Why does eBay hide the FAQ?

[brighton_biker]

Why does eBay hide answers to FAQs in a listing? Potential bidders are highly unlikely to see a helpful FAQ answer.

It's not always possible to amend the listing as an alternative to public FAQ answers because you can't do so once there's a first bid. Potential bidders can ask questions whose answers are helpful to others, meaning FAQ answers would be useful to be more visible.

Why would eBay make FAQs less helpful for everyone?

[mam98031]

Have you checked your Site Preferences?  You set if these show up on your listing or not.

Yes, you are correct, you can't change a listings once there is a bid on it for very good reason.  When the buyer bid on the item you said it was one thing, after they bid you can't change it to say it is something else, that would be totally unfair to the buyer.

Ebay isn't harming you regarding FAQs.  Just go and adjust your settings.  It is under Manage Communications with buyers.  Then the option is towards the bottom.  Ebay does try to give us options.  You may want to go through all your Site Preferences so you can be familiar with them and change anything you need to change.

Good luck.

[a_c_green]

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@mam98031 wrote:

Yes, you are correct, you can't change a listings once there is a bid on it for very good reason.  When the buyer bid on the item you said it was one thing, after they bid you can't change it to say it is something else, that would be totally unfair to the buyer.

You can add to your description; you just can't modify the existing text. (Note that I don't think you can add to it either once you're within 12 or 24 hours of the end, something like that.)

In an auction where bids have been received, the original description and some other fields are locked in, but you will find a new field in the Listing Revision form called Additional description, to which you can add more details. You can also add additional photos.

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@mam98031 wrote:

Ebay isn't harming you regarding FAQs.  Just go and adjust your settings.  It is under Manage Communications with buyers.  Then the option is towards the bottom.  Ebay does try to give us options.  You may want to go through all your Site Preferences so you can be familiar with them and change anything you need to change.

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I assume you're referring to the https://www.ebay.com/cnt/ManageSellerFAQ page, where there's a checkbox defined as "Show your Q&A when buyers select 'Contact seller' on your listing." While that does seem to be functional, the prospective buyer would have to be following the Contact Seller path to even see that in the first place.

In the past, if you had some important Q&A exchange that you thought should be seen by others, you could check a box on your Messages page that would copy the question and answer directly to the bottom of the listing description, so that everyone would see it from then on. Now they've even buried the description itself, so they do not seem to be moving in the right direction at all.

[mam98031]

Yes I'm aware, however any additional description added will only apply to bidders AFTER that addition was posted.  The buyer that bid before it is held to the original description.  Well for what that is worth.

 I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.  It is in the Site Preferences under Buyer Communication.  As I previously described to the OP.

https://www.ebay.com/cnt/ManageBuyerCommunication

Which will get you to the same place as your link.

Yes lots of things have changed over the years on listings.  This one changed quite a few years ago.  I don't remember when.

[a_c_green]

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@mam98031 wrote:

Yes I'm aware, however any additional description added will only apply to bidders AFTER that addition was posted.  The buyer that bid before it is held to the original description.  Well for what that is worth.

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 True. I don't know whether this still applies, but in the past, one of the reasons you could choose from for retracting your bid was because the listing description had changed significantly since you placed your bid, and you no longer wanted to win it.

[mam98031]

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@a_c_green wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

Yes I'm aware, however any additional description added will only apply to bidders AFTER that addition was posted.  The buyer that bid before it is held to the original description.  Well for what that is worth.

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 True. I don't know whether this still applies, but in the past, one of the reasons you could choose from for retracting your bid was because the listing description had changed significantly since you placed your bid, and you no longer wanted to win it.

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That would be for a buyer to cancel the bid, but then they don't need to be overly factual when getting their bid cancelled.