Some GREAT news about Buyer Transaction Cancellation REQUESTS

[mam98031]

Ebay just released this policy change.  It is a good one for sellers.  It really helps things both with the Cancellation process and Feedback that may result from this.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/seller-performance-policy/service-metrics-policy...

 seller_news_team

Staff

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‎08-15-2024 09:00 AM

We're launching a change that will simplify the order cancellation process for both buyers and sellers: Buyers now have the option to request an order cancellation using the Cancel order button before the item is marked as shipped. Our goal is to create a more user-friendly and consistent experience to build trust between buyers and sellers, and encourage repeat purchases.

In prior tests, these changes resulted in a minimal increase in cancellation requests (maintaining an overall average cancellation rate of 1%, with an increase from .9 out of 100 transactions to 1.1 out of 100 transactions), and a notable 25% improvement in buyer satisfaction, which led to a higher likelihood of repeat purchases.

FAQs

How it works

How can I see and respond to cancellation requests?

When a buyer requests a cancellation, you’ll receive a notice in your eBay messages. You’ll also be able to see orders with cancel requests in your Seller Hub > Orders > Cancellations or My eBay > Selling > Orders.

You'll have 3 days to accept or decline the request. On paid orders, eBay will automatically decline the request after 3 days, but we encourage sellers to respond quickly.

You have the choice to accept or decline a cancellation. When feasible, it’s recommended to accept the request, especially if it’s sent within minutes or a few hours of when an order is placed. Doing so has shown to discourage return requests or “item not received” cases, and encourages the buyer to return to eBay for their next purchase.

When will the new cancellation process update take effect?

It will take effect August 28. Sellers may still observe some requests coming through direct messages as buyers adapt to these changes.

What happens when I accept a cancellation request?

After you accept a cancellation request, we’ll automatically issue a full refund to the buyer and fee credits to you as per our fee credits policy. If the listing was of a single quantity or Buy It Now item, we'll automatically relist the item for you unless you select No next to Relist item? when canceling the order. 

Protections

What if a buyer leaves negative feedback for refusing their cancellation request?

eBay will protect you by removing negative or neutral feedback on these orders.

What protections are in place if I've already shipped the item? 

Once you ship the item, be sure to promptly update the tracking information and order status to 'shipped' on eBay. When an order is marked as shipped, buyers will no longer be able to access the Cancel order request flow.

If a buyer has requested cancellation before you were able to update the shipment status, and you have already shipped your item, you can decline the cancellation request.

For more information, visit our help article on how to mark an item as “shipped.”

What if a buyer wins an auction but doesn't pay and asks for a cancellation?

You'll have 3 days to accept or decline the cancellation request on an unpaid item.  Cancellation requests for unpaid items will be automatically approved after 3 days if there is no response from you.

eBay monitors and takes action against buyers who habitually fail to pay. We proactively restrict such buyers from bidding. Don’t ship items until payment is confirmed, and ensure all communication is kept on eBay so we can assist if needed.

Customized & personalized items

As a seller of customized items on eBay, what if the order is already in process when a cancellation request is made? 

If a cancellation is requested, communicate with the buyer via direct message to explain why the request will be declined, then proceed to decline it. Keeping your communication on our platform helps us provide support if the buyer seeks a refund through their payment provider.

[mam98031]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

devon@ebay 

I have my preferences set so that ebay automatically cancels for non payment at the four day mark (and relists my item).

Under this new policy, what will happen in this scenario?---

Buyer wins auction, but does not pay. Buyer waits 3 1/2 days, and then requests to cancel. 

I have three days in which to respond to that request. If I do not respond, ebay will automatically accept the request, and the buyer will not be hit with a Non Payment strike, per this new policy.

However, per my preference, if I do nothing, ebay should cancel on the 4th day for Non Payment and the buyer should get a strike.

So, which policy will govern? Does the cancellation request itself void my 4 day preference? Or will ebay honor the  choice I have made as seller?

