Community Chat, Jan 17th @ 1pm PT - General Topics

[alan@ebay]

Hi Community, 

Happy Mid-January! 

Please join The Community Team here for our weekly chat session on Wed. Jan 17th at 1pm Pacific. This thread will be open for questions for 60 minutes, it'll then be locked, and we'll work through answering all eBay-related questions. 

When posting and interacting with others in The eBay Community, please keep our Rules of Engagement in mind. 

Chat with you tomorrow! 

[alan@ebay]

Thanks for joining us, the thread is now open. 

[Anonymous]

Hello alan@ebay

I'd like to share an unusual USPS experience that's been ongoing for the past several months. I've patiently waited, hoping the problem would fix itself. But it's gotten to the point where I think something needs to be done, as today the problem happened again, resulting in an inappropriately opened INR case.

Here's the situation: Packages shipped from northern California and departing out of the Sacramento, CA USPS facility and destined to Arizona are being erroneously scanned as "DELIVERED" in Sacramento instead of "DEPARTED" Sacramento.

Inevitably, this worries Arizona buyers. If they check tracking, the immediate conclusion is that their package was mis-delivered. Most buyers demand an explanation, while others open an INR request.

Many sellers are familiar with the occasional erroneous "delivered" scan. We know that the scanner was mistakenly set in "delivered" mode instead of "acceptance", "departure", or whatever the appropriate scan mode should be. But buyers have no clue. Until a seller explains what happened, buyers are left concerned.

How does this involve eBay? While this problem appears to be specific to the Sacramento to Arizona route, there are thousands of eBay sellers in northern California, and thousands of buyers in Arizona. Who knows, a similar situation may be occurring in other parts of the country. If it's happening on this particular route, it's certainly possible it could happen in another route.

We need to get this USPS tracking problem fixed ASAP. It makes no sense to continue worrying buyers with incorrect tracking information and creating needless hassle and INR cases for sellers just because of a simple technical error.

I'll personally try to reach out to the right person at the USPS Sacramento hub to see about getting this issue fixed. But I would also appreciate if there's anything eBay can do to help.

Thank you!

Violet*Owl

[vrykalak]

Problem: not able to get the shipping label page to fill in the price.
CS noticed the reason: the package dimensions hadn't been filled in.
The package dimensions used to be shown on the page where you set up and pay for a label, and probably would have turned red with a big message saying I had to fill in the dimensions, but that information is no longer there.
Please ask the PTB to put it back.

[mg152]

I’m so sorry Alan, off topic again but I have to say Thank You to my eBay friends again for their support while my little dog is going through cancer. I haven’t been around much lately so much going on but I have to acknowledge you guys support. I truly woukd be lost without you all. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! My little one is having cancer surgery Feb 7. Please pray! You all know my dogs are my kids these days & I love them so much!

Thanks Alan for letting me speak here!

[mr_lincoln]

eBay Branded Supplies issue

I have become displeased with the RSC box selection from eBay Branded Supplies. As time goes on the largest RSC box available keeps shrinking. Now the largest boxes are ONLY 12 x 6 x 6 and 10 x 8 x 6. The other sizes are 8x8x8, 8x6x4, 6x4x4. The only larger sizes are form Sellers who have acquired them for their own selling purposes and will not accept and honor the eBay quarterly coupon.

What is needed is a larger footprint RSC box with pre-scored fold lines on the height of the box and if you asked me today what should it be I would say start with the same footprint as the USPS Medium Flat Rate shipping box (14 x 12) with height to 10” and pre-score fold lines at 4”, 6” and 8”.   You don't need to make a ton of different sizes, let the Sellers size them from a few larger offers.  The only cutting required would be down each corner to the desired fold score line … even at the bottom 4” score line the major flaps would basically create what the industry refers to as an FOL box (Full Overlap on the flaps). Extra flaps can be cut off if required but would not have to be.

Below are some pictures showing some issues with the current small size box selections … the last pic shows the small box on top of a USPS Medium Flat Rate box …

Any consideration eBay can give this would be greatly appreciated.

Mr. L

[a_c_green]

Hi @Anonymous,

I didn't hear back from you in email regarding your request last week (here) to obtain listing samples from the major toy retailer who's luring eBay customers offsite to their own site, so I just wanted to mention that the sample list of 10 entries (including the listing number and embedded link to the retailer's website page for that product line) is still available if you want it.

I checked all ten sample entries again this afternoon and found that three had sold, so I've replaced them with three other listings for the same product lines that also contain the offsite lure to the retailer's website.

As I said before, not every listing of theirs is attempting this stunt; it seems to be limited to only listings for major brands and product lines (e.g. Fisher-Price, Thomas & Friends), for which they have their own catalog on their own website. They troll for interested customers on eBay, and then bring them in to the catalog on their own website, where the former eBay customer can now purchase that item and/or others direct from them.

