eBay - How About Parsing Customer's Addresses - Long Overdue

[anthology-of-treasures]

eBay claims it wants as few problems with purchases as possible and frowns on any communication between the buyer and seller that might slow that process down yet I fail to understand why eBay has not fixed, after many years, issues with properly parsing customer addresses as part of the signup process or at any time the customer changes their shipping address.

In this example eBay's label printing service generates an error indicating that individual lines of the address can't exceed 40 characters.

Customer Name, Customer's Big Company Name

Street Address

(Blank Address Field)

City, State Zip

One would think I could manually fix this by moving the street address down to the blank line and moving the company name to the second line as below:

Customer Name

Customer's Big Company Name

Street Address

City, State Zip

Or its proper format of:

Customer's Big Company Name

Customer Name

Street Address

City, State Zip

But no - when you save the address eBay rearranges it to:

Customer Name

Street Address

Customer's Big Company Name

City, State Zip

Having to manually fix the address is; however, a moot point as sellers should not have to see these errors in the first place. If eBay's system can parse the address after the customer has bought something then it can also parse the address as part of the signup process, and at any time the customer changes their address, to make sure sellers never have to see such errors and the resulting orders are not delayed.

Other such errors have included the customer including a extra "." after their state abbreviation such as "TX."; an extra punctuation mark in the street address; or a improperly abbreviated word in the address.

Of course when any of these errors are presented the seller gets the usual warning about possibly not being covered by seller protection if they change the address. This leaves the burning question as to what exactly is eBay using the fees I pay them for - certainly not fixing this issue after many years of complaints.

[duchess-at-speakeasy]

In almost 20 years on eBay, I have never experienced this kind of issue. Believe me, some of the addresses I see are a mess (typos, excess punctuation, all lower case, poor spelling) and I am always able to fix them before preparing a label.

I check USPS for possible multi-unit buildings. I also send a personal e-mail to each buyer, specifying the name and address I intend to use, just in case the information is totally wrong.

Of course, I hand-write labels so, if there's a technical glitch with eBay or Paypal online labels, I do not see it. But the process seems to be working unless the whole label-prep system is down, which occasionally has been reported.

~~C~~

[lintbrush*]

Why respond how it's not an issue for you?  Of course it's not.  You buy at the counter and handwrite your labels.

This is about the eBay shipping platform blocking purchase of labels because there's a problem with the address (usually too long) but if a seller goes to change them, they have a potential issue with Seller Protection.

[anthology-of-treasures]

Fortunately I archieve screen shots of any problem for my own protection.

This issue is even more be

Fortunately I archive screen shots of any problem for my own protection based upon past calls to eBay customer service. I've also started recording eBay customer service so that there is a record of that also.

This issue is even more bizarre in that none of the lines actually contain more than 40 characters. So perhaps one of the input fields had extra non-printable characters in it that the customer was able to enter, although that sort of thing is supposed to be prevented by proper computer coding on eBay's end, but that does not appear to be the issue as deleting each field and retyping it by hand does not fix the issue.

To make matters worse eBay's system was pointing to the street address line which only had 12 characters so there are actually two errors here - there's not more than 40 characters on any line and eBay is pointing to a line which has the fewest characters.

After two phone calls with eBay and 3 emails to the customers eBay's solution was to remove the business name from the first line and place in front of the street address. That does not follow postal address standards.

Customer Name

Customer's Big Company Name, Street Address

City, State Zip

Of course this did not remove the warning about this item possibly not being covered by the seller protection policy. Of course eBay customer service guaranteed me on the phone that this change would not be an issue with the seller protection policy. Somehow I don't think eBay's nonbinding customer service statements can trump eBay's written TOS.

Well at least its not as bad as customer service telling me to ship to a customer from Canada who circumvented eBay's ability to block shipments to foreign countries by having items shipped to a third party in the U.S. Yes, I am suppose to have trust in a buyer whose first act is to violate the terms on my listing, not to mention previous transactions the buyer had engaged in.

Best practices apparently do not apply to eBay itself.

[anthology-of-treasures]

Thanks for your input.

"In almost 20 years on eBay, I have never experienced this kind of issue. Believe me, some of the addresses I see are a mess (typos, excess punctuation, all lower case, poor spelling) and I am always able to fix them before preparing a label."

Having worked for a local wholesaler for multiple years before eBay existed in addition to sales on eBay and online venues plus some brick and mortar stores I've accumulated quite a collection of shipping tales.

"I check USPS for possible multi-unit buildings."

Really my job. That's eBay job. If eBay's system has been been improperly coded to find these errors after a purchase has been made as opposed to taking preventative measures to make sure the address is correct as part of the registration process and change of shipping address process. This stuff just not happen on its own - people had to sit down and write computer code to make it happen.

"I also send a personal e-mail to each buyer, specifying the name and address I intend to use, just in case the information is totally wrong."

Having worked in a wholesale warehouse as a shipping clerk where I'd ship 300-400 packages per day by UPS alone plus more packages to USPS and our own trucking routes we would have gone out of business if we needed to contact each customer to verify their shipping address, especially when customers would often place multiple orders each day.

