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]

Hi everyone, the chat is now open for discussion 

[krazzykats]

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

[7cardboardjungle7]

Hello, seller question from a 20-year eBay user. 

What will it take to return the time length for fixed price listings from forced GTC to choice of the seller?

[mam98031]

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?

[vrykalak]

"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.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

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?

[Anonymous]

---

@krazzykats wrote:

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

---

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?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

GTC: Any update on the addition of a day count column to Active Listings in Seller Hub? As I recall, we are supposed to have it by the end of this month? Still on track for that deadline?

[wooden_flower]

Hi,

One question that comes up on the M2M board is why aren'y variations allowed in all categories? 

Is there any plan to allow them in more categories?

thanks!

Sue

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

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.

[divwido]

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?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

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?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

A perennial favorite of mine: any chance we'll see coded coupons this year some time? Again, a perfect tool for increasing sales velocity.

[vrykalak]

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?