Hi everyone! 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!
@bimmerpc1 wrote:
Following up on this answer from last week, brian@ebay said:
"Typically a seller is responsible for a return if they provide the return label, even if it's lost in transit"
The question was: What happens when EBAY provides the label? (NOT when the seller provides the return label). This was a label that we purchased from ebay through the returns console to provide to the buyer for a return. The parcel was then lost. Why is eBay asking us to refund when the parcel was lost, and eBay provided the label?
@bimmerpc1 happy to clarify! In general, whoever physically pays for the return label is responsible for making sure the item arrives at its destination. If the seller is responsible for the return then they are expected to issue a refund, even if it's lost in transit. Being responsible for the return shipment includes: Responsibility for paying the costs of return shipping and accountability for any issues, like the returned item becoming lost in transit.
@windhaze wrote:
Another issue I keep forgetting to bring up is my post count? It appears that only the posts I do here are registering on my Profile but as you can see I have done far more than that.
There is also an issue of the 'helpfuls' not sticking? I've gone back over posts and have seen posts I know I gave one to but doesn't show it and I have to redo them. That's been going on for awhile now too.
Here's the link to my Profile so you can see what I mean about my post count.
Thanks!
https://community.ebay.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/359904
@windhaze I'll look into that. Thanks!
@a_c_green wrote:
tyler@ebay wrote:
Hi @a_c_green - there has been no update when it comes to the first issue (dimensions in shipping forms).
When it comes to the Blocked Bidder List displaying in an unusable manner, that is a known issue currently being reviewed/resolved. I will add your account to the open ticket if that has not already been done.
Thanks!
Hi tyler@ebay, thanks for your reply.
I think there's two general areas that are involved here:
- New coding is getting released without any serious attempt at QA testing. What's missing is someone with the authority to test the new revisions, and block the release if problems are seen. In cases such as the two raised here, it really requires little more than a glance at the screen to see that something has gone badly wrong. It boggles the mind that a company the size of eBay is putting such rubbish up on the site and, even worse, leaving it there.
- God knows you folks on the Community side, here in the Weekly Chat, are doing a Herculean job. What's frustrating to see is that you do not seem to be getting acknowledged by the other areas of eBay for any of the reports you turn in, and never get any useful updates that can be passed on to us. Are your communications on these problems limited to email, or can you get onto Zoom or Webex and actually confront people in the relevant departments about their lack of action on these issues? I say this not simply as an eBay user but as a long-time, front-line Support person for many years.
I have been in your seat (at another company that you have heard of), and we had full authority to not only file reports but also track their progress through the company, follow up on them, block releases that failed QA testing, and inform customers of the status of their cases: whether a diagnosis had been found, when a new release would be coming out for it, etc. Here on eBay, I don't get the sense that you're benefiting from any clearly-defined roles or release procedures in the background that should be supporting all the hard work that you are doing up front.
I have popped off enough for one week, so hopefully next week will bring us something better. 😊
Hi @a_c_green - your seat in the other company sounds really nice! While we are more limited in the support we can offer, we do file reports, request updates and escalate things as best we can.
@mcdougle4248 wrote:
Most of my listings are variation listings. I am wondering why, when I have a promotion going on, clicking on see all eligible items opens to a page showing only one photo of one of the items within the variation instead of showing the composite photo from the variation listing?
Hi @mcdougle4248 - this is a question I've had myself for years! The long and short of it is that search is designed to show a specific variation on multivariation items. The exact decision matrix that 'decides' what variation to display is what I can't get more detail on. Mind if I use your comment in another suggestion for the team?
@inceptions wrote:
tyler@ebay wrote:
@a_c_green wrote:
Hello all!
Per our conversation from last Wednesday (here) and last Monday (here), have you been able to glean any updates from the relevant Engineering people regarding progress on the two problems reported in the past couple of months? I have an update for you on one of them (below), and it's not good.
- Shipping form is loading with package dimensions backwards, in the wrong fields: Length gets the Height value and Height gets the Length value. This will result in wrong coding decisions using those values.
- Blocked Bidder List (here): ID listing is now sorted incomprehensibly by account creation date (using the member's internal ID number), and fails to include a space following each comma between values, forcing the display to break lines on secondary characters only, such as hyphens in the middle of a user ID, and producing a display that's largely gibberish.
I'm afraid I have further bad news on that second item above: the same illiterate coding revision has now been applied to the Buyer Requirements Exemption List (here) as well. It had been displaying correctly as recently as a day or two earlier this week, long after the problems with the similar Blocked Bidder List page had been reported.
This is getting worse, not better. Someone unqualified on the Engineering side is releasing untested code into the Production (public-facing) area of the eBay site, code that would not pass even the most rudimentary QA testing and peer review, and they need to be stopped before further problems are introduced.
Hi @a_c_green - there has been no update when it comes to the first issue (dimensions in shipping forms).
When it comes to the Blocked Bidder List displaying in an unusable manner, that is a known issue currently being reviewed/resolved. I will add your account to the open ticket if that has not already been done.
Thanks!
Hi Tyler,
Would you add my account as well?
Absolutely - thanks @inceptions!
@glgenterprise wrote:
Just wanted to pop up and say that I actually re-tired my shipping label issue from last week and sometime in the last 6 months since I last tried it, it has been rectified.
Hi @glgenterprise - great to hear!!
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
I think I've also mentioned this before: Any chance ebay will provide an easy way for sellers to offer gift wrap in time for the Holidays? I envision something where a seller could choose to offer gift wrap (free or at a set cost) on all or some of his listings, with buyer able to designate "gift wrap" in the cart or check out. I could also see a search filter for gift wrap, and an icon within search results. In addition, it would be great if ebay provided an easy way for buyers to provide a giftee's address so we could ship directly to the giftee without any need to go back and forth with the buyer about it. I think this would be good in any year, but I think it is especially important now during COVID. I don't doubt other sites will be doing some thing like this, would sure be nice if ebay did it....Any hope it could happen?
Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques - I have always loved the idea of gift wrap options for you to be able to use as a seller, and have made the request each year. I have not heard that this is a change that will be happening this season, but I'll make sure your input is shared!
@coinslabz26 wrote:
tyler@ebay wrote:
@coinslabz26 wrote:
Paypal recently put in place polices that do not allow protections on precious metal coins. American Express now just instituted a similar policy on their next user agreement update that would treat the purchase of precious metal coins as "cash advances".
Is ebay prepared for this to be a new trend for credit card companies and payment processors?
Hi @coinslabz26 - while I don't have any comments to share on the changes made by other processors, I know that our managed payments team is working to incorporate coins and bullion. There also have not been any changes announced to the protections offered by the eBay Money Back Guarantee.
I was talking more about the hostility from credit card companies like AMEX. If buyers are penalized for using credit cards or prevented from using them then how would we get paid managed payments or otherwise?
Hi @coinslabz26 - I can't really talk to what long-term plans or strategies on the handling of individual financial providers are being worked on, but I do know that we'll work to offer as many viable payment options as possible. Thanks!