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Excellent questions.  Another poster and I were having a similar conversation earlier in the thread and I too tagged the team to find out what is the effect on Cancellations for Non Payment.  Hopefully they will respond on Monday.

The announcement says that after 3 days, Ebay will automatically Decline the request.

You'll have 3 days to accept or decline the request. On paid orders, eBay will automatically decline the request after 3 days, but we encourage sellers to respond quickly.

[mam98031]

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

@robbie31415 

"3 days is a bit excessive."

I agree, IDK why a seller would need that much time to decide if they were going to process the request or deny it.

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I don't see why a buyer needs 3 days to decide they want to cancel.

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It is 3 days for the SELLER to respond to a Cancellation request, which I agree with the other poster, that is a lot of time for the seller.  I wouldn't think most sellers would take that much time, however it is likely Ebay is allowing that much time because they didn't call out calendar days or Business days.  So 3 days would allow for the Weekend when many sellers are less active on the site.  The policy also didn't say anything about Federal Holidays.

[stainlessenginecovers]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@stainlessenginecovers wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

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So you think the seller should not communicate with the buyer and tell them why they need to decline their request??  What possible good could come from that?  You think it is better customer service NOT to tell the buyer why you decline?  Of course you have every right to do as you wish with your buyers.  For me, I would always communicate with my buyer to let them know.

IDK that a "buyer gets their hopes up", they should be aware it is a REQUEST.  Which in my experience a request requires a confirmation it is accepted to be valid.

"Sellers to tell them to go pound sand"  And some sellers do.  Sellers have a right to do that.  You have the right to do that.  Many experienced seller would tell you that is a very bad idea.  It will likely end up costing the seller more time and money because of their response.  It will likely end up with a Return Request or worse a Chargeback.  But again, you have the right to handle this in the way you see fit for your business.

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You are simply NOT getting it. 

The 'cancellation' should NOT be there beyond the time that it is there now for the simple reason that

When a buyer uses it, they automatically figure they will get their way..so if a seller does 1 of 2 things, it's ALL bad

1.) approve it, and have wasted time packing and or building/packing because a 'cancellation request' is allowed 2-3-4 days later (depending on, for example, what a Seller has for 'Handling Time'

2.) disapprove it- explain NICELY to the customer (but in REALITY, you will be telling them to 'go pound sand' and then HOPE they are not 'put off by it'

So either way, upset a customer or upset a seller. 

So again, VERY BAD idea. 

Oh, and 'hoping' that a buyer SHOULD understand it's ONLY a request- really? How many buyers think this way? 1 of 100?? 

[mam98031]

I'm not a new seller and I'm very aware of buyers tendencies.  However your experiences may be very different from mine and I respect that.

My experience has been that very few if any of the cancellation requests I've received over the years has ever come through the Formal way, within the first hour after the purchase.  All or the vast majority of them that I get come via a regular email later on the day they purchase or the next day.  It is rare to get one, for me, on day two or after.  Besides I would have shipped by then anyway.

I've had very few buyers over the years that have automatically figured I would approve the cancellation.  The ones I've denied over the years because I had already shipped, the buyers were fine with it.  And as a welcoming surprise, none of them Requested a Return.

That is just my experiences, your clearly are different.  I take no issue with that.

Well at least if you have buyers like that, your feedback is protected.  That is a positive thing.  It wasn't before.

[onlinecentral]

I would like Cancellations to be moved out of the eBay message Center and onto the Items Awaiting Shipment screen instead. Rename the screen Items I Need To Deal With or something else. Then I could either buy a shipping label or else issue the refund with the blue link to the left of the item on the same screen.

[robbie31415]

It's bad in multiple ways.

1) Buyers can massively avoid unpaid item strikes. (I believe this is the main reason for this change).

A lot of buyers end up on passive blocks due to unpaid item strikes for a year. Potential loss of money from other sellers they might actually pay to.

I guess the only way to combat this is to require IPR and require auto pay on all offers and bids.

2) Buyers are going to feel more rejected by sellers who who can't accept their request.