"Of course, I hand-write labels so,"

I don't. Time is money. Handing writing labels, standing in line at the USPS, waiting for a clerk to weigh each package, and paying for a transaction is an utter waste of time. This time would have to absorbed in to the cost of the product. Its also more expensive for customers as one has to pay the retail rate as opposed to the commercial rate - I'd have to jack up the price of any listing that used flat rate boxes in order to take more time to process orders - that makes little sense.

"if there's a technical glitch with eBay or Paypal online labels, I do not see it. But the process seems to be working unless the whole label-prep system is down, which occasionally has been reported."

Having been self taught in the field of computer programming in order to make my own time saving desktop applications thats really not how it works. Its really not a glitch in the sense that stuff just happens, its because the computer code that controls eBay's system was improperly written to not account for a particular set of circumstance which can effect one single customer, hundreds of people, or even the entire system.

Why for instance could a customer even type in "TX." for the state in the first place? Better to use a simply popup menu with a list of states on it and then or have your computer code check text as the customer types to prevent in any invalid characters form being entered into the state input field.

[garmentvarmint2004]

LINT..

Why  are  you  criticising Dichess---of  all  people?  She  is  by far one of THE  most  helpful  posters  on   this  Board.  And  she  gave  some  very  good  information  on  what   kinds  of  addrsses  cause  the most  probloms  ---and  told   others  what  to l+ook  out  for. 

[duchess-at-speakeasy]

Fixing or rearranging the components of a mailing label does not cause issues with Seller Protection. Actually CHANGING the address, city, state or zip code does impact the result.

Remember, English is not eBay's first language. But "may" covers all the bases and does not mean "will."

Even though I don't use eBay's online shipping platform, I recognize that the OP's problem may involve a glitch that is best discussed on the Technical Issues board. Or the buyer needs to learn how to write his/her name and mailing address correctly.

~~C~~

[garmentvarmint2004]

LINT..  My message  to  you  somehow  got  lost--and now  I   cannot  find  the  Reply  button that  was  under  your  Post.

BUT,  do  want  to   say  that  I  do  not  know  why  you   criticised  Duchess --of  all  people!   She  is  by  far  the  most helprful  person  on  this  Board.  AND she  gave  very  useful  information   as  to  how  manydifferent  ways    addreses  can be   scerwed  up---and she  told   other   sellers  what  to  look  for. 

[lintbrush*]

@garmentvarmint2004

I respect Duchess tremendously, but I don't think her post was relevant regarding  names/business names/addresses exceeding 40 characters that has been plaguing the eBay shipping label platform for years. 

And when a seller goes to purchase a label using said platform it says "Eligible for seller protection" but the moment you change one thing - even the name line by a letter or even by adding Mr or Mrs - the seller protection wording goes away. 

So yes, her response did not address the issue at hand - that eBay (or PayPal) hasn't put a 'check' in palce preventing the buyer from providing more than 40 characters per line thus ultimately stopping the automated label purchase process and unless altered, cannot go forward.  It's just ridiculous that the invalid address is eligible for seller protection but you can't use it as presented.

[green-night]

It's just ridiculous that the invalid address is eligible for seller protection but you can't use it as presented.

I agree.

And the issue the OP brings up is a very annoying one at that.   Always wondered why it isn't until the point you need to print the label that all of a sudden it is an "invalid address".   Like thanks a lot ebay & paypal.   Then spend 10 minutes trying to rearrange the address so it works. 

[electrola_man]

Yes, this is a recurring problem.  I just ran into it today, and after reading this thread, I decided to just delete seemingly unnecessary characters until it was accepted and hope for the best.  I was able to delete one space, and it was okay...but I probably lose seller protection.

[euramtec]

I also run into this constantly. I do not understand why eBay allows addresses that do not fit on a label.

Or how something like this can get all the way to the point where it's on an order:

[evelyb30]

This is an old thread, but this is a follow-up.  The (ahems) at the USPS or whoever wrote the buggy software STILL haven't fixed it.  I just shipped something to Russia, which doesn't have much seller protection anyway, and had to write part of the address in by hand because the lamebrained software kept complaining that it was over the 40-charecter limit.  

In a word....ARGGGGH!  I can make my own stupid mistakes Ebay; I don't need yours too!

[cordeliaflyte]

This is STILL an issue and I've called ebay so many times about it and they won't admit it is an issue... just try to hard sell me on using GSP.

I most often encounter problems with international shipping... it looks to me like, in some countries, the buyers have not been provided a CITY field, so they always stick their city on a street address line. Then the USPS system doesn't recognize it as a valid address. If I go in and try to fix it, I am not provided with a city field, so I have no way of making it a valid address. This seems to happen most often with addresses in Hong Kong and Macau.

I've also had the same issue where the form seems to demand a zip code for countries that don't use them and won't take no for an answer. (They have numbers before their cities, in a different format usually).

All of these result in errors and being unable to purchase or print a label, so I'll have to take it to the PO and fill out a form by hand, in which case I usually have to pay more for the postage.

I keep telling ebay these are bugs in how international addresses are parsed, but they keep telling me to use GPS and there's no apparent way to talk to anyone who'll get into the issue properly. (Unless I upgrade to the next level store, I guess).

I love ebay, but this is a regular source of frustration.