eBay

brian@ebay · ‎07-09-2019

Join the Community team here at 1 PM PT on July 10 for our Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. No set topic for the week, so feel free to share any general buying and selling questions you have.

The chat will be open for questions from 1-2 pm PT, at which point we'll close it down for additional questions and continue to work on responding to any remaining queries.

If you are new to the chat, welcome! Simply reply to this post with your question after 1 pm and we'll be happy to look into it

Brian,
Community Team

Anonymous · ‎07-10-2019

@dentalsales4u wrote:
I had a buyer message me on June 28th stating he was trying to make a purchase, but he kept getting a message that the seller wasn't excepting payments at this time.
I contacted eBay 1 1/2 weeks later to see if this is a problem since my sales took a nose dive that week.
They said they did in May, but it had been fixed.
I contacted the buyer to see if he was still interested in the product.
He messaged me back that he tried again and was still getting that same message.
Several others on the PS board said they were getting messages from buyers stating the same thing.
What can be done about this as these are only the buyers contacting us. Who know how many just walk away???

Hi @dentalsales4u, can you provide me with the item number for this example so I can take a look at what might have happened?

brian@ebay · ‎07-10-2019

@vrykalak wrote:

Last week I found two more items that were in both the Active and Relist pages. That makes 8 in the last couple of months.
That never happened before this year. What has changed?

Hi @vrykalak, it's hard to say what may be happening without some examples for us to review. Do you have some item numbers we can take a look at so we can get a better idea of what's going on?

Brian,
Community Team

dentalsales4u · ‎07-10-2019

282010834999 is the item he has been trying to purchase.
I also could not pay my eBay bill with my company credit card.
I tried for two days and kept getting an error message telling to try again later.
I finally paid using PayPal (which I didn't want to do) and it went through without any problems.
Is there a glitch processing credit cards that's causing these problems?

Anonymous · ‎07-10-2019

tyler@ebay wrote:
Hi @Anonymous - we got these questions and input to marketing and PR, and haven't heard back. While I'm not certain what cross promotions are being planned it's great to know that folks are primed and eager to capitalize on the Crash Sale!

Tyler, can you please reach back out and push for an answer to the last part? It's hard to capitalize on the sale when we're not notified in advance what inventory would tie-in to eBay's deals and benefit the most from running promotions.

Finally, will eBay publish (in advance) a list of items and/or categories they will be featuring so that we can prepare any relevant inventory we have and run our own promotions?

creativecrisis · ‎07-10-2019

Last week a buyer placed a large order using 12 separate buy-it-now transactions ... and then asked for combined shipping. I of course accommodated the customer, but ended up spending a LOT of time figuring out the combined shipping discount and then separately refunding her over-payments for shipping on each transaction. Not to mention, I lost money in eBay and PayPal nonrefundable fees on these transactions.

When I thanked her for her order, I suggested using the shopping cart next time so she can get her combined shipping discount at the time of purchase. Her response? That she buys on a mobile device and it doesn't allow her to request an invoice. (?) I assume the shopping cart works on the mobile platform and she was confused for some reason.

So, here's my question: Would eBay consider getting rid of the Buy It Now button on fixed price listings? Forcing all customers into the shopping cart would be less confusing for buyers and a great improvement for sellers like me who have frequent multi-item orders, rules set up to combine shipping automatically. This recent experience isn't the only time I've had customers use separate BIN transactions to order multiple items.

Anonymous · ‎07-10-2019

@dentalsales4u wrote:
282010834999 is the item he has been trying to purchase.
I also could not pay my eBay bill with my company credit card.
I tried for two days and kept getting an error message telling to try again later.
I finally paid using PayPal (which I didn't want to do) and it went through without any problems.
Is there a glitch processing credit cards that's causing these problems?

Hi @dentalsales4u, thanks for the added detail. I will look into what happened and update the chat once I have more information. As for bill payment, this would not be the same process as checkout so any issues that may be occuring for either of those features would be unrelated. I'll take a look into that as well, no problem!

vrykalak · ‎07-10-2019

When I look at the Feedback page, I see about half of the items are marked as "Private" and the title of the item is not shown. Three questions:
1. I never deliberately mark anything as private. How does this happen?

2. How do I find out which listings have this setting? How can I turn it off? I don't see anything on the bulk editing page.

3. Why would "Private" setting, which is supposed to keep buyer information private, cause the item title and listing number to be blocked?

goodluckselling · ‎07-10-2019

When a seller goes to pay the eBay fees using the one time payment option. It now defaults to the total due including all new fees that have come in after the billing cycle. There are no other options to input just the fees that are currently due?

Is this a planned change?
If I just let the auto payment go to the predetermined date is it going to make payment for just the amount due or the entire amount that has accumulated?
This change is confusing for business sellers who have obligations to our accounting person.

Good Luck Selling!

golfingaddict · ‎07-10-2019

When this feature first was available, I seem to recall a place where you could enter "quantity" Is there a reason why this is not available anymore?

For me, it is a valuable option because with free shipping, I will easily offer a higher discount if the buyer purchases more than one item. What I would like to do is offer a discount if the buyer purchases 2 or 3 items. And I want to use this in the send watcher an offer.

I can use the volume pricing feature when I list the item, but in some cases, it is not possible. I also do not have the same features on all of my IDs.

I would like to see the send offer to watchers use the quantity feature when the seller sends an offer.

Is volume pricing discounts available for multi-variation listings?

Are promotions available for non store sellers?

