Community Chat, March 31 @ 1:00 pm PT - General Topics

[brian@ebay]

Hi everyone! Thanks for joining us for the Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. We don't have a specific topic this week, so feel free to share any general buying or selling questions you may have.

The chat thread will remain open until 2 PM PT at which point we'll close it from additional responses. After that time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that might still be unanswered.

To post your question, click Reply in the lower right corner of this post, type your question, and hit submit between 1-2 PM Pacific Time. The format of our chat mirrors the format of our Community Discussion Boards, where each post will appear in the thread chronologically. The Community Team will review each question as it comes in, and will quote the original question in our reply. This quote and the reply will appear later in the thread, so just keep scrolling down to see our answers.

Missed the chat? Send your questions to the podcast by calling  888-723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com and maybe your questions will make it on the air! Or listen to past episodes while you wait for next Wednesday!

[revenue-collector]

Overseas phone reps are not aware that eBay is waiving early termination penalties for store subscribers downgrading before April 30. I was denied and told I would have to pay penalties. What should sellers do since eBay has not formally published this anywhere, just here on the forum:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Fees-Financials/Will-we-get-an-opportunity-to-change-our-store-subscri...

It would be nice if eBay told their CSRs the actual policy rather than sellers having to jump through hoops.

Thank you.

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Edit: Reply to this post can be read here.

[clarkphilatelics]

Please explain the process that eBay uses to build lists of Item Specifics in each category. Please focus on collectible categories like Stamps. Do the existing Item specifics work or are they mostly ignored? Finally, how can sellers adapt when eBay changes Item Specifics suddenly or frequently. What happens to sellers who use marketplace standard Item Specifics and eBay does not?

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Edit: A reply to your questions can be found here

[pokemoncatches]

Why is there no running balance total under the all transactions summary of managed payments? The only way to ensure eBay isn't helping themselves to extras (I've repeatedly found this to be the case) is to manage an Excel spreadsheet for running total.

Y'all have helped yourself to excess postage charges, international fees on orders delivered to US addresses, etc. There is no trust in place and it is in true outdated eBay fashion to omit such a critical feature.

Also these new boards are trash. Popup with HTML error. Then pops up with some anti spam message. I'm just trying to post one message here what a mess.

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Edit: A reply to your post can be found here

[treasureeverywhere]

Hello,

This is regarding shipping fees for products I wish to buy.

There is a way in the menu to locate items that have free shipping. Is there any way within search to identify items that have "low" shipping? I know that low is relative to the product. However, there doesn't seem to be such an option.

Is finding items with free shipping all that can be sourced at present, or is there a method I don't know exists?

Thank you,

Shirley

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Edit: Reply to this post can be read here.

[brian@ebay]

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@revenue-collector wrote:

Overseas phone reps are not aware that eBay is waiving early termination penalties for store subscribers downgrading before April 30. I was denied and told I would have to pay penalties. What should sellers do since eBay has not formally published this anywhere, just here on the forum:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Fees-Financials/Will-we-get-an-opportunity-to-change-our-store-subscri...

It would be nice if eBay told their CSRs the actual policy rather than sellers having to jump through hoops.

Thank you.

---

@revenue-collector I'm sorry the customer service agents you spoke with weren't aware of the early termination fee waiver. Thanks for sharing this feedback with us!

I do want to clarify that the early termination fee will automatically be waived prior to April 30. Since this is taken care of automatically there is no need to contact customer service. 

[crazystuff4sale]

I am still seeing many posts on the Community and other internet groups, and I am sure everyone reading this has seen them, about buyers not being able to complete purchases. Cards denied, unusal errors about seller not able to receive payments at this time etc.
Is anyone looking into that?

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here

[clarkphilatelics]

When can sellers expect to see totals for gross sales and fees in the detail for each payout. If more than one or two items are bundled into a payout, the Payout Detail window does total order amounts or fees. Why does the summary page that links to the detail page only contain the net amount and why does it have a different name than payout amounts in the Detail Window?  How do high volume sellers track cash flow in Managed Payments?

