eBay Auto-Generating Multiple Business Policies

[wilsonharborsales]

eBay has been auto-creating multiple new business policies (shipping policies and return policies).  Items that I have for sale are then being moved automatically into the new shipping policies.  Newly created listings are unable to go live because I get the following error: 'There is an issue with your listing: Shipping Policy'.  Not sure what the problem is, but it seems to be related to the new international shipping program.  If I don't keep on top of it, eBay will create hundreds of business policies automatically.  Each new policy has a string of computer code at the end of it.

Here is a video of someone having this issue:  https://youtu.be/isNLUnxnMYM

devon@ebay brian_burke@ebay 

[hk-resale]

* NOTE: Posting this here per a suggestion from another user (instead of starting a whole new thread)

Hi All,

Over the last several months we have experienced daily issues with Shipping Policies being generated by some automated system. When this happens, it seems to coincide with drops in impressions, views, and sales. 

We set up all of our shipping policies to cover our 21,000+ listings. All of the policies have the following format 1_[Policy Name] [Date Created].

We moved all of our listings into these policies, and as we create new listings, we move them into the appropriate policy (i.e., 1_Free Shipping_Small Items 1 Day 6-04-2023).

But seemingly at random, new policies are being generated and 1,000s of our listings are being moved into the newly created ones.

The policies have the following naming convention: [Calculated / Fixed]: [Service] [Price], [Handling Time] [Random alphanumeric string] (Flat: USPSMedia $4.99, 1 business day 4ed69be39f99000).

We then spend the time to clean the policies up (moving listings back into the correct policy) then deleting the system generated policies.

1) Is there something we are doing to cause this?

2) Should we be taking the time to clean these up?

3) Is this going to continue to happen?

4) Does the existence of these policies create any issues for visibility?

Here are some screenshots to show the auto-generated policies in our business policy management page.

[nataliesknickknacks]

devon@eBay Add me to the list of sellers encountering this issue.  Please advise how to fix this ASAP as I have some policies that are currently unusable because they automatically switch to system generated policies. 

[wastingtime101]

I was going through a friend's biz policies with them to see why they were seeing these auto-generated policies since this friend was not opted in to EIS.

That friend offered EISD shipping on some of their policies. EISD is set to be discontinued by the end of the month but we've seen reports it's been discontinued already for many sellers.

What we discovered is the duplicate policies were created only when the original policy offered EISD. If you go back to the original policy and select something other than EISD like a) USPS or b) select nothing so it can default to EIS if you're opted in - then you can reassign listings to their original policies and delete the duplicates.

The elimination of EISD caused existing policies to be invalid since they offered international shipping but there was no shipping service selected.

Tagging devon@ebay in case you find that info useful.

[24-hof]

Same Problem!!! Geesh eBay get your act together...this is nonsense

[quiet-village]

The answer is above but it might not be clear just repeating what seems to work.

1. Find the policy that is being duplicated

2. Edit the policy
3. Go to international

4. It may not show any service selected (OR Ebay Intl standard shipping...)
5. Set it to something standard like USPS Priority International and not blank or Ebay Shipping)
6. Save
7. Go to the duplicated policy and select edit and Move all the listings to the original policy
8. Wait a while and refresh page. If duplicated policy now shows 0 then delete it.

[little.luxe.armoire]

Devon, has there been any progress made on these issues?

I'm experiencing much of the same, including the fact that when eBay auto-generates new, unwanted shipping policies for me, it is including shipping location exclusions that I have been working for days to get rid of, even going so far as to opt out of the international shipping program, and opt out of Business Policies specifically so that I could finally access the location exclusion list in Account Settings to zero it out.

After opting back in to both Business Policies and the international shipping program and creating all new shipping policies, I find that creating a new listing still causes the system to auto-generate a new shipping policy and for some reason still pull my old location exclusions from some unknown place and append it to the bottom:

I can port my current listings over from the bad, eBay-created shipping policies (with location exclusions) to the good ones that I created (with no location exclusions), but anything I list, relist, or sell similar ends up on the bad side. I don't want to have to go in and reassign every time I make a new listing. So any word on this?

