Weekly Community Chat, June 28th @ 1pm PT - General Topics

[alan@ebay]

Hi Community, 

Please join the Community team at 1 pm Pacific on Wednesday 6/28 for our weekly chat. There isn't a set topic this week so feel free to ask us all of your eBay buying & selling questions. 

Talk to you then! 

[odditiesandantiquities1]

If I may also add, having been in Tech support most of my life, I can pretty much tell when there are major issues. It was my career and I was very good at it. You do need some new blood, you know?

[tyler@ebay]

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@copper.boom wrote:

Hi Trinton, Alan & team.

Any chance I can get a reply to post #25 from last week's chat?

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Weekly-Community-Chat-June-21st-1pm-PT-Pro...

As I'm sure you're aware, changes happening unannounced by eBay is a sore spot for sellers. This particular situation would be a good change, but it would still help to be notified when it happens.

General comment: can we please strive for better communication from eBay to sellers?

Thanks!

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In general, clear and consistent communication is something we work on daily, to various degrees of success ;). With regards to #25, we're looking at leveraging Community Announcements as well as the eBay for Business Blog as outlets for these types of updates. Thanks for this feedback, it helps us make a good case for others to get us information to pass on to you!

[janet9988]

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@odditiesandantiquities1 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello everyone! Welcome to the weekly chat 🙂 Looking forward to talking with you today!

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Hello Trinton and Alan. Nice to see you again.

Ok, I talked to you all about my awful April. Not sure what happened but May was out standing, up 110%. Unfortunately I am down in the weeds this June.....60% drop over the last period. I have altered pricing, changed pictures. Tried going with all Fixed Price.

Nada....no one is seeing anything. I don't understand at all.  Please help?

Also, just to note, I spoke with a CS back in April and he thought my store and items were wonderful....well priced and presented well. He had no suggestions for me to improve at all.

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In the User Aagreement ebay tells you that your item may not appear is some search results......

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html

Listing Conditions

.........

To drive a positive user experience, a listing may not appear in some search and browse results regardless of the sort order chosen by the buyer.

[alan@ebay]

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@copper.boom wrote:

Hi Alan, I just wanted to say thanks for taking such quick action accepting & posting the Community Glossary. I think it will be a handy reference, especially for new posters. And thanks to the posters from the Selling forum who made contributions!

Not everybody frequents the Selling forum, so for those who haven't seen it yet I thought it might be helpful to post it here: https://community.ebay.com/t5/About-the-Community/eBay-Community-Glossary/m-p/27131549#M14

I already have a bunch of updates to add next month.

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Hi @copper.boom

No problem! Thank you for taking the time to put the list together, and please feel free to continue sharing Community enhancement suggestions with us. 

It's also on our to-do list this week to add the words to the Community spellcheck dictionary. 

[bubbleman2010]

If a INR dispute is opened against a seller and the item has no tracking what is the timeframe a seller is allowed before ebay takes action? 24 hours or 3 days your emails sent to sellers say 3 days,but your closing disputes and issuing strikes in 24 hours and making claims its a test is that common practice testing things on unknowing sellers that cause monetary loss?

[copper.boom]

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@copper.boom wrote:

Hi Trinton, Alan & team.

Any chance I can get a reply to post #25 from last week's chat?

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Weekly-Community-Chat-June-21st-1pm-PT-Pro...

As I'm sure you're aware, changes happening unannounced by eBay is a sore spot for sellers. This particular situation would be a good change, but it would still help to be notified when it happens.

General comment: can we please strive for better communication from eBay to sellers?

Thanks!

---

In general, clear and consistent communication is something we work on daily, to various degrees of success ;). With regards to #25, we're looking at leveraging Community Announcements as well as the eBay for Business Blog as outlets for these types of updates. Thanks for this feedback, it helps us make a good case for others to get us information to pass on to you!

---

Thank you, Tyler. If you ever need support from the Community to help make a case, please let us know. I know I'm not the only one who is more than willing to provide specifics if you need them. I appreciate that your team is trying to make some improvements for us, especially in the area of communication, and if we can help to make that happen we need only be asked.