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Edit: A reply to your post can be found here

[mwelker4172]

I'm 

a seller with shipment destroyed by FedEx.

FedEx refuses to deal with me because I purchased the label through eBay (their customer/shipper)

eBay says it's between me and FedEx, and will have no part of it.

eBay has a hold on my funds, preventing me from providing a refund.

It seems eBay only deals with things via phone, preventing any paper trail.

I'm out $935, my customer is out $935, FedEx gets off scot-free, and eBay hangs up if I call.

Any suggestions?

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Edit: Reply to this post can be read here.

[epowerbargains]

Thank you for your response. I want to reduce to a basic store effective 4/1/21. Do I need to go into my store subscription and do the reduction myself or are you saying that eBay will automatically reduce my store on 4.1.21. Will there be a fee credit for April due to the reduction and please confirm from April 2021 forward the store fee's will automatically be reduced - in my case to Basic with 1,000 listings with no penalty. Thank you. 

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here

[brian@ebay]

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@treasureeverywhere wrote:

Hello,

This is regarding shipping fees for products I wish to buy.

There is a way in the menu to locate items that have free shipping. Is there any way within search to identify items that have "low" shipping? I know that low is relative to the product. However, there doesn't seem to be such an option.

Is finding items with free shipping all that can be sourced at present, or is there a method I don't know exists?

Thank you,

Shirley

---

@treasureeverywhere free shipping is the only filter dedicated solely to shipping cost. The next closes option is 'price + shipping: lowest first'. This will take the total cost of the transaction and show the least expensive first. I'm not sure if there's a a plan to add a 'lowest shipping cost' filter, but it's something I can pass along!

[tyler@ebay]

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@clarkphilatelics wrote:

Please explain the process that eBay uses to build lists of Item Specifics in each category. Please focus on collectible categories like Stamps. Do the existing Item specifics work or are they mostly ignored? Finally, how can sellers adapt when eBay changes Item Specifics suddenly or frequently. What happens to sellers who use marketplace standard Item Specifics and eBay does not?

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Hi @clarkphilatelics - I do not have the workflow process for how the pre-populated Item Specifics are generated by category. In general we save the most commonly used item specifics so buyers can more easily find your items. As buyer habits change, so too would the list of most common specifics. 

If you're interested in learning more about that process I'd suggest contacting the team directly at sdsupport@ebay.com. They may be able to shed more light on that process. 

Existing item specifics are still considered in search and help your item appear polished and easily navigable. 

Will you elaborate on your last question? I'm not understanding.

[shellhut]

Why did they take away the Classic Selling My eBay only to have the newish one (Not seller Hub) with so many errors in, sorting, batch editing is gone, etc.  Don't tell me it was "old Code"  That is not an excuse it can be redone in whatever code eBay is using.   Why wasn't it all tested before they took Classic My eBay away?  Many sellers are upset that it is gone.  We used it for more than 18 years.  It was fully functional for what we needed to do.  Sellers Hub doesn't fit for small sellers.

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Edit: A reply to your post can be found here

[gwzcomps]

I'm curious as to why eBay can't give me an actual line item invoice on the mystery fees/credits being applied to my account, but they are more than happy to turn a blind eye to a large seller that is blatantly trying to avoid fees by miscategorizing 79 thousand items. 

I don't have a court case number yet, because I am sharing in eBay's laziness.  I should probably work on getting one though.

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Edit: Reply to this post can be read here.

[mam98031]

We need the ability to see our total in MP on the Payment Summary screen.  The last update took that ability away and I'm not sure why or how Ebay thought that was a good enhancement in the first place, but we need it back.  It has been weeks now since it was taken away.  Long enough a logical person would think to be able to bring it back, so what is the hold up?  Does Ebay believe this is information we don't need?  If so why?

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here