wooden_flower Volunteer Community Mentor.
Comics-scifi_collectibles Volunteer Community Mentor
Hi everyone!
Join the Community Team here at 1 PM PT for our Weekly Community Chat. Bring any general buying and selling questions that are on your mind! 
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
Let me start by saying , due to the varied nature of my inventory, I don't get a lot of repeat customers. Still, repeat customers can be the bedrock of an ebay store, especially one within a narrow niche. What's the chance ebay will start identifying repeat customers for us? I know ebay shows buyers notes such as "you've bought from this seller before"----so it shouldn't be too hard to let us know when a buyer is a repeat buyer. Any chance we might get this valuable data sometime this year?
Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques - this has been a requested feature for Seller Hub in the past. Oftentimes they aren't able to make all the additions we'd like to see, but I think this one is valuable. Will you share your desire to see this again via the 'Comments?' link to get it to the dev team? Hearing consistent input from members on features they'd like to see is the best way to get things on their radar. Thanks!
@wooden_flower wrote:
I wanted to share a followup on a post from last week concerning orders being split into 2 payments. CS did agree that there is an issue with guaranteed delivery and said the issue would be sent to the product manager.
I haven't heard back yet.
Sue
Hi @wooden_flower, thanks for the follow-up. I'm not aware of a technical issue with Guaranteed Delivery. However, if some items in an order and guaranteed and other aren't then we may split the order into two (just like we would do if items in a transaction have two different shipping methods). I'll look into this further and send you an email with what I find.
@gamersbaystore wrote:
I have some serious concerns regarding ebay's new "Product-Based Shopping Experience." ebay is now advertising the same identical products I'm trying to sell, and they're doing it directly in my listings. Here we pay for a store, then ebay takes our own listings and our customers and drives them away.
This is also creating a price war, in which ebay is clearly trying to force sellers to drop their prices, otherwise you get no sales.
While I have no problems with ebay recommending "Similar" items in my listings, advertising the same identical product I'm trying to sell to my buyers is downright insulting.
We pay for a store, then ebay uses our listings to promote identical items being sold by someone else.
This is part of the reason why thousands of sellers are ditching your platform!
The changes with GTC are also an issue, and I'm sorry to tell you, its never going to work out in ebay's favor. You're destroying your smallest sellers with the GTC changes, they lost all their visibility.
All being said, ebay needs to stop introducing changes that solely benefit themselves and not their sellers.
As it stand right now, I cannot sell anything unless I give it away for pennies on the dollar. I put something up for sale and ebay tells the buyer to buy somewhere else. Yet, ebay can't figure out why its going broke.
Hi @gamersbaystore - thanks for your input!
We want buyers to find the item they're looking for, when they're looking for it. Product-Based shopping allows items to be grouped together by product identifier (UPC/MPN, etc) and quickly provide the most relevance to a buyer looking to purchase. Given that some options and item conditions can be different, even on identical products, we want to make the buyer aware of the options available from all members.
We feel confident that a shift to Good 'Til Cancelled (GTC) is going to help level the playing field for all sellers and provide better long-term search benefits, both on eBay and with external traffic.
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
On this week's Selling on eBay Podcast, eBay's Liz Austin talked about Mother's Day. She said spending for Mother's Day has exceeded 24 billion dollars, in the US alone. So, this is a big retail event. She then went on to describe some "hot" items for Mom, none of which, as I recall, were vintage items. Yet there are many vintage items that are great for Mom: Just to name a few---old sheet music, prints, wall mottos and plaques, greeting cards, perfumes, and much more. But.....when I look for Mothers Day (or Fathers Day, for that matter, don't want anyone saying I'm ignoring Dear Old Dad,) in the Collectibles category under Holidays....Nothing. I can use something like "Other Holiday Collectibles", which you must admit does not immediately bring to mind Mothers Day.
One strategy I've had some success with over the years is changing categories as Holidays approach. For example, a vintage ceramic angel might be put in the Christmas sub-category for the 4th Quarter, but will be moved to the Easter sub category as Easter approaches. It would be nice to be able to do the same with Mothers Day items.
Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques, thanks for the feedback! I'll pass it along for consideration.
brian@ebay wrote:
@wooden_flower wrote:I wanted to share a followup on a post from last week concerning orders being split into 2 payments. CS did agree that there is an issue with guaranteed delivery and said the issue would be sent to the product manager.
I haven't heard back yet.
Sue
Hi @wooden_flower, thanks for the follow-up. I'm not aware of a technical issue with Guaranteed Delivery. However, if some items in an order and guaranteed and other aren't then we may split the order into two (just like we would do if items in a transaction have two different shipping methods). I'll look into this further and send you an email with what I find.
Hi Brian,
All of my items have the same shipping settings and the same handling time. The CS rep confirmed in the example I gave them that there was no reason for the order to be split into 2 payments.
I can provide additional examples if needed. It only happens on orders that are over my $50 free shipping threshold, so at least the buyers are not being overcharged.
Sue
@coinslabz26 wrote:
I also had a question regarding the seller update.
I still do not have the option in my seller hub to send offers to watchers. Brian.T was kind enough to give me a link that would allow me to send watchers an offer outside of seller hub (the view for sellers without seller hub). I was wondering if there are any delayed or known issues that would prevent me from having this option in seller hub.
Also when I have watchers sometimes it will not allow me to send an offer to any or all watchers watching. Is this the result of their communication preferences? If so does ebay plan to notify buyers of this new option where they could receive offers and discounts that have changed since they last turned off their annoying watched item and relist notifications?
Hi @coinslabz26 - I know that the 'offers to watchers' is being rolled out in phases, but otherwise there isn't any technical issues that I'm aware of. I'll see what I can find out and keep you updated.
When it comes to some folks not getting the offer, you're right that it would be based on their preferences to not receive offers. I'm not clear on if something is being planned to let buyer's know there's a new way to receive offers - I'll see if anything's in the works. Thanks!
Can we please clarify if the new ability to submit a sales tax exemption for re-sellers with a tax permit applies to all sales tax charged on ebay OR only to the taxes for states which ebay is collecting and remitting sales tax.
https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/paying-items/paying-tax-ebay-purchases?id=4771
@dtexley3 wrote:
On my soapbox again.
Once again I had to exchange multiple, multiple messages with a buyer about combined shipping because..... their cart WOULD NOT allow them to "Request Total". The items were not flagged for combined shipping and no discounts or free shipping was involved. I also verified with the buyer that they did not have items from other sellers in the cart.
Please, Please, Please stop disabling the "Request Total" button.
Hi @dtexley3, I recommend that when you direct buyers to Request Total from their cart that you include the following information:
- Request total will show up to the right of items in the shopping cart when there is more than one item.
- Buyers can also request a total from the seller through My eBay:
- Find the item.
- If you don't see the item(s) you would like an invoice for, click Summary or Purchase history.
- From the More actions menu next to the item, select Request total.
There are certain situations (limitations) when a buyer won't be able to request a total:
- The seller has set up a discount profile.
- The items are on sale.
- The seller doesn't accept combined payments.
- The item has immediate payment required.
- There is only one item in the cart.
- The item(s) already have free shipping.
If your buyer has items in your cart from other sellers, they won't be able to request a total. I didn't see a confirmation in messages that none of these factors applied to the buyer's purchase, so wanted to elaborate.
That being said, I checked your account and I don't see that you have set up a Calculated shipping rule. You can find these settings here. If this is not set up and activated in your listing, the buyer won't be able to request a total. I've included a screenshot below of what this page looks like with the option highlighted.
Once you have this option set up and applied to your listings, your buyers should be able to request a total when eligible.
