eBay

jasmen@ebay · ‎03-09-2022

Thanks for joining us for the Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. We don't have a specific topic this week, so feel free to share any general buying or selling questions you may have.

The chat thread will remain open until 2 PM PT at which point we'll close it from additional responses. After that time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that might still be unanswered.

To post your question, click Reply in the lower right corner of this post, type your question, and hit submit between 1-2 PM Pacific Time. The format of our chat mirrors the format of our Community Discussion Boards, where each post will appear in the thread chronologically. The Community Team will review each question as it comes in, and will quote the original question in our reply. This quote and the reply will appear later in the thread, so just keep scrolling down to see our answers.

Missed the chat? Send your questions to the podcast by calling 888-723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com and maybe your questions will make it on the air! Or listen to past episodes while you wait for next Wednesday!

Jasmen,
Community Team

clarkphilatelics · ‎03-09-2022

A couple of weeks ago eBay announced that Managed Payments data could be imported into QuickBooks:

"Managing your eBay business just got easier. QuickBooks, the #1-rated accounting solution for small and medium-size businesses (PC Mag, Nov. 2021), is now integrated with eBay payments. "

I could not find a definitive functional description or any indication of how long the offer would be available. Capturing data from Managed Payments continues to be difficult. The Payout detail window does not total gross sales, item fees, monthly fees, postage or holds. Postage fees are posted in the income column. The downloaded comma delimited file remains difficult to process. Why not offer a direct download to an Excel file. How many users have the time or expertise to import csv files into Excel? There is no one column in the Excel file that specifies what each line represents.

Presumably users already using QuickBooks Online could benefit and maybe some sellers may start using QuickBooks even though it is expensive. Some reviewers suggest that the desktop version of QuickBooks is superior, but it does not appear that a Managed Payments connection is available. It took some time to uncover products that allow QuickBooks data to be queried as a database.

Are there less expensive solutions? I checked he SixBit schema and determined that most, if not all, Managed Payments data is captured by SixBit. Other similar third-party applications may also be capturing Managed Payments data. SixBit tracks payments and fees related to sales, orders, and shipments. I am not sure if monthly fees are captured. Nuisance fees like listing fees are captured but may be incomplete if the listing was imported from eBay.

The bottom line for me is that SixBit captures enough data to produce consignor reports. Monthly fees can be captured manually. While it is still necessary to balance the checking account, internal income and fee amounts can be rolled up monthly in SixBit and entered manually, reducing data entry time by a factor of ten or more. What about nuisance fees? Simple. Stop listing items in more than one category. It appears to cost more to account for 10 cent fees than any benefit of listing in a second category.

Is there a less expensive way to process Managed Payments accounting than using QuickBooks? Talk to your third-party application provider or find out how to create the necessary reports yourself. Sellers who know SQL, while admittedly thin on the ground, can create reports from SixBit or other equivalent third-party applications built on a relational database. Some other third-party applications may also support SQL queries or the equivalent for making Managed Payments reports if the data has already been captured from the eBay API.

tsme35 · ‎03-09-2022

I seen a few reports of ebay emails being delay hours after a sale. Same with mine, I sold an item over an hour ago and still haven't received an email, also when we get emails, there's HUGE ad banner across half the page, can't even read the email without scrolling down half the page, very annoying

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎03-09-2022

Jumping on to @valueaddedresource topic : Will the new, improved Voices Board allow us to do more than vote on posts made by a super secret group of selected sellers? Or is it going to be the same format: We can't ask questions for Steve to answer, we can only vote on which questions we want answered?

And has anyone considered that there may be two problems with this? Steve's failure to participate as originally promised , AND the limitations of the design, which doesn't exactly invite participation or discussion?

I know I wasn't alone in having high hopes for Voices, but at this point, I can't help but feel: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Well, OK, AND shame on you (ebay).

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here.

tyler@ebay · ‎03-09-2022

@valueaddedresource wrote:

tyler@ebay wrote:

@valueaddedresource wrote:

I see that Tyler has been actively cleaning up and updating the Voices: Collectibles section and Steve came back with a promise and a plan for moving forward.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Voices-for-Collectibles/Coming-back-to-the-board-My-promise-to-you/idi...

Considering it has been over 8 months, what is the current status of the Voices initiative for the community and are there still plans to expand it to other categories? If so, what kind of timelines are we looking at and which categories might be on the horizon?

Hi @valueaddedresource - there are not currently plans to expand this program past Collectibles for the time being, though that may change in the future!

Thanks tyler@ebay

Sheila had previously said on 8/5/21:

This a new program we are piloting & we are currently running a 90-day test. If the program is successful in its current form, we plan to both onboard new sellers via larger applications to generate more, unique ideas. If you have an interest in joining, you can send an email to community@ebay.com.

Considering it is well past 90 days and the lack of active participation from eBay on this, I'm guessing it wasn't exactly "successful" in its current form.

If there are no plans to expand to other categories, what is the plan for this program and what does eBay plan to do (aside from Steve's promises) to make it more successful?

Hi @valueaddedresource - I'm confident in Steve's resolution to be responsive. Outside of that, I'm not able to comment further on the future outlook of this initiative at this point in time.

Tyler,

postcardcountry · ‎03-09-2022

Tyler, Tyler, Tyler,

Postcards - nontopographical - recommended item specifics include "occasion" and "artist".

