cart - only buy it now is available. This means they can not make multiple purchases without paying duplicate shipping - full shipping on each item.

I was wondering if, with the shift to all GTC listings, if this might be on the list to be changed, since this will now impact even more items?

thanks,

Sue

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Hi @wooden_flower - I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean when you say a buyer can't make a repeat purchase from you via the cart. Are you referring to buyer requirements?

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Tyler,

No - if a buyer purchases an item, he can not put that same item in his cart again until more than 30 days have passed.  If he clicks on that item, he can see his past purchase, or he can buy it now, but the add to cart button does not appear.

This has been this way for quite a while. A year, at least?

Sue

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A slight correction - what the buyer sees is "buy another" - not the usual buy it now button.  Here's the note from my last buyer than ran into it -

"Hello Sue! I would like to buy these before they're gone, I also want to add more 29ss rose patina however it is showing me the same thing - buy another which will end up in 2 shipping fees..."

Sue

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Yes, tyler its time to "spring" for the first aid kit. Glad to hear GTC listings get the same treatment as FP 30 days when it comes to watchers.

[brian@ebay]

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@coinslabz26 wrote:

It was explained to me that the service metrics compared us to peers selling similar items at similar prices in similar categories. In my category however, that does not appear to be the case. Big ticket item sellers are being compared to high volume low priced item sellers leaving us at a serious disadvantage, almost ensuring at some point many of us will be paying penalty rates simply for selling high quality and high priced items.  

This is easily confirmed by the fact that the service metrics show INR claims significantly higher then SNAD return rate. That is not something you would expect to find on big ticket item sales comparisons, but rather where low value items are too cheap to be worth returning and too cheap to be worth buying tracking! How ebay can call feedback manipulating $3 item sellers shipping with a postage stamp my peer simply makes no sense! There is no way sellers with an average of selling price over all of $266 at high volume would have more INR's then SNAD returns. Can someone please look into this and see if it is a glitch or error?

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Hi @coinslabz26, you are correct that the peer benchmarks for the Item not as described metric is created by comparing a seller with sellers on the same listing site, selling items in the same category with a similar price point, return policy, and delivery estimate. I did check your Service Metrics and found that the average Item Not Received benchmark is lower than the average Not As Described benchmark. I want to assure you that the Service Metrics is pulling in the correct data to create these benchmarks.

[alan@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
I asked about this last week, hoping for an update.. Any update on the feature promised by Mohan Patt at last year's eBay Open, the ability for a seller's employees to enjoy limited access to the seller's account?

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques, 

We're working hard on multi-user account access and we'll have more info to share in the coming months regarding the rollout.

Thanks! 

[mg152]

I just wanna say I spent over an hour relisting items today but thankfully my FP items now have GTC so I won’t have to do that again for a while if ever. I’m on the pro GTC team. I’ve used it a lot in the past and I love it!

[alan@ebay]

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@cookiecookie55 wrote:

Is there any update on when the ebay homepage will be fixed? 

It is almost 2 weeks now since this problem started.  If you use internet explorer this page will create an error and you will not be able to sign in to ebay.  Customers...buyers and sellers are getting a bad ebay experience. 

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Hi @cookiecookie55,

Thanks for your question. We've raised this with our technical support team who are currently investigating. When I have an update, I will reply to the main thread over on the Technical Issues board. 

[tyler@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
GTC: A number of sellers have stated their intention of ending GTC listings early and relisting because of a perceived benefit in search. Some have talked about ending a GTC on, say, the 29th, which would still give the listing some bump in Ending Soonest I suppose, but others have talked about ending it on Day 7 or 10, etc. Wouldn't this deprive the listing of the ending soonest bump I mentioned above?
Also, can you explain what sort of bump a seller would see if he ended the GTC early and relisted it? I am aware that Newly Listed search order only "bumps" GTC listings when they actually are new to the site (when first listed) and not when they auto renew (when they are actually no longer new to the site. Ending early and relisting would presumably mean the relist (with a new ID number) would be treated as a new listing and get a bump in Newly Listed. Is that correct? Can you explain what sort of bump it would get in Best Match?

