Community Chat, March 27 @ 1:00 pm PT - General Topics

[alan@ebay]

Happy Wednesday! 

Join the Community Team here today at 1 PM PT for our Weekly Community Chat. Bring any general buying and selling questions you might have to discuss 

Thanks & see you then. 

[tyler@ebay]

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@divwido wrote:

I have a complaint about your wording.  You have pre-designated Parcel Select and Priority Mail as a shipping option.  I cannot change that and any attempts to bypass it have gone badly.

Today I went to ship something and choose Priority mail was was told in a small note that Parcel Select is what the buyer choose.

But that's not true, so why say it?  Why tell me the buyer wants their item shipped slowly and without insurance when it's not correct?

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Hi @divwido - can you get me a bit more info about what you're referring to? Is this in the Seller Hub? The Label printing page? When you're listing your item?

Happy to have a look if you'll get me more context!

[mam98031]

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brian@ebay wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

I’d like to share some ideas on potentially making GTC listings Better and/or more Palatable for those that are skeptical about using this format as well as those of us that have used them for years.

GTC listings don’t currently state the time left on the listing before it ends its current duration [one month].

The 30 day FP listings had this date showing in a listing when a buyer would view the listing.

IMHO it would help many with this transition if Ebay were to insert this into all GTC listings.

When a GTC renews, it currently will not appear as a newly listing item.  This one has pros and cons to it.  There is good argument for keeping it this way as buyers will be able to see what is truly a new listing.  But there is also good argument that it may bury listings as well as sellers lose the ability to have repeating GTC listings be seen if searched by Newest listed.

Granted we would all be in the same boat as we are all running GTC listings but are there any tips or options to utilize the GTC in a more effective way?

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Thanks for the suggestions, @mam98031!

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I appreciate the reply and that you will hopefully pass this information on to the appropriate team.  But I had a questions too.  Do you have anything to share that may assist sellers that may be new to GTCs.

[papermoneyforme]

Is it possible for a Canadian registered in Canada to open their store on .com, and vice versa, can an American registered in the US open a store on .ca

[carlqsportscards]

The item specifics for sports cards changed a little while back.

The specifics for autographs are now under "modified item". This makes sense for cards that people get autographed in person.

But it makes no sense for cards that come autographed out of the pack. These aren't modified items, but I can only enter the specifics about the autograph (hard signed, sticker, etc.) after clicking "yes" on "modified item".

[7cardboardjungle7]

Tyler@ebay thank you for your response.  I was looking more for overall numbers which would drive the decision, such as "X percentage drop in number of listings" or "Y percentage drop in sales" or "Z percentage of sellers with negative feedback to eBay regarding forced GTC duration".

[vrykalak]

"Pre-owned" should be allowed as a condition code in ALL categories, 

but especially in Collectibles, most of which are neither NEW nor USED.

I list lots of collectibles, and have to designated them as USED, because they are not "brand new, unused, unopened, undamaged"..."unopened" being the damaging word here.

Clothing can be "pre-owned" but not Collectibles. It makes no sense to me.

[wooden_flower]

Everyone has ideas of what might help GTC.  My idea - show me days since last sale.  This is what I look at to determine if the item needs my attention.

Since there's lots of variations you could do on math with the dates, maybe they could make a bunch of them options for the active item display page in seller hub.

thanks!

Sue

[Anonymous]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
Pleased to report my Seller Hub Active Listings section now sports the "offer to Buyers" feature. I tried it our over the last couple days sending offers on 11 items and selling (so far) one. That might not sound like a high rate of sales, but I'm happy: I sell mostly long tail items and feel pretty sure most of my watchers are people who've been researching items , they aren't people who are actually thinking of buying, So if I end up averaging 10% or so, I'll be happy---it takes very little time to send the offers and there's no cost, so that's a good ROI as far as I'm concerned. It's nice to have another tool I can use to try to increase my sales velocity.

A few questions:
1. I presume if a buyer declines or simply lets the offer run out, we are not notified. We are only notified if the item sells, correct?

2. My offer is good for 48 hours, yes?

3. I gather this has been in beta for a while, so presumably ebay has some data about it by now. Any Best Practices? The Better Half has suggested I restrict sending offers to weekends (when people might have more time to deal with them) and/or the 15th and 30th of each month, when many people get their paychecks.

4. ebay has a formula for determining eligibility of listings and of buyers. Some sellers may feel strongly that certain items (not eligible under the formula) would sell if they were made eligible. Going forward, is ebay willing to consider giving sellers an option to request that a particular item be made eligible? Maybe with some limits ("x" number of requests per month, or whatever)

5. GTC items: If my offer is good for 48 hours, and I send an offer with , say, 13 hours left before the listing auto renews, what time frame for the buyer's response is shown to the buyer? 13 hours? Or 48 hours?