[mam98031]

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@germancargarage wrote:

Hi,

It looks like the "big sellers" get treated differently?

The duplicate listings are not taken down?

This is how the big sellers do it... they list the same item multiple times with different titles a few cents diffrence in price, so they show up as best match on the first page with all their listings... of course they sell.

The small seller have no chance...

I reported sellers doing it and I hear always the same " we take care of it... it can take awhile...
Nothing has happend in weeks now, they are still selling...

Those guys don't have the item in stock, they get 100nds of negative per day.. and still they can do what they want.

It is frustrating...

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I see the same thing all the time.  I reported a seller some 3 months ago and that seller today still has duplicate listings.  Trinton was working with me on this and then came the announcement at the beginning of June regarding a spring cleaning.  During that process Ebay was going to remove duplicate listings.  Yet as of this moment the specific seller I reported long ago STILL has duplicate listings.

I find this very troublesome as Ebay is  NOT holding up their end of the bargin.  Duplicates are a policy breach yet way too many sellers have them without penalty.  But Ebay has time to do a "test" regarding sellers that don't use tracking without warning, announcement or even an email telling them.  In fact the email that Ebay does send out is misleading and down right incorrect.  It says the seller has 3 business days to respond, but that isn't the case.  If the INR was filed 5 days after the lastest ETA on the purchase, Ebay will close that case in favor of the buyer and refund them in 24 hours from time the INR was filed.  I'm not upset by the "test" or even the perimeters of the "test".  What I find significantly unwarranted is the lack of an announcement to sellers and the misleading and flat incorrect email sent to the seller when the INR is filed.

[Anonymous]

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@timemachine777 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@timemachine777 wrote:

Trinton

If you do not have tracking, then we would not be able to protect you in an item not received case anyway and there is no reason to ask a buyer to wait additional time.

Why should sellers even need protection from eBay? Isn't eBay suppose too be just a facilitator venue? If not...when is eBay going to remove this About eBay statement in the UA, because it's not an honest statement at all then.

About eBay

eBay is a marketplace that allows users to offer, sell and buy just about anything in a variety of pricing formats and locations. The actual contract for sale is directly between the seller and buyer. eBay is not a traditional auctioneer.

While we may provide pricing, shipping, listing, sourcing, and other guidance in our Services, such guidance is solely informational and you may decide to follow it or not. Also, while we may help facilitate the resolution of disputes through various programs, eBay has no control over and does not guarantee the existence, quality, safety or legality of items advertised; the truth or accuracy of users' content or listings; the ability of sellers to sell items; the ability of buyers to pay for items; or that a buyer or seller will actually complete a transaction or return an item.

What eBay states above is far from true when it comes to what it actually does regarding it's direct role in the processes of a transactional contract between all buyers and sellers on this venue. eBay gets directly involved in this contract also, and adds it's own contractual obligations that both parties must follow. These are not suggestions, due to the fact that sellers are faced with financial penalties if they are not followed.  An it doesn't end there. Suggestions are not suppose to come with any type of penalty.

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Happy to clear our role a little further; a protection program is a part of our platform as a way of building trust in our site and increasing sales for our members. This has become an industry standard and we are happy to help facilitate a resolution when needed. The quotes you have provided from our User Agreement do not contradict this offer of protection within our eBay Money Back Guarantee. If you have any specific case questions, I recommend you reach out to our customer service team so they can look over the details for you!

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I have in the past and they all have a different interpretation, or make no comment. 

I n regards to the protection program...It would still contradict the UA About eBay statement unless it were voluntary for members to participate and/or funded by eBay and not debited from the sellers accounts when issues arise. That's also what postal insurance is there for.

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I must correct your interpretation of our User Agreement and clarify that this would not be a contradiction. Our eBay Money Back Guarantee is something all members of the site agree to abide by when they engage in transactions on our platform. 