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques - you're right that ending a listing 7 or 10 days in wouldn't mean getting a boost from 'ending soonest'***, and wouldn't be something I'd suggest to anyone trying to increase traffic and visibility from internal or external search engines. 

***Relisting an item would result in a new 'Newly Listed' bump in Best Match. I wish I had more info to give you about the specific boosts Best Match employs, but because it's a proprietary algorithm I don't have any quantifiable amounts that a particular action (or nonaction) impacts an item's visibility. Thanks!

*** 

I want to clarify a few things as it pertains to the Best Match algorithm, and correct incomplete or incorrect information we may have given previously:

• There is no ‘boost’ applied to an item for being either newly listed, or ending shortly.
• There is no such thing as a ‘boost’ to search placement. More information about optimizing for Best Match can be found here.  

Good ‘Til Cancelled listings renew every 30 days, keeping their watcher count, sales history and item number. If a buyer is watching your item they will be alerted when a GTC listing is approaching its renewal date.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks alan, Glad to hear multi user account access has not been forgotten. I can assure you there are many sellers who have not forgotten it...

[coffeebean832]

I like the new black logo shipping boxes better than the blue circles- but I still like the old white logo boxes much more than the black. I also think the old white logo goes better with the classic tape than the black logo does.

Are there any plans to bring back 8" cubes this year?

[vrykalak]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
GTC listings will also appear as newly listed when they are initially listing. However when they renew, this does not apply.
It would be nice if GTC could be considered as newly listed in the searches when they renew.

mam, Just want to say as a buyer, I prefer Newly Listed to actually be new to the site, not new every 30 days (much less every 7 or 10 days). And I know many other buyers have voiced the same desire.

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That's a good point. 

When eBay has a "sale" and offers me 100 free listings, I usually just pull most of those from my Unsold file.

But I bet my followers would like to know when there is actually a new listing.

Could truly new listings have some kind of flag, in search results and on the listing itself, to say this is truly a new listing, not just a relist from the Unsold file?

[tyler@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
GTC: A number of sellers have asked ebay to provide a tool to automate ending GTC listings early. I believe at least one third party listing tool already provides this feature. Does eBay have any plans to provide such a tool directly?

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques - there's no plans at this time to release an eBay tool to auto-end GTC listings. Thanks!

[mg152]

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
I see on the Announcement Board that ebay is running a make offer test (BTW, thanks for actually announcing it, rather than letting us guess about what is going on). The new test allows select buyers to choose the durations of their offers: rather than the default 48 hours, they can choose for their offer to be good for 12, 24, or 48 hours. I can see the value in this, and will be interested in seeing how it works out. My question is: If I receive a 12 hour offer from a buyer, do I have a choice of duration for my counter offer? Or will my counter offer be the standard 48 hours? (I'm guessing the standard 48 hours, but that's just my guess.)

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques - this is a good question we've been looking for an answer on today - we're still waiting to get more detail but I'll update you as I hear back on this one!

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They did that test! Twice I think and it bombed. 48 hours is just right for offers in MHO.

[tree*fern]

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@coffeebean832 wrote:

During the last week there has been something wrong with e-mail notifications. I’m only getting an e-mail alert from eBay for about one out of every six items that sells. My settings have the correct communication preferences set up and they haven’t been changed. E-mails are not going to my spam folder- there just aren’t any e-mails coming in for the majority of sales.

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I've been seeing the same thing. Thank goodness for PayPal emails.

Eliminated all the possibilities on my side and with eBay account settings. This may or may not be coincidental, but the only change to communications that I'd made before the problem started was I'd unsubscribed some of my saved searches. Added a saved search back, and sales emails are back.

BTW, this started happening before the early spring update email was sent out, so I never received that. I first learned about the early spring update because I'm subscribed to Announcements.