Yet another way Ebay is creating problems between sellers and buyers

[gurlcat]

So apparently Ebay has started some new (?) pay-by-date thing that can contradict the date a seller has set in their site preferences, which is bound to create confusion and resentment.

I will give my own example for illustrative purposes, but I am not asking for help or criticism; this is information for anyone who may need it in the future.

In case you didn't know, on your seller page, Shortcuts > Site Preferences > Unpaid Item Assistant, here is where you can set the number of days before the buyer receives an unpaid item notice, for an auction win, offer from seller accepted, or offer to seller accepted. You can set it as low as 2 days, which I do, because the only reason I even make offers is because I'm trying to move stuff FAST. Honestly I see no reason why Ebay can't treat an offer sent by seller and accepted by buyer the same as 'immediate payment for BIN' since the buyer has to accept the offer in real time. But whatever.

Additionally, even when the buyer receives an unpaid item notification, they have FOUR MORE days to pay, and if they don't, basically nothing happens to them and the seller has to start all over, after those 6 days of waiting with their item held hostage from anyone else buying it.

And now apparently Ebay has made it even more confusing/contentious.

I sent a bunch of offers to watchers on Monday (the 19th) and most of the accepting buyers paid immediately, but one did not. Within a few hours I sent her an invoice, which is redundant but then the person can't say I didn't send an invoice (been there, done that).

So today rolls along, no payment, no message from this buyer, and I know she will receive an unpaid notice tonight. So just to see if she's a living human, I sent her a simple message this morning: "Hi, you accepted this offer on the 19th, when do you intend to pay?"

She quickly replies with this message (below). Truth be told she's right about me being unhappy, more about not getting the courtesy of a message to let me know when she would pay before I ask, than the $15 itself, but I don't know how she thought I "sounded" unhappy, because I didn't include smiley faces or apologize for bothering her or something? Anyway, according to her screenshot, Ebay told her to pay by the 23rd, which is 4 days after she accepted, and according to her this is some "new" thing. But she is still going to receive the unpaid notice tonight, two days before she thought the payment was "due", and probably assume that I'm manually sending the notice to be mean to her.

So I called Ebay, got a poor English-speaker, who just explained what I already knew about how the Unpaid Item Assistant thing works, didn't seem to understand what I was saying about this "new" thing the buyer is talking about. I don't know why I even tried, honestly.

Here's just another reason I'll hesitate to make offers again.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Brian....sorry...I think I misunderstood the OP's post....she didn't actually file an Unpaid Item case, she has it set to auto do that, and so she assumed that had happened. If I'm understanding correctly, if her Unpaid Item case had been set for automatic, the new system changes her over to the new system by default. But, since she didn't read the announcement about the new system, she contacted the buyer needlessly (as the buyer pointed out) because she incorrectly thought the unpaid item case was moving forward.

 The lesson, it appears, is twofold: for me: read the Original post more carefully and, for ebay sellers generally, keep up with announcements so you don't do what the seller did here.

[gurlcat]

DOH!  I did not mean to hit the 'Accept as soluion' thing, lol!  Sorry but that's actually NOT what I'm talking about.  The date counts don't even match.  My automatic notice thing is set for TWO days, this buyer is saying FOUR days, while you are talking about FIVE days.  According to the CSR I talked to earlier, the actual course of ACTION is still the same.  The buyer will receive a notice tonight (2 days), and if she doesn't pay in 4 more days, the sale will cancel.  If that CSR was wrong then this is just another example of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, on Ebay. 

[downunder-61]

The lesson, it appears, is twofold: for me: read the Original post more carefully and, for ebay sellers generally, keep up with announcements so you don't do what the seller did here.

I am so totally on board with the first part, I feel foolish a terrible for jumping to conclusions

[gurlcat]

The link you provided doesn't have information like what you are talking about.  No "5 days" anywhere.  

[gurlcat]

Okay, I finally found the thing you are talking about.  But then why does my Site Preferences still have the thing called Unpaid Item Assistant, if that is supposedly now changed to something called "Preferences for items awaiting payment.”  *$&)@$*^ is this ANOTHER "roll out" thing only applying to SOME people at first, then graaaaadually affecting everyone?  

[coolections]

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@gurlcat wrote:

Within a few hours I sent her an invoice, which is redundant

I know she will receive an unpaid notice tonight.

So just to see if she's a living human, I sent her a simple message this morning, when do you intend to pay?"

No need to see if your buyer is a human, she obviously is. No need to keep messaging and pestering your buyer. You already had unpaid set so Ebay will automatically remind the buyer. Stop bugging your buyers.

As Brian pointed out the buyer actually has to pay one day earlier then you thought.

[gurlcat]

No need to make scolding replies to a post where the person actually said "I'm not asking for help or criticism".  But I guess some Karens just cannot resist.  Asking a buyer when they intend to pay is not "pestering."  Accepting a generously lower offer for something and then not paying or even messaging the seller to say "I'll pay for this when I get paid Friday" or whatever, that is RUDE. 