Not every card in this category is for an occasion nor does every card have an artist.

Leave it blank and you will:

a) have this showing: in sell hub / listings / item specifics - recommended (575)

b) get regular reminders from eBay you have items needing item specifics.

under option a) there is no way to bulk edit the box "do not show me this again" so you must go thru each and every item individually and check the box.

and...if the item specifics team decides to create a new recommended or move an additional info into the recommended group, when your GTC items renew, you have to check the box again for every one.

Every new listing in this category needs to be touched in seller hub.

You weren't on this board when this started happening...so you may not be aware, leaving something that does not apply blank still creates an issue if you are not going to ignore item specifics.

saturdaystoys · ‎03-09-2022

Here is the screen I get when printing postage. I see no option for shipping via "envelope" rather than by "package" (as shown). Also no option for entering fractions.

Also... this is the envelope I've been using in the postcard category... and it has worked perfectly. I had understood this to be the envelope that should be used... as it's only 1/16" thick, as shown:

Granted, while I have many years of experience on eBay... I'm new re: use of the eBay Standard Envelope.

See anything specific that I have gotten wrong? Thanks much.

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here.

velvet@ebay · ‎03-09-2022

@tsme35 wrote:

I seen a few reports of ebay emails being delay hours after a sale. Same with mine, I sold an item over an hour ago and still haven't received an email, also when we get emails, there's HUGE ad banner across half the page, can't even read the email without scrolling down half the page, very annoying

I'll see what I can find out about the delayed selling emails @tsme35 but in the meantime, it sounds odd that you're getting a huge ad banner across half of the emails you are receiving. Please send a screen shot so we can pass that on for a closer look.

Velvet,

jasmen@ebay · ‎03-09-2022

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

Jumping on to @valueaddedresource topic : Will the new, improved Voices Board allow us to do more than vote on posts made by a super secret group of selected sellers? Or is it going to be the same format: We can't ask questions for Steve to answer, we can only vote on which questions we want answered?

And has anyone considered that there may be two problems with this? Steve's failure to participate as originally promised , AND the limitations of the design, which doesn't exactly invite participation or discussion?

I know I wasn't alone in having high hopes for Voices, but at this point, I can't help but feel: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Well, OK, AND shame on you (ebay).

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques there are no changes to the format but I'm happy to pass along any feedback you have!

Jasmen,
Community Team

clarkphilatelics · ‎03-09-2022

Auctions entered this week will end an hour later than expected because of the transition to Daylight Savings Time. Can eBay fix this?

tsme35 · ‎03-09-2022

Sorry don't know how to send to you but there's been a few complaints

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here.

a_c_green · ‎03-09-2022

velvet@ebay wrote:
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
Questions for the Shipping Team regarding this change coming from the USPS on April 3rd (Please try to provide answers as quickly as possible, as this is now only a few weeks away😞

"NEW: Starting in April 2022, there will be a new “nonstandard fee” for packages that must be sorted manually by the USPS when the dimensions of the package exceed sortation requirements. Rates will be adjusted based on box dimensions. Packages with length over 22 inches will have a $4.00 surcharge, packages with length over 30 inches will have $15.00 surcharge and packages over 2 cubic feet will have a $15.00 surcharge. This will apply to Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail and Parcel Select Ground."

[...]
If ebay cannot negotiate a substantial discount of some sort for the new nonstandard fee, would the Shipping Team consider putting together a Resource Page with information on how best to ship items that trigger these criteria?
Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques! I'll be sure to pass this on to the shipping team as well. I'll follow-up with anything they provide me.

While we're on this topic of packages over a certain dimension triggering penalty fees if they are not described accurately at label purchase time, this might be a good time to remind the Shipping team that they are still showing the package dimensions in reverse order on the Shipping form.

For example, a package described as 24"x12"x8" by the seller (Length x Width x Height order) when first listing the item will come up as 8"x12"x24" on the Shipping form when purchasing a label. The error is occurring internally, forcing the seller to make manual corrections before buying the label.

While the dimensions are not labeled on the form, inspecting the code shows that the first field is named in code as the Length, but it is now showing the original package Height value. The last field is named in code as the Height, but it is now showing the package Length value.

If new code is going to look at the Length variable to decide whether special charges may apply, it needs to be looking at the largest value regardless of which dimension variable is holding it. I have no confidence that this will be done properly, for the simple reason that we have been reporting this backwards-ordering problem for approximately three years now, and nothing has been done.

It is time to escalate this problem report from Critical to Kick-in-the-Pants. If package dimensions are going to be even more important than before, then this bug needs to be fixed promptly.

tsme35 · ‎03-09-2022

Also what has ebay said about USPS only scanning 5 random packages when they pick up, that could seriously hit my service metrics

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎03-09-2022

jasmen@ebay Thanks. Nah, no feedback. I'll just keep an eye on it to see if it's worth spending any time with it or not. It hasn't exactly instilled confidence.

saturdaystoys · ‎03-09-2022

Yes... I'm receiving late emails today... and getting a large format message as well. Started several days ago. Let email began today.

jasmen@ebay · ‎03-09-2022

Thanks for joining the weekly chat this week - it is now closed from further replies but we will continue to work through to ensure that questions receive a response.

Jasmen,
Community Team