Maybe it would work for the small seller who ships one at a time and buys their labels on eBay. Void a label, don't ship not a problem.

Sellers who require time to ship for customized purchases, Larger volume sellers and sellers who use third party fulfilments. Will all be hindered by this.

It's a bad change.

However they keep pushing this narrative that we have new feedback protection. EBay was supposed to be t

Removing all buyer requested cancel feedback.

On the feedback removal tool, one of the examples for 'outside of my control' was this very issue.

But they will try and get you to drink the kool-aid that this change is to your benefit  

[iamalwaysright]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

devon@ebay 

I have my preferences set so that ebay automatically cancels for non payment at the four day mark (and relists my item).

Under this new policy, what will happen in this scenario?---

Buyer wins auction, but does not pay. Buyer waits 3 1/2 days, and then requests to cancel. 

I have three days in which to respond to that request. If I do not respond, ebay will automatically accept the request, and the buyer will not be hit with a Non Payment strike, per this new policy.

However, per my preference, if I do nothing, ebay should cancel on the 4th day for Non Payment and the buyer should get a strike.

So, which policy will govern? Does the cancellation request itself void my 4 day preference? Or will ebay honor the  choice I have made as seller?

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My educated guess would be that once a buyer files a formal cancellation request, they simply cannot ever get an unpaid payment strike for that transaction. Because that’s how the current dynamic is in regards to payment strikes and cancellation requests for auctions. If there is no change in that dynamic, then this is how it will work because there cannot be two cancellations filed in the same transaction.

You can sorta look at it as a first come first served for cancellations, whoever files theirs first will get it. And we all know cancellation requests always come before the 4 day automated unpaid cancellation. The buyer filing a cancellation request will trump and nullify your 4 day automated unpaid cancellation preference. Sorry.

[iamalwaysright]

Yea I agree that eBay should just give it one business day. Like I said earlier I’m liking the 3 days because of after hours friday cancellation requests. Under the current 48 hour period I have to accept it by Sunday night and I’ve admittedly missed a few of those.

I’d much rather see something like “by 1159pm on the next business day” to act.

[iamalwaysright]

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@onlinecentral wrote:

I would like Cancellations to be moved out of the eBay message Center and onto the Items Awaiting Shipment screen instead.

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Noooooooooo no no no no no. Keep them out of the Awaiting Shipments page and leave them in their own dedicated Live Cancellations page. I recall about two times in the past ebay glitched and transactions with active cancellation requests were left in the Awaiting Shipment page.

My employees aren’t the sharpest tools in the box and are pretty much like worker ants. Unable to deviate, no critical thinking skills. Just tell them exactly what to do and they’ll do it. So they are trained to pack and ship everything shown in the Awaiting Shipments page. You can see how badly that glitch affected me. Items got shipped out AND cancelled afterwards. I’d much rather have the cancellations removed and into their own page for an extra level of security.

[town3292]

yes so much easier to cancel now!

[town3292]

Yes that is a good idea, cheers

[mam98031]

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@town3292 wrote:

Yes that is a good idea, cheers

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That doesn't help sellers.  It can hurt them in their shipping on time metrics too.

[pineo]

I have had a couple cancellations since this policy was put into place. On none of them was the item automatically relisted when I accepted the cancellation, and there was never an option on the form to relist the item or not.

I have called customer service about it at least 4 times and each person told me completely different things -- you have to wait 24 hours for it to be relisted... you have to wait 2-5 days for the customer to confirm that they have had their money refunded and it will automatically be relisted -- you have to update the quantity manually from 0 to 1 (which then sets the total quantity to 2 for single, one-of-a-kind items, which is unacceptable)... it should have relisted automatically by now, and it's a glitch (which has affected my on 100% of my cancellations?)... you have to end the listing yourself, then relist (which removes all the watchers, leaves my positive feedback for the buyers, and records a sale of this item at this price that is not removed from sold listings). 

If you want sellers to view this as positive news, make it work like it should and quit making things up on the phone.

Nobody knows what they're doing in this company.

[kh-laura]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.