[copper.boom]

Hi Alan, Along the line of Community enhancements, there are several threads from the Community Platform Feedback board that have not received replies from you or Doug yet.

Should we assume that you are considering these and working behind the scenes, or that you saw them and rejected the ideas, or that you just haven't seen them yet? (Some are weeks old.) It would help to know what the process is & where these types of requests stand. Thanks!

[dtexley3]

Over the last few days there have been several threads about the search engine "steering" the searcher to specific categories and how that affects both the buyer and the seller.

The number one issue is that it is not CLEARLY stated that the results being seen are filtered by a list of categories that the searcher did not initially select.

When the search engine starts limiting the categories it should be very clearly stated in plain explict language with a large button to return to All Categories.  

[odditiesandantiquities1]

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@janet9988 wrote:

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@odditiesandantiquities1 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello everyone! Welcome to the weekly chat 🙂 Looking forward to talking with you today!

---

Hello Trinton and Alan. Nice to see you again.

Ok, I talked to you all about my awful April. Not sure what happened but May was out standing, up 110%. Unfortunately I am down in the weeds this June.....60% drop over the last period. I have altered pricing, changed pictures. Tried going with all Fixed Price.

Nada....no one is seeing anything. I don't understand at all.  Please help?

Also, just to note, I spoke with a CS back in April and he thought my store and items were wonderful....well priced and presented well. He had no suggestions for me to improve at all.

---

In the User Aagreement ebay tells you that your item may not appear is some search results......

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html

Listing Conditions

.........

To drive a positive user experience, a listing may not appear in some search and browse results regardless of the sort order chosen by the buyer.

---

We are talking about drastic turnarounds here. 

[tyler@ebay]

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@bubbleman2010 wrote:

If a INR dispute is opened against a seller and the item has no tracking what is the timeframe a seller is allowed before ebay takes action? 24 hours or 3 days your emails sent to sellers say 3 days,but your closing disputes and issuing strikes in 24 hours and making claims its a test is that common practice testing things on unknowing sellers that cause monetary loss?

---

Hi @bubbleman2010 - this is similar to a question we received earlier, response here: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Weekly-Community-Chat-June-28th-1pm-PT-Gen...

[vrykalak]

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@copper.boom wrote:

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@copper.boom wrote:

Hi Trinton, Alan & team.

Any chance I can get a reply to post #25 from last week's chat?

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Weekly-Community-Chat-June-21st-1pm-PT-Pro...

As I'm sure you're aware, changes happening unannounced by eBay is a sore spot for sellers. This particular situation would be a good change, but it would still help to be notified when it happens.

General comment: can we please strive for better communication from eBay to sellers?

Thanks!

---

In general, clear and consistent communication is something we work on daily, to various degrees of success ;). With regards to #25, we're looking at leveraging Community Announcements as well as the eBay for Business Blog as outlets for these types of updates. Thanks for this feedback, it helps us make a good case for others to get us information to pass on to you!

---

Thank you, Tyler. If you ever need support from the Community to help make a case, please let us know. I know I'm not the only one who is more than willing to provide specifics if you need them. I appreciate that your team is trying to make some improvements for us, especially in the area of communication, and if we can help to make that happen we need only be asked.

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Add my name to the list of people who would be happy to help improve the communication. I have lost my TRS status because of miscommunication, and I want to help others avoid the problems I fell into.

[odditiesandantiquities1]

Sorry to hear that....

[alan@ebay]

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@copper.boom wrote:

Hi Alan, Along the line of Community enhancements, there are several threads from the Community Platform Feedback board that have not received replies from you or Doug yet.

Should we assume that you are considering these and working behind the scenes, or that you saw them and rejected the ideas, or that you just haven't seen them yet? (Some are weeks old.) It would help to know what the process is & where these types of requests stand. Thanks!

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Hi @copper.boom

At a glance, I can see two threads without a staff reply. We'll look into these and reply as soon as we can. We aim to reply to all threads on that board. 

Thanks!