Community Chat, March 4 @ 1:00 pm PT - General Topics

[brian@ebay]

Join the Community team here at 1 PM PT on March 4th for our Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. We don't have a specific topic this week, so please bring any general questions you may have about buying or selling.

The chat will be open for questions from 1-2 pm PT, at which point we'll close thread from additional responses. After this time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that might still be unanswered.

If you're new to the chat, welcome!  Simply Reply to this post with your question from 1-2 PM Pacific Time and we'll be happy to look into it for you.

*Please note that we're not able to address account-specific queries. Questions regarding your account should be directed to eBay Customer Service.

[itscalledapostingid]

Do you have any update on the issue of Ebay displaying "Same Day Shipping" on items with 1-day handling?
I think common sense should tell whoever programs the system that "Same Day Shipping" should never be displayed on items when the stated handling time is greater than zero days.
I have reported this problem to Ebay for over 3 months. They tell me "I will be covered; they will remove any negative feedback that results from this situation."
That tells me they know it will result in a bad buyer experience but they don't mind.

[gwzcomps]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@gwzcomps wrote:
I was wondering regarding using eBay shipping labels, when is eBay going to increase the limit of labels I can print per order? Occasionally the limit of 5 isn't enough when people buy a large quantity of items from me or items that can only go in one box per quantity of one.

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Hi @gwzcomps, great question! I will check with our shipping team on potential enhancements to the number of labels you can for a single order. I'll be happy to update you with more information if it becomes available 🙂

As a side note, I wanted to add that when you are printing labels for more than one order, you can actually print up to 100 USPS shipping labels using our Bulk Shipping Label tool (here). You can review more information on this option here.

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Ok thanks.  Most of my bigger orders go FedEx due to the combination of dimensional and actual weight costs.  If I can print up to 100 USPS labels per order why am I limited to adding 5 (if I remember right) tracking numbers in the order details? 

Also thanks for the update on the search.  I am wondering what other keywords the algorithm replaces when searching.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks alan. I was hoping to quote at least some of it here, because Jordan's comments deserve a wider exposure.

[vrykalak]

@vrykalak wrote:

I had 44 of my "free 50" left on 2/29, so I posted 44 items...and got charged 25¢ apiece for them! Two different CS agents said they would fix it, but neither one did, and those charges are on my invoice now. Furthermore, no "free 50" showed up for March.

Hi @vrykalak - because you have a store subscription you will not see the 'Free 50' for March, those were replaced with the insertion fee credits that come with your store package. 

Likewise, you'd see the '50 free' promo prior to opening a store subscription, but after it's opened your insertion fee credits take precedence and you wouldn't see further credits on the '50 free' promo. That may be what happened. 

It sounds like you've been working with CS on this though, and they may still be reviewing it. I'd encourage you to contact them again if you still see those charges on your All Account Activity page after they said they'd credit it. 

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Both of the agents I talked to said that EVERY account was supposed to get the "free 50" whether or not you have a store. 
...If that's not true, that answers my question about whether or not to keep the store after the freebie period: NO.

[alan@ebay]

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@mam98031 wrote:

Why does the quote icon sometime appear as an option when making a post and sometimes it is just not there.

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Hi @mam98031, we noticed that today too 😞. We've opened a ticket with our community platform vendor and we have marked it as a high-priority fix. 

We found that if you refresh the page a few times it will show up.

Thank you. 

[alan@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
Thanks alan. I was hoping to quote at least some of it here, because Jordan's comments deserve a wider exposure.

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Sounds good! Keep an eye on the podcast page for updates. 

[nuclearomen]

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@vrykalak wrote:

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Both of the agents I talked to said that EVERY account was supposed to get the "free 50" whether or not you have a store. 
...If that's not true, that answers my question about whether or not to keep the store after the freebie period: NO.

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no, the 50 free a month only comes to users without a store, when you open a store that 50 free a month goes away forever and you get the amount of your store tier every month instead...just another example of how many CS reps don't know what they are talking about.

[mam98031]

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brian@ebay wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

Curiosity Question.

Why would a buyer have a payment option available to them that is actually not available to them?

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Hi @mam98031, it could be a site issue, but without more details or an example it's hard to say for sure. Is the buyer getting an error message when they try to pay, or the does the payment option disappear? 

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I was responding to your answer to the other poster on this subject.  The posting that listed some threads on the vary subject.  

In post # 14 you stated.

Hi @floriantet, I can confirm that there is a know issue that is causing a small number of buyers to experience the error message "Unable to process payment, please select another payment method."  Typically if a buyer selects a different payment method then it will go through, so I suggest trying another payment method if this error is encountered.

