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. 

[Anonymous]

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@vrykalak wrote:

On the old Active Listings page, I could sort by Newly Listed...to check if an item I thought I listed had actually posted.
On the new Active Listings page, I can only ask for Ending Latest...which often isn't the same thing. Is that deliberate?

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Hi @vrykalak, Ending Latest would be the same as Newly Listed for your fixed price items. If you have auctions with different durations, you may see a different order than a Newly Listed sort option. You don't need to check if your listings posted - if you submit the listing, it will appear on the site within 24 hours. You are of course welcome to double check if you have concerns, I just wanted to clarify that this is not necessary and may actually lead to duplicate listing issues if you attempt to list the item again prematurely.

[mg152]

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@vrykalak wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@vrykalak wrote:

"There are eyes on your item! Go for the sale." No way!
Sometimes the person buys it, at the very last second.

Sometimes they make an offer within a few hours of the end.

If they don't, I RAISE the price when I relist it.
I can't think of any scenario where it would benefit me to lower my price just because someone is watching.

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Hi @vrykalak, the choice to lower the price is yours to make. If you find that an item has watchers, but hasn't sold for some time, your buyer's may be holding back because of the price. Lowering the price by 5% or more results in a message being sent to your buyers to prompt a purchase. If you raise the price and get a sale afterwards, that is great! If you raise the price and continue to not sell the item, you may want to consider adjustments that entice your customers to buy.

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In my 15 years selling on eBay, I seem to see that watchers who come back to a relisted item, and find the price raised instead of lowered, are more likely to buy ... often after making an offer at or below the previous price.

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That happens a lot. You raise the price then the watcher says “ hey, I saw you raised the price on the widget I want. Would you take an offer for the original price?”. I always say Yes, I will. Lol!

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks Alan, I think you might find more acceptance now, especially with GTC kicking in. Referrals could last longer....

[brian@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
I went to print an ebay shipping label today, and lo and behold, my "classic" view (which I was using until today) is finally gone and I had no choice but to use the new label. I managed just fine. But I'm wondering: has ebay set a definite time frame for ending Classic view for everyone? Has it been announced? I think sellers who still like the old label will want to know.

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques, while a definite timeframe hasn't been announced, all sellers can expect to be migrated over to the new label flow eventually.

[alan@ebay]

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@krys888 wrote:

Why do you require we click an age group in order to complete a survey? Why is there no prefer not to answer option? I understand you’re wanting marketing data, but to require it in order to send you my entire survey results gives the impression that you were only interested in my age demographic, not the concerns I spent time explaining in the survey. I felt I had a choice to either answer honestly, which I feel is none of your business unless I choose to tell you, OR lie and just randomly pick something, which would completely blow your age data relative to my other answers in the survey. I wanted you to know my concerns, but I shouldn’t be REQUIRED to give my age. Thank you kindly.

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Hi @krys888,

Thanks for sharing your concerns. Please let me know what the survey was in relation to and I will track down the folks that sent the survey, and I'll relay your feedback. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks Tyler. I really hope ebay considers it...as I say, I think the GTC durability improves the value of Collections, and increasing use of Social Media as well.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

OK, thanks Brian.

[mg152]

I happened onto a disturbing post in the community today.

The seller sold a car for right around $10,000. The buyer paid by PP, had the car shipped, got it and was happy. No problem right? Well, the buyer filed a unauthorized charge claim with PP, got the money back then had the car and the money. Ebay said “we are out of this”. The buyer eventually repaid the seller after threats of the FBI but how can Ebay be out when the sale took place on the site? How can this happen?

[mg152]

Y’all have a great week! Let’s all remember Susan -Hidy hoo and say a prayer for her family. 💔💔💔
See you all next week.

[tyler@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
In last week's Weekly Chat, Brian told us:

"Hi @fern*wood, the 1 year mark is the timeframe to be aware of. Listings that have gone unsold for longer than 1 year may be removed ended and moved to the Unsold section. "

That seems to imply that a one off, long tail item listed as GTC basically has 12 months to find a buyer. Will ebay end it at the end of 12 months? You say listings "may" be ended...that seems to suggest wiggle room on eBay's part, but raises the question: under what circumstances would it be "may be" rather than "will be"?

Also, will ebay be providing any sort of warning? Say, at the 11 month mark, something like that?

As for multi quantity listings, would it be correct to say that ebay starts the 12 month countdown only at the point when the listing is showing zero sales? In other words, for a listing with 1000 items, selling 1 a day, it would be well over 12 months before the seller would need to worry about ebay ending the listing....

At one point, I believe ebay sellers were seeing warnings in Seller Hub about listings that were 16 months or older.....will that sort of thing be ended now? Or will we continue to get reminders?

Also: If I list a one off, long tail item but revise it every few months....tweaking the title here, adding item specifics there, maybe changing the gallery photo.....do those revisions have any effect on the countdown?

And finally: If ebay ends my listing after 12 months and puts it in the Unsold folder, will I be able to relist it, just like any other item from my Unsolds?

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques  - a lot to unpack in this question, so I'll take it blow by blow:

We'd consider a listing stale after 12 months, but that doesn't always mean it would be ended (though it could be if it were getting minimal or no traffic). I don't have specifics on what would determine an 'always will be ended' vs 'allowed to stay up longer'. 