[chapeau-noir]

I finally tried business policies again (after people cited how helpful they were) and noped right out - they kept replicating and most made little sense. This is what happened when I tried them earlier. 😖

[little.luxe.armoire]

So a user on another thread suggested the one thing that I hadn't done the first time I opted out of Business Policies to try to fix this issue!

When opting out of Business Policies so you can access/edit the shipping exclusions page through Account Settings > Shipping Preferences (you can't get to this page when opted in to Business Policies), make sure to check the "apply to current listings" box when you've got your shipping exclusions the way you want them. Then opt back in to Business Policies.

When I did that, my policies came back, though eBay gave them names with lots of numbers and letters after them, but none had the list of excluded countries at the bottom. New listings are looking good and I'm not seeing any randomly-generated shipping policies.

So in my first attempt - even with zero locations excluded on the list in Shipping Preferences, AND zero exclusions in all of my nice, new shipping policies, AND all of my current listings linked to those new policies - eBay was pulling old exclusions from...somewhere for any new listing I created. But making sure that the "apply to current listings" box was checked before opting back in to Business Policies seems to have worked for me.

[little.luxe.armoire]

I spoke too soon. After I got my policies in order and was able to create a couple of new listings with no location exclusions, I thought that was that. Put my laptop down for the evening, decided to check the Business Policies before bed and eBay has again auto-generated new shipping policies and transferred random listings to them (the three circled at the bottom):

I did absolutely nothing eBay-related in the last few hours, so what prompted the system to do this?? Thought maybe it was 30-day listings auto-renewing, but it isn't - they all have various amounts of time remaining before renewing. I should count it as a partial win since at least the new shipping policies aren't excluding countries anymore. But come ON -  this is ridiculous.

[catsntatsvintage]

Just adding to the issues here - I did a major business policy cleanup the other day.  Took forever.  When I am creating new drafts today, ebay is making a new PAYMENT policy for me.  When I go to edit it to select my existing payment policy, there are no options available.  So I need to go into policies, migrate the listings, and then delete the stupid newly created policy.  

Like the shipping policies everyone has noted, my new payment policies have a long string of numbers added to the end.  I have seen lots of talk about the shipping issue being related to international - but this is payment policy.  

[little.luxe.armoire]

I never had new payment policies created (yet!), but I did have new return policies created once in a while, along with the many shipping ones.

After watching eBay continue to generate new shipping policies for me overnight and move active listings into them seemingly at random, I opted out of Business Policies for good and I'm going through all of my listing templates to make sure they are all updated instead. 

Also did a chat with customer service to report the issue, not that I think that will do a whole lot.

[shanefamilystorellc]

I am also having payment policies added to my account along with the shipping policies. I am going to try some of these methods discussed in this forum to see if anything will get resolved. Will update if things go well! Just wanted to respond so other people can see that there are more having the payment policy issue. 

[shanefamilystorellc]

I opted out of all business policies and it took the glitches off our listings. Will update if it somehow gets turned back on. 

[stuffygrotto]

It's still going on. Add me to the list of frustrated sellers regarding ebay generating policies at random, and without our consent. I only have 10 listings and spend literally hours fixing and/or undoing what they did!

I can't imagine the distress this has inflicted on sellers with hundreds or more listings.

[salvationarmyatlantaarc]

We were having a very similar issue where we had a "local pick up (123456789012)" shipping policy created each night. The 12 digit number would always be different.  Here is what we know- 

• It would only happen with auction style listings.
• It seemed to only happen overnight once the items were already listed.
• If the original shipping policy was calculated it would either remove all weights and measurements and make the item Local Pickup.... OR..... It would remove the measurements and retain the weight which would make ebay default to 1 x 1 x 1 on the measurements. 
• If we have a flatrate shipping cost - It would change the Shipping Policy to Local Pickup (xxxxxxxxxxxx) but retain the shipping fee which seems to be ok from the buyers point of view. 

Here is what we did that seemed to fix it - We revoked a 3rd party software we were using for sales analytics and it seemed to resolve the issue. 

We are working with the 3rd Party Software now to determine how this is happening.