ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
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@wagnerjohn1 wrote:I sell 99.9% books. Should I begin updating my 700+ listings with the new "required" item specifics (Title, Author, Language) even though it seems like all the bugs are not worked out and all my updates might disappear the next day (as this has been reported to have happened to several others in the community)? You require this done by 12 July. What happens if those listings are not updated?
My recommendation is to capture all of your item specifics after you have them updated. If eBay makes further changes that eliminate your details, at least you will have a backup file that will be easier to update and upload in bulk. http://isdntek.com/ebaytools/ItemSpecificScanner.htm
@clarkphilatelics wrote:
More Managed Payments Disappointments
Earlier this week the link “View Payout Details” in the “eBay has sent your payout” message changed. The display of “Related transactions” now displays transactions for the last three months instead of the payout transaction. Unless the link is activated immediately after receiving the eBay Payout message it is now necessary to search through orders and other payouts to find the relevant payout. Meanwhile, my request to include gross amount and fee totals for each payout transaction goes unanswered.
Let me try to make this simple. Sellers required different views of the data depending on the current activity. A seller may be interested in items, listings, sales, orders, or payments. Additional views like shipments are also helpful. While sales correspond to listings and items, an order may encompass multiple items, listings, or sales. Payment transactions may include multiple orders. holds, postage fees, or monthly store fees may further complicate transactions.
When tracking cash flow, in addition to the amount deposited or withdrawn from the checking account, the total sale price of the items in the included orders, total refunds, total fees, hold amounts, postage fees, store fees, and other fees is needed. Currently the Related transactions window does not display any information other than the deposit or withdrawal amount for bank transactions. The Payout details window does not total “Amount” or “Fees”.
While it is possible to reconstruct each payout into a “split” transaction with “Amount” and “Fees” plus Holds will sum to the “Net” amount (Sale price), time and effort is required to track cash flow in QuickBooks or Quicken. Time that otherwise could have been used to create new listings or fulfill orders.
Recommendations:
- Restructure the Payout details window to total the Amount, Fees and Net columns. Ideally, these totals, hold amounts, and monthly fees would display on the same line in the parent “Related transactions window”
- Monthly fees should not be combined with other Payout transactions. If the transaction amount is predictable, it can be posted as a recurring fee in Quicken or QuickBooks making it possible to cover the withdrawal on the due date.
- Restore the previous link behavior from the Payout message to display only the transaction referred to in the eBay message in the “Related transactions” window or link directly to the “Payout detail” window and total amounts needed to inter a balanced “split” transaction in to accounting software.
Hi @clarkphilatelics - thank you for taking the time to provide such detailed insight! I will make sure it is shared with the payments team.
@nuclearomen wrote:
tyler@ebay brian@ebay brittanie@ebay
I have 2 issues need to discuss. First is issue with claims that I had, one was in January for INR, in which I fully refunded the buyer and the case was closed, but I wasn’t at fault, USPS lost the package (they even sent a check a month later for the insurance). The other I discussed here few weeks back with tyler@ebay . A buyer had opened a INAD case on me by accident, was intended for another seller, wasn’t even for an item I sold. This was explained to ebay and the buyer even sent me mails explaining the mistake. Ebay supposedly closed that case also. But few weeks back I was here and mentioned that the mark was on my seller performance and on my service metrics (still on the service metrics). Ebay’s Performance Team said they corrected and removed it on my seller performance. So yesterday (and every day since the 13th when ebay decided to change the item specifics for Music > Records and I complied and updated all my listings) I have called cause my sales and views just stopped. Did have any sales til last night. But I’ll get to the item specifics more in another post (don’t want to blend the two together and confuse), after finish with the claim’s thing this post.