I realize that these features are still new, but it would be nice to see.

mr_lincoln · ‎07-10-2019

Good afternoon Gentlemen! I hope this finds you well and not having to dodge too many earthquakes!

LOCAL PICK UP clarification

This is just a short note to clarify that on a sale with Local Pick up, once the purchase has been made it is okay to have both Buyer and Seller exchange personal information, address, phone number, etc. in eBay Messaging WITHOUT penalty to either party? Additionally, messages will not be blocked or censored by eBay correct?

Regards,
Mr. Lincoln - Community Mentor

tyler@ebay · ‎07-10-2019

@Anonymous wrote:

tyler@ebay wrote:

Hi @Anonymous - we got these questions and input to marketing and PR, and haven't heard back. While I'm not certain what cross promotions are being planned it's great to know that folks are primed and eager to capitalize on the Crash Sale!

Tyler, can you please reach back out and push for an answer to the last part? It's hard to capitalize on the sale when we're not notified in advance what inventory would tie-in to eBay's deals and benefit the most from running promotions.

Finally, will eBay publish (in advance) a list of items and/or categories they will be featuring so that we can prepare any relevant inventory we have and run our own promotions?

Hi @Anonymous - there's a number of announced deals (items and categories) here, but that's the extent of what I've gotten so far. If I hear back any further info I'll make sure to let you know!

Tyler,

tod184 · ‎07-10-2019

@Anonymous wrote:
@tod184 wrote:
Hello,
Is there any plans to extend the number of categories that can allow a seller to give a partial refund on a return? I currently sell with free shipping and free returns in the Health & Beauty Category, I am not given the opportunity for giving a partial refund on items that come back to me used or broken (not the way they originally received it).
Hi @tod184, if you offer free returns you will be able to provide less than a full refund if your buyer altered or damaged the item in some way. This is not category specific and is outlined in our Seller Protection Help Page and our Spring 2018 Seller Update. Can you tell me a little more about the options you are seeing when you go to refund the buyer? Is there an error message you are running into in some way?

I'm sorry, the list of Categories for partial refunds I found was only for Sellers with Non-Free Returns.

My last refund for a return was early in the year and it was allo or nothing. Just the other day I received a request for return and needed to possible deduct some money from the refund and the only thing I saw was a button that said "issue refund" the same way it always looked. I didn't want to click on it because I did not know if the partial refund option would be there or not. I guess I will find out soon.

Thanks for your help.

brian@ebay · ‎07-10-2019

@vrykalak wrote:

brian@ebay wrote:

@vrykalak wrote:

I tried to relist an item that ended 24 June, and was told the category I had listed in was no longer available. When I said to change the category, the one I had used the last 10 times I listed the item was still there (and still the only appropriate category for these books).
Then, when I selected another category, the Condition and Item Specifics from the previous listing were all erased and had to be re-entered.
I know this is eBay's policy, but it's kinda ridiculous.
It's a book. It doesn't change title, author, publisher, date, etc., just because it's in another sub-category of books.

Hi @vrykalak, While I understand the frustration in needing to reenter this information, item specifics data is tied to specific categories. This means that item specifics cannot carry over when the category is changed so this information will need to be filled out again by the seller.

I know this is the policy. I just wonder WHY.
Physical attributes of the item don't change.
And when the same IS shows in both categories, there's no reason for it not to carry over.l

Hi @vrykalak, it looks like we answered this question in the May 15th Weekly Chat (you can view the recap here). To offer further clarity, this is how item specifics work from a technical standpoint. While there may be some categories that share the same item specifics fields, the internal data is not the same between categories and cannot be carried over when changing a category.

Brian,
Community Team

dentalsales4u · ‎07-10-2019

@goodluckselling
After you select your payment option,
click the amount on the total line and you can change the amount you are paying there.
That's what I did yesterday when paying my eBay bill.

Anonymous · ‎07-10-2019

@creativecrisis wrote:

Last week a buyer placed a large order using 12 separate buy-it-now transactions ... and then asked for combined shipping. I of course accommodated the customer, but ended up spending a LOT of time figuring out the combined shipping discount and then separately refunding her over-payments for shipping on each transaction. Not to mention, I lost money in eBay and PayPal nonrefundable fees on these transactions.

When I thanked her for her order, I suggested using the shopping cart next time so she can get her combined shipping discount at the time of purchase. Her response? That she buys on a mobile device and it doesn't allow her to request an invoice. (?) I assume the shopping cart works on the mobile platform and she was confused for some reason.

So, here's my question: Would eBay consider getting rid of the Buy It Now button on fixed price listings? Forcing all customers into the shopping cart would be less confusing for buyers and a great improvement for sellers like me who have frequent multi-item orders, rules set up to combine shipping automatically. This recent experience isn't the only time I've had customers use separate BIN transactions to order multiple items.

Hi @creativecrisis, I think I might need to look at the specific item numbers as examples. I'm seeing a bunch of your listings already offer a discount, so an invoice could not be requested since a discount is already being applied. Any combined shipping discounts you offer should automatically apply and a total would not need to be requested. From what you have described, it sounds like the buyer did not attempt to add multiple items to the cart to get a combined shipping discount and instead checked out one at a time.

We can pass along your feedback regarding the Buy It Now option, no problem. I do want to note that the option to checkout directly from the listing or to add items to a cart is standard across many online marketplaces so removing an option may lead to confusion. Definitely something we can look into further though for potential improvements.