[mtgraves7984]

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@gurlcat wrote:

Okay, I finally found the thing you are talking about.  But then why does my Site Preferences still have the thing called Unpaid Item Assistant, if that is supposedly now changed to something called "Preferences for items awaiting payment.”  *$&)@$*^ is this ANOTHER "roll out" thing only applying to SOME people at first, then graaaaadually affecting everyone?  

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@gurlcat 

Your thread caused the need to check my own Site Preferences. I don't have my Unpaid Item Assistant on... but I played around with it, and it still appears that I could turn it on and save it  as my Preference. Hmmm...

[brian@ebay]

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@gurlcat wrote:

Okay, I finally found the thing you are talking about.  But then why does my Site Preferences still have the thing called Unpaid Item Assistant, if that is supposedly now changed to something called "Preferences for items awaiting payment.”  *$&)@$*^ is this ANOTHER "roll out" thing only applying to SOME people at first, then graaaaadually affecting everyone?  

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@gurlcat I totally get why that is confusing and am sorry for any concern it has caused. The Unpaid Item Assistant setting will be replaced with the new setting mentioned on the page I linked earlier. Sellers that are using the UPI assistant will be migrated to the new preference automatically. 

My understanding is if the buyer received an email with the new time then that transaction falls under the new order cancellation process for unpaid items and not the old Unpaid Item Case process. If a seller tries to open a UPI then they will be directed to cancel the transaction instead in these situations.

[pvcliff]

Yikes:  "Sellers are more likely to give you positive feedback if you pay right away".  From eBay reminder note screen shot in message 10. I'd take that out of there!

[gjs_16]

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@gurlcat wrote:

DOH!  I did not mean to hit the 'Accept as soluion' thing, lol!  Sorry but that's actually NOT what I'm talking about.  The date counts don't even match.  My automatic notice thing is set for TWO days, this buyer is saying FOUR days, while you are talking about FIVE days.  According to the CSR I talked to earlier, the actual course of ACTION is still the same.  The buyer will receive a notice tonight (2 days), and if she doesn't pay in 4 more days, the sale will cancel.  If that CSR was wrong then this is just another example of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, on Ebay. 

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Sad, when sellers here know more about the system than anyone else, especially CSR's and blues.

I also think it's silly that an "accepted" offer doesn't turn into a BIN right then...
I mean, really...
Why not?

Like you said, whatever, we all try and roll with the punches and not come off like we're always complaining, we want to comply and attempt to navigate the system as best as possible... I can't particularly say I've noticed this 4-5-6 day issue but I can agree that your date and the Pay-by-date causes confusion and possible anger and resentment...

If anything, the "Pay By" date SHOULD be the day just BEFORE the UPI opens, 
And not the last day before it closes because the instant a buyer sees the UPI it feels like being pulled over by the police... You haven't done anything wrong you know, but here's your warning.

I would be upset, as a buyer.

That being said I've learned to maintain as much radio silence as possible with all buyers, eaby already automatically spams way too much... At last count a buyer receives SEVEN emails for every purchase, more if it's an offer / auction / etc.
SEVEN unsolicited spams we can't turn off except by setting filters to DELETE all the "HEY LOOK YOU WON!" and "HEY YOU ACTUALLY PAID FOR THAT" and "Oh we're going to ship it!" and "WE DID, WE DID SHIPPED IT" and "You should see it SOON!" and on and on and on...

I can't stand it when sellers message me even once more, and that's another, sellers seem to think their communication DSR's hinge on sending MESSAGES, rest assured the DSR's stars rest on silence.

/rant

[gurlcat]

"Yikes:  "Sellers are more likely to give you positive feedback if you pay right away".  From eBay reminder note screen shot in message 10. I'd take that out of there!"

--Ha, why do you find that problematic?  I think it's awesome, or at least more seller-advocating than Ebay usually is.  In simple fact we can't leave them NEGATIVE feedback no matter what effedup stuff they do, but we don't have to leave them any feedback at all, and some buyers actually care about their feedback counts, though I don't know why unless they're also new sellers and want to fluff their overall numbers to build trust in their shoppers.  And some buyers probably don't even know that we can't neg them, so this message from ebay might be helpful to put a little fire at the behinds of those people.  And if nothing else, just using the word "sellers" and referring to our reactions is a reminder that we are individual human beings, in fact it can INFORM the most clueless buyers, who don't even know that fact, and just think they are buying "from Ebay" like "from Walmart."  I appreciate Ebay humanizing us for once.  It's like a musician or comedian on stage using their microphone to tell the drinking audience "Tip your waitresses folks, tip your waitresses."  LOL. 

[buyselljack2016]

I also think it's silly that an "accepted" offer doesn't turn into a BIN right then...
I mean, really...
Why not?

