eBay

bigdeals.etc · ‎01-30-2018

So I went to my awaiting shipment page to try and print out postage using ebay. There was one that ebay immediately recognized as invalid (gave me the read text errors and stuff). It doesn't allow me to print postage to that address that it pulls up from the buyer's payment.

Why does ebay allow the buyer to put that address in their payment in the first place? They are going to end up catching it anyways when the seller tries to ship. Now the seller has to spend time to contact the buyer and hope they come back with a valid address or any reply at all. This will hurt the seller's late shipment performance.

Wouldn't it be smarter to enforce that address standard at the very beginning with the buyer? It's not like they don't already have the programming to do so. Right now buyers can put whatever they like... I once had a buyer put "Email me" as his address. *shakes head*

loveyourimagination49 · ‎01-30-2018

You need to ship to the PayPal address. Did you check there, yet?

Everyone has options. Just be sure the best option is right for you.

anthemshop247 · ‎01-30-2018

Address may not be invalid per se, but characters are too long.

I have had similar experiences in the past. Contact the buyer but if he affirms the accuracy of the addresses on eBay and PayPal, the problem is the length of characters.

You may abbreviate some words, remove periods and commas while keeping the major parts of the address. Some like c/o or other minor words can be hand written.

bigdeals.etc · ‎01-31-2018

wrote:
You need to ship to the PayPal address. Did you check there, yet?

Yes it's the same exact address as on PayPal.

Regarding the character limit, I'm also aware of that issue too. The current address is very short and I know satisfies the character limit. But even if it was a character issue, that's beside my point...

My issue is why eBay/PayPal doesn't check validity (even character limit) when the buyer enters a shipping address in the beginning, when they end up checking validity when the seller tries to use that same address to ship to? Why not stop it at the source with the buyer? After all the address would be fixed much easier by the buyer since it's their address... not the seller. Like with that issue where my buyer used "email me" as their shipping address

emerald40 · ‎01-31-2018

I agree with you. If you can issue a warning after the fact why not do it at its source.

Saves wasted time, having to guess, and the strong possibility it does not reach its destination, if you change it too much.

southern*sweet*tea · ‎01-31-2018

Go here: https://tools.usps.com/go/ZipLookupAction_input

Input the exact address the buyer gives you. USPS will return the accepted standardized format. You won't be changing the address at all, just the format of the address.

The easier you are to offend the easier you are to control.

We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did. - Thomas Sowell

castlemagicmemories · ‎01-31-2018

wrote:
wrote:
You need to ship to the PayPal address. Did you check there, yet?
Yes it's the same exact address as on PayPal.

Regarding the character limit, I'm also aware of that issue too. The current address is very short and I know satisfies the character limit. But even if it was a character issue, that's beside my point...

My issue is why eBay/PayPal doesn't check validity (even character limit) when the buyer enters a shipping address in the beginning, when they end up checking validity when the seller tries to use that same address to ship to? Why not stop it at the source with the buyer? After all the address would be fixed much easier by the buyer since it's their address... not the seller. Like with that issue where my buyer used "email me" as their shipping address

That does make sense.

couldabeenworse · ‎01-31-2018

My issue is why eBay/PayPal doesn't check validity (even character limit) when the buyer enters a shipping address in the beginning, when they end up checking validity when the seller tries to use that same address to ship to?

I'm guessing that eBay doesn't validate the address at all; they leave it to the carrier, so that's why it's first checked when you try to print the label. I'm also guessing that different carriers have their own formatting requirements, so that same address might have been fine with UPS or FedEx.