eBay

iart · ‎03-12-2022

International buyer didn't receive item. They opened a case and it was closed within minutes before we even knew about it.

We reviewed the case and have decided to issue the buyer a refund of US $32.34 without any impact to you.

This case is now closed. You are not required to reimburse the buyer or eBay, and this case will not be counted in your seller performance evaluation.

gurlcat · ‎03-13-2022

I have yet to even see SOMEONE ELSE (like here in the forums) fall prey to a SNAD claim via the GSP, never mind experienced one myself. Anyone actually have a horror story to share, or just theory?

One of the reasons I finally took the plunge and joined was a CSR on Ebay For Business giving me about an hour of her time messaging back and forth with me, explaining how to set up my GSP and relieving my doubts, like how SNADs are handled differently with GSP transactions. Depending on various factors, either the buyer receives a refund without return (refund FROM EBAY, not the seller) or they have to send the item back to Kentucky (with return shipping label provided BY EBAY, not the seller) where it gets inspected, and if it really is significantly damaged or not as described, then again, Ebay issues the refund and doesn't take it from the seller's account.

So of course I immediately asked how that doesn't result in sellers sending boxes of rocks or whatever, and she said if one buyer claims it, that could just be THEM trying to scam but they will still refund that person, that one time, but if they claim it again from another seller they will be identified as a scam buyer and lose their account. Same goes for scam sellers; they may get away with it once, but only once.
Now I realize there's a whole spectrum of claims between trivial nitpicking and box-of-rocks, like significant cosmetic flaws or item usage dysfunctions, and those could be dishonesty on either the buyer's or seller's part, just like domestic transactions. But the general sense is that a GOOD, HONEST seller is ....okay ..... VIRTUALLY (if not absolutely) scam-proofed by the GSP. Any horror stories would almost inherently have to come from the storytelling seller not telling the embarrassing parts

And I will add, there is no reason to think a citizen of some other country is more likely to even TRY to scam than an American one, in fact from all I've seen the opposite is true. My foreign buyers have made me notice just how much more impatient, petty and opportunistic my fellow Americans can be, LOL.

gurlcat · ‎03-14-2022

Okay, now yall wanna read something funny? Well, you might find it funny anyway; personally I feel like the butt of a cruel joke right now, but even from here I can see the ironic hilarity of it. So, as if the powers that be knew I wrote all these praises about the GSP, and wanted to show me what-for, I literally ran into a glaring problem with the program that I didn't know about before.
Get this: Apparently, when an international buyer purchases 2 or more of your items and pays for them together, the shipping AUTOMATICALLY combines, and there is no way to force a split into multiple labels, regardless of why you might need to. Actually it's possible that I already witnessed this without even noticing, because if anyone bought multiple small items from me it wouldn't have posed a problem and I would have combined those anyway, and the fact that the combination was already set up to receive a single label could have slipped my notice just because I had umpteen other packages to buy labels for. But the reason it definitely got my attention today was this: the buyer purchased two very large and heavy mixed jewelry lots from me, both in decorative vintage tins, so they commanded specific dimensions as opposed to being 'squishable' into ziplocs or whatever. For that reason, they would both have to ship in Priority Large Flat Rate boxes, and I priced their shipping charge accordingly, in their listings. But since this buyer got both of them, I am now digging around my house desperately trying to find a box big enough and strong enough for both huge and incredibly heavy tins to fit in together (and no, I would not trust a 'frankenbox' made of the two LFR's taped together, because that particular box is ridiculously thin already, which I've been saying for years. And even if I do manage to find something sufficient, I'm definitely going to be eating some amount of cost for shipping such a heavy total weight WITHOUT a Flat Rate option.
Yes, I spent an eternity with a CSR on the phone, trying to figure out some way to re-separate the purchases, but apparently it has to do with all the shipping and custom fees that occur beyond Kentucky.
I was even prepared to buy a label for just one of the boxes through Ebay, and the other on the USPS Click n' Ship website, but the CSR said that won't work either, because that one would arrive to the KY facility with no way for employees to know what order it was for, since there's no way to link an additional tracking number to this order.
Thing is, this exact situation isn't likely to happen often, but I do need to figure out how to prevent it happening again if possible. I could just make large lots ineligible for GSP but it would suck to miss out on the potential sales, especially since most buyers would only buy one. The only thing I can think of is if I actually select the Priority Large Flat Rate Box from the menu on the listing page (which I think you can do, not certain), as opposed to just selecting Priority and typing in the price of the LFR label. Maybe THIS would stop the auto-combination somehow, but it's such a deep-tech question, I don't even know who I could ask. I guess I'll try Ebay For Business.

dbfolks166mt · ‎03-14-2022

When the shipping got combined and the GSC sent the buyer the invoice for the purchase what was the allowance or what did they charge the buyer for the domestic shipping leg for both items from Alabama to Kentucky? I.E. did they add the shipping costs you had on the listings together ($21.75 and $14.75) for a total domestic shipping charge to the buyer of $36.50?

