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!
@tsme35 wrote:
A side note from the combine shipping on the APP question from last week, I have combine shipping rule set up for lighter 1st class items which works fine BUT I also sell heavier items of different weights and size's that can only be done manually. I'm losing sales with out combine shipping or the buyer has to pay extra ebay fee's when they pay separate, I'm not eating those fee's.
@tsme35 I can see why needing to manually adjust the cost would complicate this process. We can pass along this feedback to the team. Thanks!
@postcardcountry wrote:
Tyler,
How receptive do you think the item specifics team will be to receiving an excel spreadsheet with all the item specific problems I have encountered?
Some are subcategory wide ie a postcard is labeled "welcome to California" but there is no item specific for 'statewide'. Under any state.
Right now, for the state of California and only California "brand' is a recommended item specific. To collectors, "brand" means maker. Not all cards identify the maker. BUT the suggestions for this California only specific is actually a region or city. not the maker.
It gets worse when I get into vintage ads - print ads from magazines. Here I encounter the item specific "color" on a regular basis. I would read that as Black and White or Color (as in the printing). Instead, my choices are red, blue, yellow.
These are the sort of issues that exist with all sorts of collectible items....it seems as if they people creating these specifics have no idea what is and is not seached for or should be there.
@postcardcountry - I can't say how they'd react, but I think that they'd be open to it, specifically your observations about 'Brand' with collectors. 🙂
@mam98031 wrote:
Is the payment team actually responding to tags on the threads anymore. I know that I have personally tagged them several times over the last few weeks, but NONE of them has had a response by the team. Did their tag change. Or did the procedure change since I have been away for a bit.
@mam98031 that team let us know that they are focusing on proactive pinned posts for now as they don't currently have the bandwidth to reply to tags on the boards regularly. So we should see more pinned posts on the payments board going forward.
@clarkphilatelics wrote:
Item Specifics filter values defined by eBay are inconsistent with the Scott catalog, used by most stamp collectors in the United States. In the Grade item specific, eBay substituted "/" for "-" changing “F-VF” to “F/VF”. for "fine to very fine". While a smaller competitor can match either format, eBay search does not appear to be able to do any more than simple string matching. Ideally, Item Specifics would not contain abbreviations and search would be able to parse abbreviations to match an Item Specific without abbreviations within the context of each category.
The word "mint” is misused by eBay. The only usage for "mint" would be in reference to unused stamps with full original gum, as received from a post office. A few dealers and eBay equate "mint" to "unused" which could mean that the stamp was hinged or has no gum.
Item specifics with open-ended values are not handled well by eBay filters. Stamps from each country exist in hundreds of denominations and multiple currencies. The eBay filter only shows a few values. Unless a potential buyer can enter any value into an open-ended filter (like a column filter in Excel), buyers will find some other way to search, like catalog number. Unfortunately, matching catalog numbers to numbers in titles produce too many false positives and frustrate potential buyers. Are eBay item specifics effective? I believe that the jury is still out, especially in categories like stamps where dealers and buyers seem to mostly ignore them.
Hi @clarkphilatelics - thank your for this clarification, it's very helpful. I'll get this passed on from my end and encourage you to also report this to sdsupport@ebay.com.
@dentalsales4u wrote:
Yesterday afternoon I printed out a packing slip and seller invoice.
Found out it's a new and NOT improved page.
The phone number is now gone along with other information. Why was this taken away?
I ship via FedEx only and they require a phone number when we process shipments.
Can this information be brought back?
@dentalsales4u - I am sorry to hear the packing slip didn't have what you were expecting. To get your feedback directly to the team that works on packing slips, I would recommend using the 'Tell us what you think' link at the bottom of the packing slip page. If you have your shipping preferences set to request buyer phone number, I did find that the phone number appears on the 'Order details' page if you need to grab that.
@riricc3 wrote:
I am locked out of selling right now because it says ive sold and listed 1.7 million items and i only have 185 soooo AND it had been very hard to get someone on the phone whats goin on?
Hi @riricc3 - that sounds really unusual (and likely in error). Typically you'd want to contact CS by requesting a callback or visiting our social media accounts for help. In this case I got your information over to the right team and they should be reviewing.
@go-bad-chicken wrote:
I know that you are not involved in Managed Payments issues but I wanted to post this here with the hopes that you will pass this onto the Managed Payments team. I have posted it within the tell us what you think tab but unfortunately that page does not allow you to add screenshots, and in this case I am hoping that a couple of screenshots will be worth a thousand words in expressing the frustrations that I am having with the new way that eBay is billing extra selling fees.
On another account that is now enrolled into Managed Payments I utilize the double category listing feature on approximately 270 to 330 listings every month. That service with a Premium store cost $0.10 per listing. So it amounts to anywhere from $27.00 to $33.00 per month in extra fees for eBay.
I have always been happy with this service and have utilized every month for well over 4 years. Up until now I have never questioned whether or not I should spend the extra money. I my mind the extra service has always been worth the extra fees. Until now.
Starting last week eBay started to bill these $0.10 "Double Category" insertion fees ONE AT A TIME as they come around every 30 days on their billing cycle. So now with every daily payout I have to figure out how many of these $0.10 charges exist within that payout in order to reconcile the more important fees like FVFs, Promoted Listing fees, and Shipping Labels.
Here is what a typical daily payout might look like.
I cant deal with that. Strike that. I choose not to deal with that.
The book keeping is a nightmare. eBay really should reconsider how it is going to choose to bill these extra selling fees. Because if they don't then from my point of view the benefits of the service no longer outweigh the newly required amounts of time to reconcile each one of these $0.10 charges. I would happily pay for these fees in advance just so that they were billed as a once a month onetime charge in one lump sum in order to keep using this extra service. But I refuse to continue using the service if I have to continue to account for 270 to 330 dimes one at a time EVERY PAYOUT AND EVERY MONTH!
The service inst worth the headache. And I doubt that I am the only seller who feels this way.
THIS IS NUTS! I am literally getting nickeled and DIMED to death by eBay's new accounting procedures.
@go-bad-chicken - I really appreciate you providing this (especially with screenshots). I've made sure this goes to the right place for review.