So I was asking for more info on the highlighted portion of your statement.

[mam98031]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

Give us some ideas of what he said for those of us that did not attend the Podcast please.

[tyler@ebay]

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@carlqsportscards wrote:

How does ebay's search function work with people who use initials instead of a first name?

Does it make any difference if in the title I use, for example, TJ or T.J. or T. J. (with a space between)

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Hi @carlqsportscards - Best Match will read spaces and punctuation (so T J, T. J. and T.J.) as the same queries. No punctuation or spaces (TJ) would be run as its own query, which could provide different results. 

For example: when I do a search for TS Eliot I get ~4500 results. If I search for T. S. Eliot, T S Eliot or T.S. Eliot I get back the same search results of around 5k.

With regards to which benefits you more? I would go with the punctuation method, mostly because I'm a stickler. 🙂

[itscalledapostingid]

This image shows what a buyer sees at 10:51AM. It is very deceiving when I do not have same day shipping. My mail gets picked up at 11Am and the post office closes at 5PM. I can't ship an item then even if I wanted to.

[mam98031]

alan@ebay 

Excellent, thank you Alan.  Well at least our emojis now show up.  LOL

As to emojis.  They are so darn small.  Is there a way to increase their size just a little?

🍹

[brian@ebay]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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brian@ebay wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

Curiosity Question.

Why would a buyer have a payment option available to them that is actually not available to them?

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Hi @mam98031, it could be a site issue, but without more details or an example it's hard to say for sure. Is the buyer getting an error message when they try to pay, or the does the payment option disappear? 

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I was responding to your answer to the other poster on this subject.  The posting that listed some threads on the vary subject.  

In post # 14 you stated.

Hi @floriantet, I can confirm that there is a know issue that is causing a small number of buyers to experience the error message "Unable to process payment, please select another payment method."  Typically if a buyer selects a different payment method then it will go through, so I suggest trying another payment method if this error is encountered.

So I was asking for more info on the highlighted portion of your statement.

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Hi @mam98031, there is a site issue that is causing that error message to appear on a small number of transactions. The workaround is to use a different payment method. I don't have specifics on the tech side of this or why selecting a different payment method works, I only know that it's related to a site issue that our developers are working to resolve. 

[Anonymous]

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@vrykalak wrote:

I opened a store for 2 months because it was free. I finally started reading the details and found, for auction style listings, there's an additional FVF of 25¢ for Buy it Now...in addition to the extra 5¢ listing fee for BIN. What?
And most FVF % are lower if you have a store, but Books & Media--already higher than any others--are unchanged.
What other gotchas are there?
...Is there any page that compares the rules for store vs. not-store?
That would certainly be valuable to me, in deciding whether or not to keep the store open after this month.

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Hi @vrykalak, the term "gotcha" implies that information about our store fee structure is not available prior to subscribing. I want to clarify that all the information a seller would need to review prior to subscribing to a store is outlined in multiple locations on the site. One resource I can direct you to is our Help Page for store selling fees (https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/store-selling-fees?id=4122). You can compare the information on that page to the following page for standard selling fees (https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/selling-fees?id=4364). 

When listing your auctions and choosing to add Buy It Now, the fees for upgrades are displayed at the bottom of the listing form for you to review before publishing your listing. Examples are also outlined in the two articles I provided, with the first example for Auction-style listings in both articles including the fees you would expect for adding the Buy It Now option (you can compare here and here).

We encourage sellers to research any business decisions they are considering prior to making changes, and you are welcome to seek advice from experienced members of our Community by starting a thread here on the boards or contact Customer Service at any time if you have questions.

[tyler@ebay]

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@theshoppingmom2 wrote:

Good afternoon  Community team!!! Hello from warm South Florida ( muhahaha)

anyway... I have a question.... do you know when is the estimated  time  to fix the credit card issue that some sellers are having when paying their fees... with this  , I mean... I am not allowed to enter any credit card as my chosen method of payment for my eBay fees. I am only given the choice of  direct withdraw from PayPal  balance or from checking account balance... it has been several months  that this started to happen and  the credit card I had set for my fees expired and when I went to entered the new information  BAM!!! I was no longer able to enter a credit card and now.... I cannot take advantage of  my travel points , waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

TIA for all you guys do for us sellers!!!

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Hi @theshoppingmom2!

There's been an intermittent issue with this for awhile now that is still being worked on, I don't have an update to it I'm afraid. 

I don't want you to lose out on Travel points though! Have you thought about attaching your travel card as a funding source to your PayPal account and using that instead? You may have to move your PayPal balance first, or consider opening a PayPal account just for paying eBay fees, but that's a lot of miles on the table and may be worth it!