Monthly Chat - January 17th @ 1:00 pm PST

[devon@ebay]

Hi Everyone! This month's chat you’ll have an opportunity to talk to specialists from our Growth Advisor Team. The theme of the chat is, “Starting 2024 off right and setting your business up for success in the new year”. Get all of your questions ready for the team, so we can make the most out of this month's monthly chat on January 17th at 1:00 pm PT

Thanks for joining us for the Monthly Chat with our Growth Advisors.

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 and Growth Advisors 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.

As a reminder, we want to be able to get to as many members as possible during the allotted hour, so we have a few things to ask of you:

• Keep on topic
• Scroll through the list of questions to see what has already been asked to decrease chances of redundancy 
• Keep the message/question simple and no more than one to two items. If you include multiple questions in a post, please be aware that they may not be addressed during the chat and (specialist name) will do their best to follow-up with it after the chat has closed 

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 month!”

[growth_advisor@ebay]

Hello everyone! We’re Growth Advisors and our team helps sellers to focus on not only the health of their accounts, but also ways to grow them. We’re excited to take part in the monthly chat! 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Is ebay planning to have a Winter Seller Update? If so, can you tell us when to expect it?

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

[normwilhrl-0]

Hey, It is a first for me!! I will appreciate your response. I have a more than 4K mostly preowned clothing store, and I am considering to change to New Clothing. Do you thing it will positive impact my store? Would I do it or keep listing preowned?

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

[elizabeth@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

Is ebay planning to have a Winter Seller Update? If so, can you tell us when to expect it?

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques. When we hear more about this we will be sure to let you know. As of now we have no update on this. 

[baydealz]

Long time member, first time caller...this is new to me.  I was just perusing as I decide to opt out of this game.  I've realized there is far too much risk to me as a seller - not getting a sale is one thing, losing time is another, but losing money due to chargebacks, made up excuses and ebay's indiscriminate creation of labels and charging me for items sold without return, is too much.  Ebay has thought it should be Amazon for YEARS now, by putting the risk on the seller - I'm not Amazon, they can afford it.  Yesterday I took load to Goodwill to just give away and I look forward to cleaning out my garage.  It was a fun hobby with a lot of pleased customers, but times and ebay are just different now.  

[12345jamesstamps]

My question is on tracking.

If an item doesn't say "delivered"...but "moving through network...in transit to next facility"...will a seller be covered for tracking? I have opened tracking as far back as February 2023 saying "moving...facility"...

So far, my buyers have been honest and left positive feedback. Can a buyer say item not received and get a refund from a seller if item doesn't get scanned as delivered...but in transit to next facility?

This is for "freight forward"....registered mail...and general USPS items mailed.

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

[postcardcountry]

I would be interested in hearing what sort of growth tips you have to offer besides:

increase promoted rate  (11% to 13% is too high on a $20 or less priced item)

add more pictures  (postcards and vintage ads really only have a couple of pictures)

run a sale (once in a while is fine, but not continuously)

make offers to watchers  (already doing)

Send coupons  (didn't work when I did)

do international shipping  (already do, some buyers find the EIS shipping price too high)

effectively use item specifics (I use what actually applies and have noticed some categories barely have any)

So...any suggestions?

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

[theartofserver]

growth_advisor@ebay hello eBay Groth Advisors! 🙂

my ebay store has lost sales due to changes with eBay International Shipping. I've asked about this before, and corresponded with eBay in the past, but never received any resolution. The issues are:

1) I'm not able to combine different items from my store for EIS orders. This has cost me in missed opportunities of  "add-on" items that normally my international customers would buy together. I've corresponded with eBay directly and provided examples they requested. But I've received no replies since.

2) Many of my items are now not able to ship to the UK via EIS. There's another thread regarding this issue and it seems entire categories are blocked to ship to the UK. I've had several UK customers reach out to me asking why I don't ship the UK anymore.

If these issues are still work in progress and not resolved, at least I would love to have an update on the current situation.

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

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks elizabeth@ebay  hope to hear something soon.

[growth_advisor@ebay]

Thank you for joining us today! 

Great question, we'd recommend switching over gradually if that is your plan. If you're a long term seller of used clothing and have a following you can use some of the marketing tools such as newsletters, buyer groups, and promotions to let your buyers know your changing your inventory or adding new lines of new clothing. 

It def would have a positive impact if done strategically and seasonally. This might be helpful in that process - Inventory 

-Casey
Growth Advisor

[b86fiero]

Hello everyone,

Regarding eBay International Shipping it is my understanding that all eligible sellers will be opted into the program soon. I am considering going global but have some hesitation. Global selling = growth, right?

Question 1.  Almost of my listings - all buy it now - have Free shipping.  When listing I have not filled in the individual weights nor packages dimension. I have always just entered it when printing eBay shipping labels. Will I have to update all 800+ listing with that information for eIS?

Question 2. Is offering free shipping preferable and how will the actual shipping cost be figured? I figure my price to include USA shipping only.

Question 3. Is calculated shipping a better seller option than free shipping? What are the benefits to either one?

Thanks for your help.

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

[turtles-trading-post]

Good afternoon from snowy Pennsylvania-

My issue has to do with a glitch in mobile.  My stamp business is set up to sell multiple low cost items.  When a buyer hits "Buy It Now" in mobile, it takes him to a screen that appears to have an only option to proceed to checkout.  It needs a  "Continue Shopping" Button!  It's been acknowledged in eBay meetings as "a ticket is in".

I get several to many of these each day!  I have buyers creating 10 separate orders which charges them extra postage and costs me transaction fees.    Look at my current sold queue to see it!  There's a guy there with multiple orders.

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

[maxoptical]

Hello Devon,

I have now been promised twice over the last 2 weeks that I would receive a call back from eBay leadership do to a eBay customer service rep mishandling of a return.    This was a single buyer,  returning multiple items that they purchased together and I shipped in one combined shipment.  

The buyer called eBay and had the returns pushed through with no tracking numbers showing the items returned.  I appealed the return of the items.  One was approved and overturned and the other one was not?  This is the exact same customer with the same return.  This is a huge mess and eBay put a defect for seller did not resolve issue on my account.  

I have wasted hours and hours on the phone with support with no avail and they always end with "Someone from leadership with call you in 24-48 hours"   but the call has not arrived over the last 2 weeks and I need this resolved.

What can I do?

John Norman
eBay seller Maxoptical

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

[devon@ebay]

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@turtles-trading-post wrote:

Good afternoon from snowy Pennsylvania-

My issue has to do with a glitch in mobile.  My stamp business is set up to sell multiple low cost items.  When a buyer hits "Buy It Now" in mobile, it takes him to a screen that appears to have an only option to proceed to checkout.  It needs a  "Continue Shopping" Button!  It's been acknowledged in eBay meetings as "a ticket is in".

I get several to many of these each day!  I have buyers creating 10 separate orders which charges them extra postage and costs me transaction fees.    Look at my current sold queue to see it!  There's a guy there with multiple orders.

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Hey @turtles-trading-post! Thank you for sharing this with us and we will get this over to our Tech team to look into. If we need anymore information we will be sure to reach back out.