Address Line Maximum Characters Limit

[just_kampers]

Hi,

eBay's address line limit of 40 characters is really anoying, can this be configured anywhere within 'My Account'? The couriers I use (DPD, UPS & ROYAL MAIL) have character limits ranging anywhere between 30 and 40 characters per line dependant upon the courier. 50%+ of all of my eBay orders require manual address correction in order to produce a shipping label. It might not sound much but I sell high volumes and this process can be extremely time consuming. Consider 30 seconds per order and having to adjust 50 orders per day. Thats nearly 30 minutes of someones time! A lower character limit compatible with the majority of the mainstream couriers should be adopted. Anyone know if there is a way to overcome this?

Thanks

[berserkerplanet]

You are in the UK and posting on the US boards. This issue definitely needs to be on the UK boards since it is an ebay.co.uk issue.

For ebay.com it is not configurable and I doubt it is in the UK either.

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for ebay to change that - it would break existing third part software everywhere, cause problems for those for whom the current 40 chars is working, and potentially invalidate 10's (100's?) of millions eBay and PayPal addresses in the databases that would magically be too long if they were already pushing the 40 char limit.

You say you are a volume seller. Find a third party shipping or order management solution that can automate the address corrections for you (there must be one I'd think).

Good luck.

[just_kampers]

Thanks for your reply. I figured this was probably the case. I built a custom app to handle our orders via the API so will try to auto correct them within that during the import process. Shouldn't be too difficult but a limit at source would be much better.

Understand your comments about third party integrations, but we do use global couriers (DPD and UPS arent UK only!). Just seems odd that eBay have a higher character limit than the likes of these couriers support, surely I'm not the only one facing this issue!

All the best

Ashley

[berserkerplanet]

Sorry to not be a bringer of good news.

USPS uses 40 characters, and that's probably the spec eBay originally conformed to back in the day.

FedEx and UPS do both have 35 char limits, and it is a problem on occasion for some sellers on this side of the pond, but again, doubtful it will change in the foreseeable future - it would just break too many things (internal and external) to justify for mitigating the current inconvenience to a relative few.

Good luck with it.

b.