__________________________________________________________________

Buyer makes an offer at 11PM "east coast" time, watches the news, and off to sleep.

The seller on the "west coast" checks their account at 10 PM after getting home from wherever.  Considers the offer. Accepts the offer.

It's is now 1 AM "east coast" time. IPR?

[gurlcat]

Yeah, there's absolutely no reason why a buyer accepting a seller offer shouldn't be required to pay immediately, after all they are right there accepting the offer in real time, on the same device they could use to pay immediately, so there's no excuse not to, or require them to.    It's different from winning an auction (which could be done with a proxy bid placed days before), or having an offer sent to the seller approved by them, because in those cases the buyer may not immediately know the item is theirs to pay for.  But even in those scenarios, what is Ebay's ostensible reason for giving them more than (say) 24 hours?    Matter of fact, the whole reason I stopped enabling the "Allow Offers" feature on all my listings had nothing to do with being a greedy Scrooge; rather it was this: I started seeing an annoying and fairly frequent pattern, where I would accept a reasonable offer (or even a not-so-reasonable one, because I had some situation where I needed money, and getting the lowball amount QUICKLY looked better than waiting who-knows-how-long for more money) ..... but all too often buyers would just not pay or even communicate anything for days on end.   

     It made me realize, these people have figured out how to secure an item they want, stop anyone else from getting it, even if they don't currently have enough money for it and won't until X days later.  The most sickening part is, the loophole they're taking advantage of is the one where they're already taking advantage of sellers' generosity, getting them to accept LESS money!  In fact for all you know, they would be willing to pay the original price, but offering less is the workaround they know to use, if they want to make sure nobody else buys it. 

     Just imagine if you were running a garage sale and someone offered $20 for a $25-priced item, you said yes, and they just wordlessly turned around and walked away (to .... go get the money from their car...or...????).    How long would you hold the item under the table for them, with no idea when or even IF they would come back?  LOL!  Now imagine that when you said "Sure, okay" the item moved by itself into a locked black box ..... for up to SIX DAYS.  That is how it works on the so-called "online garage sale."  And some people have figured that out and don't care how it affects sellers. 

     Here's how I know it's true: Even without 'Allow Offers' enabled, I frequently get shoppers emailing me offers.  More often than not, it's a reasonable offer that I am willing to accept, and even when it's kinda cringey, if they include a nice sob story about how much they want it but can only afford $____ , well, I have a heart and if nothing else a nicely-written email is less insulting than "Give you 60" or whatever  caveman excuse for communication some people send (probably resellers who make tons of offers to gather as much inventory as possible, ha).  Now, yes Ebay, I see your bot-generated button at the top of the shopper's message, where I could hit "make offer" and set it to the amount that the buyer is offering me .....how convenient for both of us, huh?  Thanks but no thanks.  I open the listing and revise the price to the buyer's offer, then immediately write to tell them the good news!  Now they can get it for their offer price, but they'll have to pay immediately.  And anybody else who sees it can get it for that price too, so they better hurry! (<--I don't say that, it's implied, ha).  But guess what?  --About a quarter of these people don't follow through and actually buy, or they do but days later.   This tells me they didn't have the money when they wrote to make an offer, and hoped I would use that 'Make Offer' button so they could secure the item until whenever.  There was one time when I did this and someone else bought the item within the next hour or so (probably a watcher who got a notification that I reduced the price).  I felt kinda bad, but not really, I mean I'm not selling insulin or kidneys, ha.  And if they reeeeeally wanted the ring, coin, figurine or whatever, and can't find one like it anywhere else, they could have bought it for the original price.  

     As for why Ebay gives buyers multiple days to pay in these 3 types of sales, I can only figure this: they can afford to wait, as they get a steady, daily stream of crazy money, so having to wait for any SINGLE sale payment is nothing to them, in fact offering delayed payment scenarios undoubtedly fetches them sales that would otherwise go to Etsy, Mercari or whatever.   If they had a way to absolutely force buyers to pay for BIN's by some (later) date, without angering and permanently losing those buyers, I'm sure they would do it, and then we'd have to wait for ALL our revenues, on top of the new Managed Payments delay.    

[gurlcat]

It's really a neutral and straightforward statement of fact, followed by a simple question.  Ask yourself this, would you accept a reduced-price offer from a seller and then not pay for 2 days or even write to them to tell them when you'll pay?  Would you really consider them impatient for simply trying to prompt communication that you had thus far neglected to do?  I wouldn't dream of letting 2 whole days pass like that.  I once won an auction that I forgot I bid on, it ended in the middle of the night, and I didn't see the notification that I won until the evening of the next night (so maybe 12 hours).  Ha, I felt like scum.   And from what this buyer said, she was going to wait 5 days because that's what Ebay told her she could do.  If a buyer is triggered by reminders that real human beings are waiting for them to treat them as such, I'm not going to pamper that, lol.