6. Do buyers have the ability to counter offer from my offer? (Many of my items have "Make An Offer" on the listing, so in those cases I assume a buyer could simply make an offer from that....but I'm asking whether the ability is right there in the offer I've sent)

7. If I send offers on an item, and it doesn't sell, how long before it can be eligible again?

8. I have the feature in Seller Hub on my PC. So far, I do not have it in the Android app, although I've heard other sellers say they do have it on the app, but not in Seller Hub. Is it being rolled out to the app on a different schedule? Should I be expecting to get it soon? Do I need to do anything (update the app?) to get it?

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques, so happy to hear that you are enjoying this feature! 

1. If the buyer declines the offer or lets it time out, you would not be notified. Your watchers remain anonymous unless they accept the offer or submit a counteroffer.
2. The offer is good for the standard 48 hours, correct.
3. The same best practices that would apply for standard offers would apply for this feature - offers that are valuable are key, and weekends may result in more engagement with your potential customers as they might have more time to check out what you have sent over.
4. We are always looking to expand and evolve the features that we offer. Do you have any examples of something that is not eligible that you would like to have considered?
5. This is a great question! Since GTC simply relists the item at the end of the 30 day timeframe, the offer would expire when the listing ends. GTC listings still end at a specified time, so an offer sent within the last 48 hours of the listing duration would have an end time of less than 48 hours.
6. Buyers will have the option to accept, decline, or counteroffer.
7. I'm not sure of the answer on this one, so will update you once I have more information
8. Will also check into when this will be available on the app!

[tyler@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
Speaking of Social Media, eBay used to have something called "collections", where we could put items together by theme, with a short intro and so forth. Hopefully the Blues who are here have been around long enough to remember what I'm talking about. eBay killed them off, I'm not sure why, but I would guess in part because of low adoption. One issue I had with them was that back then I was running 30 day listings, and once the listing ended, it screwed things up. But with GTC listings becoming the norm, and with an emphasis on Social Media and Sales Velocity, perhaps its time to revisits Collections. I would love to have the ability to create an entire Collection around a theme and then post the Collection (rather than just one item) it to Social Media to drive traffic to my listings. Collections would make more sense with GTC listings, because of the durability of the listing. What do you think? Any chance eBay would consider this?

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques - I loved collections! They were a fun way for me to group my 'someday' home improvement projects and sellers who's items I wanted to keep an eye on. 

There isn't currently a plan I'm aware of to bring them back, but I could see that being a useful tool again in the future!

[mg152]

First as far as sales go, I’ve had a great couple of weeks. Not a ton of money but a lot of sales for me so thank you Ebay.

My question is, why not let those of us that want managed payments in?

I’m very small potatoes but I want in. If you all knew how PP did me recently as a very long term member, credit card holder, buyer you’d understand. I won’t get into the details but they cost me $119 and my word as a longtime member meant nothing. The loss has 0 to do with selling.

[brian@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
A perennial favorite of mine: any chance we'll see coded coupons this year some time? Again, a perfect tool for increasing sales velocity.

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques, we don't have any further updates right now for this feature. 

[alan@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
ebay has indicated that one of this year's themes will be "sales velocity". I know quite a few sellers use social media to drive traffic (or to try, anyway) to their ebay listings. Would eBay consider a fee related incentive for this sort of thing? An fvf discount for sales made via Social Media, or some thing like that? Sometimes it takes a carrot to get more people on board with ideas like social media.

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques,

We trialed this towards the end of last year. If my memory serves me well, it was no final value fees for the sold item via the link you shared on Social Media. I haven't heard if we're planning on doing this again. I will share this internally here at eBay and let the right folks know that there is interest in it. 

Many thanks. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks Trinton. As to #4, no specifics at the present time. I was thinking more generally. I think it a feature some sellers would probably like to see.

[rosevelyn]

Traditionally my Active Listings view is set to Most Watchers except when I am getting to the end of the month when store subscription included listings are running low and I have to used prioritized progress to decide which listings will be relisted/modified. I find that on a metaphysical level, it is most pleasing to have it set to Most Watchers because it is encouraging to see that my listings are attracting potential buyers. The fixed GTC setting will now take priority over Most Watchers, thereby shifting my focus away from allowing and instead slaving.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Hi Brian, Sorry to hear that. I do think this is something many sellers would use.