eBay standard envelope service not working

[jorfour78]

Is anyone else having trouble using the eBay standard envelope option when listing a trading card? A lot of the posts on this topic seem pretty old that’s why I’m asking. I went to post 3 separate items last night and it let me do the first 2 cards with ebay standard envelope with no problem. When I went to list the 3rd card it would no longer come up with the option. I called customer service and she looked into it and can’t seem to figure out why it’s not coming up. She said that she would be sending a report to the IT department and gave me a reference number. Just curious if anyone else is currently having this issue.

[pjcdn2005]

I don't know why as they all look to be in the right category. Is it the Gronkowski listing that currently has 10 bids? If so, it's probably good that you didn't list it with standard envelope as you can't use it to ship single cards that sold for more than $20.

[jorfour78]

It’s when creating a new listing I can’t select ‘ebay standard envelope’ when I go to finish the listing. The weight and size are all the same as my current items for auction. I know items over $20 don’t qualify for this level of service. I was able to print out labels that sold with this level of service. Don’t know why I can’t post new ones with it.

[matdo-94]

I have not been able to use Ebay Standard Envelope (ESE) since February 7, 2023. I contact Ebay every day about it, and they say they have a ticket in but they have not heard back yet and have no updates. I sell lots of items that are $1.99 and $2.99 and having this option is necessary to make these items viable/profitable. While this has been down, I have had to send more that 40 items that were in active auctions using 1st Class, so I've kept a log of every transaction where my buyer paid for ESE and I cannot purchase the label. Ebay says that once the service is back up, they will reimburse me for the extra costs, which are currently over $120 and going up!  I hope they get this back up and running soon, as it has been down for me for 12 days now.

[wastingtime101]

eBay made an unannounced change related to setting up listings with certain types of packaging. When package dimensions entered exceed eBay's programmed dimensions, eBay will not show you those shipping options when setting up your listing.

To access these services, enter the following package dimensions:

USPS Flat Rate Envelopes: 12x9x1
USPS Small Flat Rate Box: 8x5x1
USPS Med Flat Rate Box: 14x12x3 or 11x8x6
USPS Large Flat Rate Box: 12x12x6
eBay Standard Envelope: 11x6x0.25

[matdo-94]

All dimensions and weights are within range and the Purchase button is lit up blue, but when the attempt to purchase is made, I get the error in the attached pic. This never happened prior to February 7, 2023.

[wastingtime101]

@matdo-94 you entered 7x4x1. Change it to 7x4x0.25 - see that tiny little "max dimensions" note under the service?

[matdo-94]

Oh, I've certainly tried, but the field will not accept 0.25 and in fact it says right below it that it will round it up.

[wastingtime101]

Yeah, you're right - I was messing around with it and couldn't put in a decimal. I've seen some similar posts. If I have time later I'll try to dig them up to see if there's a pattern or solution.

The buyer isn't in Puerto Rico, right? Sometimes labels can't be purchased when buyer enters PR in the country field instead of in the state field.

[matdo-94]

This issue has still not been resolved.

[murky36]

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@matdo-94 wrote:

This issue has still not been resolved.

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Look at that picture you just posted. Tell me again what it says about the max dimensions of an ebay envelope? What I would assume happened is, yeah, you got away with it the first 3 times, but once the post office started noticing your packages were thicker than what they allowed for envelopes, they started sending the extra postage bill to ebay and once that happened you got "shadow banned". 

My advice would just be to use 2 pieces of rigid cardboard to keep the card from bending, put it in an envelope and slap a stamp on it. MAKE SURE that it's not thicker than .25 of an inch though and you'll be fine. Do this to keep your head above water, at least until it's fixed.

[wastingtime101]

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@murky36 wrote:

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@matdo-94 wrote:

This issue has still not been resolved.

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Look at that picture you just posted. Tell me again what it says about the max dimensions of an ebay envelope? What I would assume happened is, yeah, you got away with it the first 3 times, but once the post office started noticing your packages were thicker than what they allowed for envelopes, they started sending the extra postage bill to ebay and once that happened you got "shadow banned". 

My advice would just be to use 2 pieces of rigid cardboard to keep the card from bending, put it in an envelope and slap a stamp on it. MAKE SURE that it's not thicker than .25 of an inch though and you'll be fine. Do this to keep your head above water, at least until it's fixed.

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This is happening to a lot of sellers and they are not shadow banned. Where are you getting that from?

Your advice to use 2 pieces of rigid cardboard goes against ESE guidelines and would make the packages ineligible for ESE and sellers would face issues with the post office.

eBay label page does not accept decimals (it should, but it doesn't) so 1" is the smallest dimension one can enter on the label page.

On the listing page one can put in an accurate 0.25" width.

[wastingtime101]

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@matdo-94 wrote:

All dimensions and weights are within range and the Purchase button is lit up blue, but when the attempt to purchase is made, I get the error in the attached pic. This never happened prior to February 7, 2023.

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Hi devon@ebay. I'm seeing an increasing number of posts from sellers running into this issue.

- Their items qualify for ESE based on category, price, etc.

- They're getting errors trying to purchase ESE postage as shown above.

I doubt this is related, but is it possible the eBay label page is blocking them because of the 1" package width? The label page, unlike the listing page, does not accept decimals so sellers cannot enter anything smaller than 1" as the width.

I saw one seller say they purchased a string of ESE labels and hit the error on the last one. People are being blocked on both website and app. Is there a tech ticket on this? Any word from shipping team about a known issue they're working on or a way around this?

[devon@ebay]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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@matdo-94 wrote:

All dimensions and weights are within range and the Purchase button is lit up blue, but when the attempt to purchase is made, I get the error in the attached pic. This never happened prior to February 7, 2023.

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Hi devon@ebay. I'm seeing an increasing number of posts from sellers running into this issue.

- Their items qualify for ESE based on category, price, etc.

- They're getting errors trying to purchase ESE postage as shown above.

I doubt this is related, but is it possible the eBay label page is blocking them because of the 1" package width? The label page, unlike the listing page, does not accept decimals so sellers cannot enter anything smaller than 1" as the width.

I saw one seller say they purchased a string of ESE labels and hit the error on the last one. People are being blocked on both website and app. Is there a tech ticket on this? Any word from shipping team about a known issue they're working on or a way around this?

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Hey @wastingtime101! There is a sitewide ticket open for this issue with ESE labels not being shown as a shipping option under the Trading Card category. I will have the Tech Board updated later this morning to reflect that. If sellers are running into this they can reach out to customer support and let them know that they are experiencing ALERT14476. 

[matdo-94]

The Ebay shipping dimensions field will not allow a decimal point, 1" is the smallest dimension that can be entered. I used ESE over 200 times with the dimensions in the picture I posted with no errors or issues from the post office. You cannot enter .25" in the field. It's still happening today...day 16 for me.