Weekly Community Chat, May 3rd @ 1pm PT - General Topics

[Anonymous]

Good afternoon everyone!

Come and join the Community team today for our weekly chat. No set topic for today so feel free to bring your general questions for discussion with the team 

See you there!

[golfingaddict]

Last month I had a buyer open a false SNAD claim.  She said that the item just wasn't what she wanted and she needed a different style.    Since I am in the new return program, I figured that it was no problem.  I would refund her, less the shipping when I got the item back.

After about 15 days, I had not received the item back and she had not used the provided label so I called support and they closed the case in my favor.  All good?  I thought so.

However, about 5 days later I got the item back.    Of course I could not keep her money and the item so I refunded her.  I could not refund through ebay because the case was closed so I refunded through Paypal, which she had used to make payment.     I did not get my final value fees back.  Shortly after I refunded, ebay charged me for the return shipping.  

When I called ebay to ask about the possibility of getting the return shipping reversed and the final value fees credited I was told it was no possible.

And when I asked what I should have done, the CSR told me that I should not have refunded the buyer at all.  That since the case was closed, I did not need to do anything.

I just wonder if there was a better answer?  I do not think it is ethical to keep the item and the money but perhaps that CS rep did not feel the same. 

So what should I have done to get my FVF and shipping?

[Anonymous]

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@double1960 wrote:

A buyer already paid on paypal, but now asks if he can pick it up somewhere locally instead of paying shipping, the shipping is $12.99 since its heavy and long item, a barometer.  Should I just say no I dont do that or if I do it how do I get my shipping fee back?

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The choice is yours as to if you want to pursue Local Pickup with your buyer but what I recommend is to comunicate with them, cancel this transaction and then relist the item for them with Local Pickup offered. This way you don't have to worry about shipping costs, partial refunds or calling into eBay to pursue a partial fee credit. Additionally, if the buyer selects Local Pickup at checkout, you won't have to worry about an on time shipping defect.

[vrykalak]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@buyselljack2016 wrote:

Did I fall asleep for a week and miss the chat on the TRS $30 promotion coupon issue?

Wife never got the promotion on her TRS account.

My promotion campaign attempt will only show 1 item to promote when I have several listings with multiples.

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The $30 promotion is not a coupon, it is actually an invoice credit. You may see this on May's invoice if you are billed on the 15th of each month. 

Your other listings that are not showing up for promotions may not qualify if the are in an unsupporte category. I recommend reaching out to customer support with examples to have these reviewed specifically!

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FWIW, I am a TRS+ seller, too, and I never heard about this either.
Where can I read about it?

[fern*wood]

I never received any email about the $30.00 promoted listing credit, but can I assume I do have it since I am TRS?  I sure hope so since I sold six sponsored items near the end of April and hope to see those extra fees credited back to me.

[vrykalak]

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doug@ebay wrote:

Hi @vrykalak,

eBay is always looking to improve the site so I am sure there's a good reason those features are going away.

I haven't heard of other image editing issues yet. I'll have to look into this and get back to you.

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@vrykalak wrote:

Editing photos while posting a listing has been very valuable.

Suddenly, it didn't work anymore.

After griping to four technicians, over a period of about six hours, I finally found someone who understood what I was talking about (that's another perennial gripe I have) and told me that feature is being deleted on the newest listing page.

It still works on the Quick Listing Page, but he assured me that is going to disappear, too

...And there's no point uploading pictures on the Quick Listing Page and then returning to the Advanced Listing Page for the rest, because the act of switching erases everything you've already entered.

Why does eBay continue to make life harder for sellers with changes like this?

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If there is a "good reason" for removing a capability that has been available to sellers for at least five years, I'd sure like to hear what it is.

[alan@ebay]

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@golfingaddict wrote:

The new program is going to offer a refund on shipping or a coupon for the buyer if the shipping is free.

This sounds great, but I am concerned that ebay and the USPS are not working together very well.

I am having many items that are showing up as "late" because of "Uploaded on time but no carrier scan"

In every single case, when I look at the tracking, the item is showing up delivered.  It then can take a week or two to finally update and last month I had to get ebay/Heidi to intervene to get the bad tracking metric fixed.

These are items shipped by USPS with the eBay shipping program.  I ship in one day and in all cases, I really have had them validated in that one day.  The only faulty thing is the interface between ebay and the USPS.  When I look at my shipping labels in the Seller Hub there are often packages that are delivered in 2days but still show "in transit" after 7-14 days before they update to delivered.

How is this going to affect that guaranteed shipping program?  What is the time frame that a buyer is going to have to wait for the item to show as delvered on the ebay site?