I don't have information on if there will be any notation similar to what you're used to seeing (This listing hasn't had any sales in X months, consider revising it), but I'll see if I can find out!

I don't have specifics on exactly when an item would begin to be considered stale when it comes to multi-quantity, I'll see if I can find out. 

Revising a listing could prevent it from being considered stale - it depends on a number of factors but comes down to 'do the changes help it get more visibility?' if it increases in views, watchers, etc it should be fine. 

An item in your unsold folder can be relisted at your convenience (within 90 days). The reason it got sent to the folder doesn't have a bearing on your ability to relist it. 

Thanks!

[a_c_green]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@krazzykats wrote:

Is there anyway to keep the original shipping screens? The new ones are cumbersome and confusing.

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Hi @krazzykats, while we won't be reverting to the previous versions, we are happy to pass along any feedback you may have. Can you elaborate on what you like, don't like, and would like to see added/changed?

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While I have previously listed many problems in gory detail (here), I think I could give a quick summary of the most frequently seen complaints in the Selling or Shipping and Returns groups:

• Waste of space: The new form has items spread all over, requiring much scrolling around or paging up and down to cover everything. The old form is concise, compresses more options into pulldown menus, and takes just a little over one screen (depending on monitor resolution) to cover everything.
• Oddball, irrelevant Shipping options: the seller is presented with a litany of shipping options that may be unsuitable for the item and (in the case of non-Free Shipping items) not what the buyer paid for anyway. If the buyer pays for Priority Mail but the seller gets lured into cheaping out with Parcel Select instead, for example, things will not end well.
• Fumbling the addition of Ship-From-ZIP functionality: The Ship From ZIP field on the label is used to indicate the shipment origin from which the postage was calculated, when doing a Calculated shipment from somewhere other than the Return Address. The first effort at the new Shipping form left it out entirely. Later, it was introduced as a kind of alternate Return Address instead, demanding a full mailing address for the Ship From ZIP location, when in fact all that was needed was the origin ZIP itself. 
• State Abbreviation capitalization bug: If a buyer provides a Ship-To: address with an improperly capitalized state abbreviation (e.g. "Ne" instead of "NE" for Nebraska), the new form has a complete conniption fit, putting the seller into an editing form to try to correct the problem, without clearly explaining what the problem is. The old form simply folds the abbreviation to capital letters first before testing its validity, something that the new form could do equally well, and doesn't complain at all. (The USPS will correct the abbreviation anyway during printing.)

Those are the biggest issues that come to my mind for now. I would summarize by saying that your new programmers should be using the old Shipping form as a guide. It was concise, compact and correct, three points that the new form cannot claim yet. Even if, as someone at eBay said last year, they cannot figure out how to modify the coding of the old one, they should still be using it as a guide to Best Practices. It's intended to be a useful utility, or a toolbox for shipping, so the goal is to able to get through it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Good luck.

[divwido]

No, it means they just wanted to see if you can get your price. Remember, watchers and buyers are not the same thing.

[datea_90]

Hello Alan,

I'm new to ebay, relatively speaking, and I am not a seller but I hope that isn't held against me. I shop ebay, or try to, because I walked away from Amazon years ago. I won't bore you with the details but suffice it to say, my money wasn't green enough for them.

I posted this topic last week and was invited to participate here with my concerns. Here is a link to my post:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Bidding-Buying/Vendor-Places-Order-with-Amazon-Without-Notice-or-Permi...

TL;dr nutshell: Concern #1: how can I get a vendor to reply to my queries with responsive answers in a timely fashion, because so far, I can't find a vendor who will. I have been trying for three weeks to buy a region free NTSC/PAL DVD player with HDMI. Concern #2: I do not want my name and address given to anyone else, especially not Amazon. I'd like to know up front, before I order, if the vendor uses the FBA warehouse.

I'd appreciate any workarounds, tips, tricks of the trade, whatever, that can help me shop ebay toward satisfying results.

Thanks and regards. "datea_90"

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks Tyler, Will be looking forward to the additional info.

[vrykalak]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@vrykalak wrote:

On the old Active Listings page, I could sort by Newly Listed...to check if an item I thought I listed had actually posted.
On the new Active Listings page, I can only ask for Ending Latest...which often isn't the same thing. Is that deliberate?

---

Hi @vrykalak, Ending Latest would be the same as Newly Listed for your fixed price items. If you have auctions with different durations, you may see a different order than a Newly Listed sort option. You don't need to check if your listings posted - if you submit the listing, it will appear on the site within 24 hours. You are of course welcome to double check if you have concerns, I just wanted to clarify that this is not necessary and may actually lead to duplicate listing issues if you attempt to list the item again prematurely.

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My problem is that eBay saves one, two, or even three versions of a listing as Drafts, so I have to check daily to see if the items really were posted.
Usually, they were, so I can delete the drafts.
If I don't see the item in my active listings, I try to complete the draft, and it always posts...and yes, it frequently is a duplicate, which eBay used to catch and doesn't anymore.

What I would like to see is:
- no more than one draft is saved of any one listing, and
- once the item is (released and about to be) posted, the drafts go away