Ebay First Class to Ground Advantage Bulk Edit Problem, LARGE QUANTITIES, No Business Policies

[maverickindustrialsales]

We have 30,000 active ebay listing, and do NOT use ebay business policies.  Instead, we have 20 listing templates that our team uses when creating new listings.  We have avoided using business policies because we like the ability to customize shipping specifics and return specifics when we are listing items because certain items are required to be shipped a certain way, or not allowed to be shipped a certain way (batteries, liquids, some test equipment, etc).

Around 10,000 of our listings are "calculated shipping" with USPS First Class as the first option which we have as free for the buyers.  Then we have Priority Mail, UPS Ground, and UPS Next Day Air as optional calculated upgrades for the buyer if they want to pay for a different shipping service.  

What do we do?  I am unable to find a way to bulk-edit these items.  The bulk editing tool does not allow us to filter our listings by first-class listings.  When I download a CSV of our listings there is no way for us to sort them by first class either.

Is there not a way for Ebay on the back-end to create a rule to automatically switch first-class listings to ground advantage?

Is there anything we can do to automate this or will all of my first-class listings be removed from ebay?

[broto_64]

You can create multiple business policies, one to fit each of your specific attributes... Pain to set up initially but makes life easier for a good long time.

[onefootflipper]

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@allthingssurplus wrote:

I never said I was going to enroll in eBay policies at anytime.  I said after all the revisions were made for Ground Advantage that policies would work fine.  Either way there is a great deal of work involved making this revision.  Due to our inventory the most expeditious way to make the change is manually.  I have no trust in using eBay policies.  To date eBay has proved their lack of ability in most areas of the platform.  We do not have a static inventory.  We have a great deal of one-offs.  The time need to build special polices for many items would exceed making the current required changes manually.  

This is a problem eBay should have a fix.  Its their platform and are being paid heavy fees to provide a vehicle for Seller to pay those fees.  eBay has made it clear they want in the logistics business.  Well logistics requires IT that will provide the ability to make changes for all the Sellers in all categories.  Logistics is always a fast changing business. 

I appreciate all the input.  It will be cheaper and faster for us to manually make these changes.  I am not a hard head or angry about change or afraid to make change.  Being in business for 52 years and having at one time 20 convenience stores has groomed me for change.  Change is something that requires planning.  This is the fail on eBay's part.  All should read a 30 page book written years ago, The Minute Manager.  It spells out how you can be a manager or a firefighter.  In this change the platform is acting like a firefighter without water.  Again eBay has not come out and said policies will fix this CURRENT revision issue.

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I just looked at your store, there is no great deal of work needed at all. Your entire store seems to be free shipping with calculated upgrades for faster services. I could fix your entire store with a single business policy in roughly 3 minutes.

You only THINK this is hard.  I spent more time looking at your store and typing this response than it would take to fix the store.

[allthingssurplus]

Those in my business and eBay as well differ from your opinion.  Having First Class Package is the stumbling block and all of the making of policies for our one off listings precludes us from Policies.  OP of this thread, maverickindustrialsales, also agrees what you are stating will not work how we want it to work for our business.  Again do you here eBay telling us to do as you say, NO.  All eBay is saying is that we need to get it done.

[fern*wood]

That’s because eBay hasn’t attempted to help sellers.  Only other sellers have tried to help.

[onefootflipper]

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@allthingssurplus wrote:

Those in my business and eBay as well differ from your opinion.  Having First Class Package is the stumbling block and all of the making of policies for our one off listings precludes us from Policies.  OP of this thread, maverickindustrialsales, also agrees what you are stating will not work how we want it to work for our business.  Again do you here eBay telling us to do as you say, NO.  All eBay is saying is that we need to get it done.

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What I am saying is not an opinion. Everything I saw in shipping in every store presented in this thread could be fixed in minutes, and you call just keep saying it is impossible without presenting any reason why.

[allthingssurplus]

First Class Package will not roll to Ground Advantage as per eBay .  I s that enough for you

[suzysemporium]

I do admit, I'm not quite sure what is all involved when someone chooses to go to business policies the first time. It has been too long for me to remember. You may have to edit each listing once to select which business policy to use or create. Yes, that would be a hindrance, and take a lot of time when the switch is made.