The point is not to report 10 individual listings, as the seller has, what, thousands? of listings going at the present time. The point is to basically whack them upside the head to get them to stop doing that as a matter of policy across the board, because the money that they're sucking from eBay by luring your/our customers elsewhere is money that has to be offset by higher fees and other unpleasantness that might be alleviated, a little, if someone higher up at eBay would just crack the whip and tell the customer to knock it off. If they're going to list here like everyone else, they should also sell here like everyone else.

[iolamae]

I sooooooo agree.  Not even an option for shipping books.

[iolamae]

Hello Sellers,

I just received my eBay branded shipping supplies quarterly coupon.  I clicked to see what boxes were available and it appeared that we are down to only five box choices.  None of the sizes offered cover my needs and being that the coupons actually "expire", I reached out to a customer service manager to see if more options would become available before the March 31st expiration and got this reply.

"In response to your inquiry, we haven't received word from our management or partners that new boxes will be released this quarter".

I then asked to whom should I contact to levy for additional box options and particular size recommendations and got this from the same customer service manager.

"In response to your inquiry, regrettably we don't have a direct contact at eBay currently for feedback/suggestions pertaining to the packaging supplies that are available. As such, you could contact their support representatives through the Help section at the top of any page to have this information passed to the appropriate party. Otherwise, you could also use the eBay forum to begin a discussion as the eBay representative do monitor the threads regularly. Thank you for the opportunity to assist with this question".

So, here I am.  Does anyone have any guidance to offer?  I cannot believe that all of us store subscription holders can be categorized into five box sizes and three tape colors.  Spending $75 every three months on tissue paper and round stickers seems quite silly to me.  There has to be a way to expand this selection.  I would love to hear any and ALL opinions/feedback.

Thank you,

Matt

[alan@ebay]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello alan@ebay

I'd like to share an unusual USPS experience that's been ongoing for the past several months. I've patiently waited, hoping the problem would fix itself. But it's gotten to the point where I think something needs to be done, as today the problem happened again, resulting in an inappropriately opened INR case.

Here's the situation: Packages shipped from northern California and departing out of the Sacramento, CA USPS facility and destined to Arizona are being erroneously scanned as "DELIVERED" in Sacramento instead of "DEPARTED" Sacramento.

Inevitably, this worries Arizona buyers. If they check tracking, the immediate conclusion is that their package was mis-delivered. Most buyers demand an explanation, while others open an INR request.

Many sellers are familiar with the occasional erroneous "delivered" scan. We know that the scanner was mistakenly set in "delivered" mode instead of "acceptance", "departure", or whatever the appropriate scan mode should be. But buyers have no clue. Until a seller explains what happened, buyers are left concerned.

How does this involve eBay? While this problem appears to be specific to the Sacramento to Arizona route, there are thousands of eBay sellers in northern California, and thousands of buyers in Arizona. Who knows, a similar situation may be occurring in other parts of the country. If it's happening on this particular route, it's certainly possible it could happen in another route.

We need to get this USPS tracking problem fixed ASAP. It makes no sense to continue worrying buyers with incorrect tracking information and creating needless hassle and INR cases for sellers just because of a simple technical error.

I'll personally try to reach out to the right person at the USPS Sacramento hub to see about getting this issue fixed. But I would also appreciate if there's anything eBay can do to help.

Thank you!

Violet*Owl

---

Hi @Anonymous, 

Oh no! This is not good. I'm happy to share the details with our Shipping team and have them contact USPS too. We may be in touch with you by email for more details if necessary.

Thanks for calling this out. 

[goodluckselling]

There has been some discussion in the last week about a message ebay is sending potential buyers about - Seller is offering RETURNS on the item you searched, so why not purchase it to see if you like it.

One of the user is is claiming eBay is telling potential buyers that  -   "Try it out, you can return it, there's no financial risk to do so!"

Could you confirm or deny this is the kind of messaging you are sending buyers.  Would it be possible to just include a copy of the message in your reply so all sellers participating in this chat can have a clear understanding of what you are telling buyers.

Thanks

[mg152]

Can I just say something positive? Last weekend I sold 3 inherited coins to a very nice & respectful buyer. He’s happy! I’m happy! Thank you to that fabulous buyer!

[zylor4200]

@mg152 I am so sorry to hear that, I had a dear pet (cat) die of cancer about 10 years ago and I do feel your anguish. I wish you all the best and certainly hope that the surgery will help and my prayers are with you and your little dog.

[rosevelyn]

Link to my original post. https://community.ebay.com/t5/Seller-Hub/ebay-Logo-Mailers-Being-Discontinued-and-Permanently-Replac...

[alan@ebay]

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@mg152 wrote:

I’m so sorry Alan, off topic again but I have to say Thank You to my eBay friends again for their support while my little dog is going through cancer. I haven’t been around much lately so much going on but I have to acknowledge you guys support. I truly woukd be lost without you all. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! My little one is having cancer surgery Feb 7. Please pray! You all know my dogs are my kids these days & I love them so much!

Thanks Alan for letting me speak here!

---

Oh no, @mg152! I am so sorry to hear this. Dogs are my favorite thing in the world. Sending positive vibes for a quick recovery!!!