The CSR's that I have talked to when I call all tell me that there is nothing that they can do about the late metrics.  That is not much help.

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Hi @golfingaddict

This doesn't sound good. I am going to contact our Shipping team and ask them to review these concerns. 

I'll share any updates that I receive. 

[Anonymous]

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@labs118 wrote:

Heidi was kind enough to reach out to whomever is rolling out the promoted listings
I am losing 10% TRS+ discount effective May 1st yet they didn't think they should have the rollout ready for ooak sellers to use the $30.00 credit at the same time?

she advised they will begin rolling it out to more sellers June 1st
How have they picked the ooak sellers that are using it now?
I did a search on etienne aigner shoes  and cannot believe the amount of sponered listings all that have just the 1 item ooak just in that 1 search alone not to mention all the other ooak sellers I have seen in other searches.

I would like to know who to contact regarding this , I am not happy about the possible loss of the $30.00 credit & we have been told they can't be rolled over.
thanks

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Hey @labs118! I will make sure we reach out to the team working on this subject to get some more info for you and send you and email once I hear back 🙂

[hioctane62]

Regarding the "Deals and Savings".

@Anonymousyou said there would be an "expert" on hand to answer questions.

I've conducted a lot of test searches, and from what I can gather, only items that have a UPC or part number in the item specifics that ebay already has in their database to make a comparison are shown for this new search function. Items with no UPC or a unique part number that ebay cannot compare to are not considered. So a seller may be selling an item at half price, but because ebay's database has nothing to compare it to, they will not be shown under "Deals and Savings".

Is this a pretty good assessment of how this works?

[odditiesandantiquities1]

To keep it short, I took a return from a buyer. I didn't have to but unfortunately my accept returns setting was set to accept anything. I went through an Easter weekend with over 30 emails from this buyer, insults and more. Now she leaves absolutely awful feedback, all untrue which I did respond to. 

I also reported. Can you tell me what, if anything, comes out of reporting an abusive buyer. I've never had back up before so I didn't think there was anything I could do?

Eileen

[Anonymous]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
Sorry, don't know exactly how I ended up with Spoiler there....I'll try again:
I sell mostly single item listings. ebay has indicated that eventually some or all single item listings will be eligible for Promoted Listings. Any timeline on that?

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We aren't able to be more specific than in the next coming months. We are testing this out actively right now to ensure once it is delivered that it is a great product for you and your business 🙂

[odditiesandantiquities1]

This is my selling ID so you can see both comments.

[Anonymous]

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@vrykalak wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@labs118 wrote:

Why am I seeing different search results ?
If I am searching etienne aigner shoes It returns a normal search

If I search salvatore ferragamo Women it shows me a new  ebay shopping experience
search results with descriptions ?

And why all the men's shoes when I search Women?

I posted to the selling board just a short time ago wanted to see if other sellers are seeing different search results as well.

I cannot stay around I have to be somewhere at 430Pm
thanks

 

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This search result page is a test we are running to enhance the shopping experience when looking for something to buy. Not all items will bring up this page quite yet, and we'd love to hear your feedback about this experience. Men's shoes showing up in these search results is a great callout of something we can work to fix. I'll pass along this example, don't hesitate to keep us posted if you run into any other bumps.

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My feedback is CAMEL PUCKY!!

When I do a search, I want to see exactly and only what I asked to see.
I am hugely frustrated when I get 3000 "hits" and NONE of them have all of my keywords...and some items show up that contain NONE of my keywords.

If I ask for 'red high-heel shoes' , the results should not contain anything that doesn't contain all of those keywords. Yes, that may be too specific, and may eliminate some "hits" that would actually meet my needs. But eBay should NOT make assumptions about what I want and show me thousands of irrelevant items.

...Other sites I have seen allow the requester to say whether or not they want to see "similar" results. I would always say NO. But I am not given that choice.

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Agreed, happy to pass this along so we can fix it.

[electronicspart]

Write your messages here and elsewhere in notepad then copy and paste them. Longer messages are often lost on many message sites.

[doug@ebay]

Hi @vrykalak, where were you writing this message? In this board? Please tell me the steps, and what happened.

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@vrykalak wrote:

I just spent 8 minutes writing a message...and eBay erased it!

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[alan@ebay]

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

I undertsand that the new "Deals" search filter includes Daily Deal items, but could we get a detailed breakdown on the criteria used to determine the non-Daily Deal items that qualify? And does the filter ONLY apply to items with PINs, or other items (such as vintage) as well?

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Looking into this and the other question on the filter with our Product team. I'll update when I have confirmation. 

Thanks.