I'm delving more into your listings, since you said "You do not deal with the range of items and shipping requirements that companies like mine." Nice range of items from electronics to books.

I noticed something I didn't touch on, which you didn't mention that you offer free and calculated shipping in the same listing.

This is for everyone. Having free shipping along with calculated shipping. I did a brief test listing for this. Took about a couple of minutes if that to set the test up if anyone was interested.

I tried it out with business policies. I just quickly picked 3 random services. More services could have been added including media mail for books.

I also think most people don't realize this is a possibility. I didn't until today looking at your listing. With calculated and flat rate shipping, the top service has free with a check mark box as shown below. You can add more services, but only the top service shows free shipping in the listing.

This is how it appeared in the test listing. No I didn't want to leave the listing up, so it is already down.

Is that one of the situations you were talking about?

If someone already set up a listing like this, and has a friend or employee where they can test the cart side. When the buyer selects a service that has a price beside it, does the price show, or free shipping? My main beef with ebay is they do not let us test the back end of the shipping cart.  I wish I could have tested this, combined shipping, and exactly how request invoice works. Rant over.

I did not see where you could have calculated for one service and offer flat rate with another service in one listing simultaneously. If you are talking about that, Ebay falls way short even though you could have some listings with flat rate, and some with calculated.

The other thing I noticed was business policies have freight, but have no services to select. I can see that causing issues.

If anyone has a store front who uses business policies, I would love to have this confirmed. In the payment policy does checking other payment methods cash on pick up, check, and money order allow you to accept those payments when someone walks in to buy the item without having to ship it even if you do not have local pick up only checked in shipping policies? If not, ebay is falling short in this area.

Ebay always had issues working with 3rd party services.

Another area where Ebay is sorely lacking is with combined shipping. All a part of shipping logistics. I would love if Ebay allowed more than one combined shipping rule under calculated shipping. I imagine a headache for larger businesses who mostly work with combined shipping.

I know one business that has over 35,000 items, and most of his business is working with combined shipping. He says combined shipping in Ebay's cart never works. Most of his items are under a pound like items. He basically got to the point where he just refunds the shipping cost.

Those are the pitfalls I see as of right now. Ebay is lacking.

I don't know if using a bar code scanner to pre-fill in data would be a pit fall for using business policies or not. That is for businesses selling newer items. Some sellers use a bar code scanner and create bar codes for their inventory system.

So far I don't see a problem with each item being an individual size or weight when using business policies. You mentioned I didn't address first class. I already did. I even showed how to switch from first class to ground advantage in business policies. I can only talk about policies, since I no longer have access to the older system, and do not wish to opt out.

You later mentioned you do not intend to switch over, which is fine. I guess I consider this post as a journey of discovery, since I learned something new. To help show where Ebay is lacking.

This has gotten more to the point of where people are arguing with each other instead of trying to understand each other. I'm going to apologize now, since I know I'm a part of all of this. 

To help us to see where Ebay is lacking, not allowing certain shipping combinations, or causing you logistic headaches. If it is possible for you to explain without getting too technical, I would love to hear about it. I don't know if Ebay will ever change things, but it would bring more awareness to everyone.

[suzysemporium]

"eBay has stated that those listing using that method of shipping will require manual revision. Reason, all of the additional shipping services will not be included with the revision ie FedEx, Priority and UPS."

Let me know if I'm understanding this correctly. With the way Ebay has shipping set up out side of business policies, that if you use your 3rd party bulk editor to switch from first class to ground advantage you will loose all other shipping services. You will need to manually go back in the listing, and add the other shipping services. That may happen even if you found a way to use ebay's bulk editor.

Then, yes Ebay failed everyone who does not use business policies. While giving preferential treatment to those who use business policies, since I never lost any other service I had with first class when switching.