I assume these are the 17 pound and 13.5 pound tins that you sold? I have shipped some items in a small home depot box which is 11 x 11 x 17 if you can get both items in a box that size you can ship Priority mail from Alabama to Kentucky for around $45. UPS is a lot cheaper in this case. I checked the rates on Pirate Ship and from Alabama to Erlanger a couple of examples are below.

gurlcat · ‎03-14-2022

Yes, spot on, but how can you see what items someone has sold? Kind of creepy, though not specifically in this instance. I had no idea this was possible and one could probably think of reasons they'd rather the info not be available to certain people in certain situations. I mean it's different when it comes to looking at sold items (of a search term) and see who sold them and what else they have, etc. but just something about the seller being the subject of a 'solds' investigation .... feels more like something that could be used against them, lol.
Anyway yeah, so I only had to cough up an extra $5 (I purchased the label right after writing about the situation, was surprised and glad the damage wasn't TOO bad). Really the bigger problem for me was the box, because my car isn't running (I'm having packages picked up for shipping) so running to a store for a big box wouldn't be an option. I managed to find one in the garage that we had stuff stored in, dumped all that out, and used a ton of tape since it feels kind of floppy after years outdoors in Mobile humidity.
I think what troubles me most is how incredibly hard it COULD be, like if someone purchased two really big items that are also irregular with lots of odd angles that don't 'Tetris' together in any way. Or a really heavy item and an extremely fragile item (you know writing 'This side up' doesn't mean diddly to sorting facility workers). Or what if someone purchased not just two but.....heck..... FIVE, TEN big items. If this auto-combining thing just happens every time no matter what, surely it results in literally impossible scenarios sometimes. Mind you I my perspective of 'impossible' comes from the 4 years before Ebay that I raised and caught live fish for aquaria, shipped them all over the country in however many gallons of water they needed, in boiling July or frozen January, so I don't spook easily, ha. But this auto-combining thing has a certain 'overreach' feel to it, and falable in its' blindness, which I don't like at all. And I've now been on Ebay about 4 years, so I don't spook easily about blind overreach either, LOL!!!

gurlcat · ‎03-14-2022

I'm going to start a thread about this because now that I've read what the Help page says about shipping for the GSP, I'm not even sure multi-item purchases DO auto-combine, like maybe this buyer somehow made it happen. He DID write after winning the 2 auctions to request combined shipping, I explained why I couldn't do it, he then waited another 36 hours or so before paying, and that's when I saw that the 2 items were an inseparable order. The Help page says "If possible, ship all items in a single order in one package." --Like it's the seller's option! Also it says if you buy a label anywhere outside ebay, to put the tracking number in the order and WRITE THE REFERNCE NUMBER ON THE LABEL (so the Kentucky folks know where to forward the package to). -That's totally NOT what that CSR said today; he acted like you can only buy a GSP label on ebay. I THOUGHT he might be full of sh and now I wish I had dug up the Help page before going along with what he said.

dbfolks166mt · ‎03-14-2022

Not that difficult to see what sellers have listed and/or what they have sold. I simply clicked on your view listings then scrolled down the left side and selected sold. While it may be disconcerting to some it actually helps participants to this forum answer some questions when posters ask questions.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-14-2022

If the buyer uses the cart when paying for a gsp order it is automatically combined and paid for together. The buyer does receive a combined shipping cost for the international shipping portion and for the import fees. For the domestic shipping, the buyer pays the full shipping cost for each listing. They do not receive a domestic combined shipping account even if the seller has combined rules set up.

dbfolks166mt · ‎03-14-2022

Customer support is less than optimal these days and it seems like their primary goal is to get you an answer that will get you to end the discussion regardless of whether it is the right or the wrong answer. It's not just the GSP that has some glitches with consolidated shipping. BiN items with immediate payment required can cause headaches if the buyer does not use the shopping cart to purchase several items. Even auctions present issues if the buyer pays for the individual items as the auctions end rather than waiting for all the auctions to end before paying.

I have had a couple of situations where I had to work with the buyer and cancel multiple requests using buyer requested as the reason and then create a custom bundled listing incorporating all the items they wanted to buy into one posting and letting them know when it was posted and the listing number so they could make the re-purchase beoe somebody else did.

gurlcat · ‎03-14-2022

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
If the buyer uses the cart when paying for a gsp order it is automatically combined and paid for together. The buyer does receive a combined shipping cost for the international shipping portion and for the import fees. For the domestic shipping, the buyer pays the full shipping cost for each listing. They do not receive a domestic combined shipping account even if the seller has combined rules set up.

I get that, but I'm not talking about what the buyer is expected to pay, rather what the seller is expected to DO (combine items into one package with one label, whether it's feasible or not).