[allthingssurplus]

Again real simple.  If you use calculated shipping and have First Class Package (so far all except for two people, the OP and myself, all have not addressed the First Class Package shipping service with regard to making the revision) you will have to manually revise your listings.  eBay has said it and the OP has said it and I say it.  Both the OP and myself have run our on tests and come to the conclusion we are correct.  The OP knows how to write code and both of us have been on eBay for decades doing millions of dollars of business.   First Class Package if revised as most on the thread are insisting we should do  would cause us to lose all of our additional shipping services we currently offer our customers like FedEx, overnight, 2nd Day, priority etc.  Yes we could get the listing to convert to Ground Advantage however we would have to revise all the listing anyway and add all of our additional services.  eBay has said only Parcel Select will cross over with all additional shipping services intact.  That does not work with out business model.  We are upset in that if eBay can do Parcel Select they should be able to do First Class Package as well.  An assumption can be made that there is a conflict with Flats (stamped first class mail) and First Class Package which if package were allowed it would cancel out the stamped service.  Don't know that for a fact though.

Again someone ask eBay why First Class Package can't be crossed over like Parcel Select.  So far eBay will not communicate about any real fix.  So starting tomorrow my team will be racking up the overtime hours to fix what should be eBay's problem.

[allthingssurplus]

Stop saying First Class the problem is First Class PACKAGE.  The new USPS system is flats.  Again the problem in revising to Advantage is only Parcel Select will cross completely and Package will not.  

[allthingssurplus]

Flats meaning this is the only First Class available.

[allthingssurplus]

Message #2 on this thread here is what said in the first para:

First class is made up of 2 shipping possibilities.....package and what I call letter.......Package is what needs to be changed........letter (sticker type things, mailed in a non trackable envelop) stays the same:  "First class".    Ebay can't filter between those. 

Flats are letter/envelopes.  If you have multiple shipping services, as all our listing have, and one of those is First Class Package none of those services will revise and listing at that point will only show Ground Advantage.  So a Seller is faced with having to add all of those services to listing by doing another revision.  If your inventory is static like baseball cards, shirts, dolls and things like that revising your listing will take no time at all.  The three money making categories for eBay are Auto, Computer and Tables and Business and Industrial.  All of these categories are being damaged the most with this revision because eBay is not smart enough to write some simple code to allow the Package service to cross over like Parcel Select.

[suzysemporium]

Thank you. It sounds like Ebay gave preferential treatment to business policies with no problems making the switch. Then threw their hands in the air when it came to people not using their policies. Or their tech crew has no idea how to fix it even if they fully understand the issue.

Something I noticed with Ebay over the years. Once they introduce their newest, latest, greatest feature, they start to abandon the old features. Until they completely abondon them, and make everyone use the new features. 

I hope you can find a quick fix that won't rack up so many employee hours.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@allthingssurplus wrote:

Message #2 on this thread here is what said in the first para:

First class is made up of 2 shipping possibilities.....package and what I call letter.......Package is what needs to be changed........letter (sticker type things, mailed in a non trackable envelop) stays the same:  "First class".    Ebay can't filter between those. 

Flats are letter/envelopes.  If you have multiple shipping services, as all our listing have, and one of those is First Class Package none of those services will revise and listing at that point will only show Ground Advantage.  So a Seller is faced with having to add all of those services to listing by doing another revision.  If your inventory is static like baseball cards, shirts, dolls and things like that revising your listing will take no time at all.  The three money making categories for eBay are Auto, Computer and Tables and Business and Industrial.  All of these categories are being damaged the most with this revision because eBay is not smart enough to write some simple code to allow the Package service to cross over like Parcel Select.

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Yup, and as a former Assembler programmer myself, I don't understand why the very simple, basic code I posted (non-Assembler) in post 60, would not work?  It may not get every single one, but it would go a long way towards getting this fixed.   I don't recall the exact cutoff since I never use FC Flats, but it's somewhere around 3oz.   So basically, convert to whatever language they use: 

IF Service = First Class AND Weight >3oz (or whatever), THEN replace Service with Ground Advantage ELSE continue. 

That ought to catch the majority.  There would be exceptions for people who don't fill out weight & probably some others I'm not thinking of, but it just seems so basic.  

[allthingssurplus]

That is exactly what I said and yes eBay has failed.