So yesterday I called CS again, no sales since the 13th, my sales and views were just cut off after I updated all listings with new specifics requirements. The rep I got yesterday was actually good unlike most of them and he seen that these claims, the INR one from January and the false INAD from March were still opened on my account – they never closed as ebay said they did and the rep was supposedly able to close them yesterday and filed reports on the matter. He said that due to those buyers were not able to purchase items from me and one reason why my sales may have just stopped. So now I have to come here and ask for you or someone to check into this for me. Those cases should be not only closed as they resolved, INR I fully refunded buyer in January + was supposed to be protected by ebay as that was time during xmas the sale and ebay had extended protections for shipping. And the INAD was false claim not even for item I sold. These marks on my seller performance and my service metrics should not be there at all at least for the INAD false claim. Yet ebay hasn’t restored my metrics. In 3 years of selling never had a INAD or any other claim in music category yet I am punished and suffer loss of sales due to ebay keeping that on my metrics / performance. So I need someone to clear this up and also double check that nothing is open on my account still. Rep said he closed them yesterday and put in request for performance review as I’m TRS with 100% feedback never a INAD or anything else, not even any bad feedback in 3 years of selling. If this is true that cases that ebay was supposed to close long ago were still open on my account – even after performance team telling me they corrected things – this means ebay has cost me thousands of dollars in lost sales potentially, and someone, idk who, needs to be fired or at very least re-trained!
Last night I finally got some sales, but again, I had 3 sales within an hour, then dead again, still dead, and no one can tell me that this isn’t ebay controlling my sales as sales do not happen like this, and it’s not just last night, this is repetitive ongoing trend with sales for months. Where sales will come in sudden spurts, 3-4-5 sales all within an hour and then it’s lights out for a day or so. Which leads me to believe that the rep wasn’t pulling my leg or anything, makes perfect sense why my sales have gone from multiple every day to nothing for days and then when they do happen it’s in spurts.
I have the ticket reference number for the rep yesterday who said he also made bunch of notes on the report and they can be seen if look up the reference number and the rep’s name. If you want/need this let me know I’ll gladly provide it.
As for the second issue: Ebay changed the specifics of Music > Records category last week. After I updated half the listings on the 13th to comply with the new requirements my sales just stopped, I finished updating all listings (180 or so at the time for records) a day or two later. This was reported several times to CS and they blew me off with “we’ll escalate case with tech support and someone will contact you” – well tech support as usual did nothing and no one EVER contacts you to follow up. Other sellers affected by these specifics who sell in same category as me also reported on the community the same thing, they updated specifics and their sales stopped. What is ebay doing about this problem? (the rest of this subject is my next post).
This along with ALL the site changes ebay have made, has created tons of Site Issues and Glitches that have affected sellers sales, and many seller tools, such bulk editor and promoted listings, sending offers, making an offer, etc.. etc… along with the issue of people not being able to check out with Paypal (again, an issue that has occurred many times in the past). I get views and watchers stack up on listings because they either can’t check out or ebay won’t allow them to purchase the item. All these problems are the result of ebay making drastic and often unneeded changes to the site. But instead of correcting and fixing the issues they create in the process they ignore them and make more changes which then creates an endless cycle of glitches and site wide issues that are not being addressed or fixed as ebay creates them. In the process, sellers call EB CS and get treated like we don’t know what we are talking about or just plain out ignored – passed up with the common reply of from unexperienced reps that will create a ticket for tech support or other depts and that someone will contact you but no one ever does ending the call. The other issue being support is limited to general reps who have no idea what to do. When you need tech support you should be able to be connected to Tech Support – not some rep who says they will create a ticket and do nothing to actually help. When you have issue with claims or seller performance you should be able to connect to Performance Team or Rep overseeing the claim. When you have issue with billing, fees etc. should be able to connect with Managed Payments or Billing not a general rep who will “make a ticket” and do nothing to actually help. Ebays CS is greatly flawed and needs to be completely rethought and reconstructed to actually help those who need it. Community is generally not a help either for ebay employees as when you mention an employee they never reply. This community chat is one of the only times someone can talk to ebay employee on the community. The plain truth is that CS is horrid, but it’s worse then it’s ever been now. Ebay needs to recognize this and do things to make it better and so that sellers that call with actual issues are not ignored and past off by reps who have no experience or training to handle situations and issues in real time, by themselves, or can’t connect you to someone who can or the correct dept.
@nuclearomen it sounds like you were given inaccurate information from the agent about the cases on your account. Having open cases on a sellers account does not restrict buyers from purchasing from them. Additionally, Service Metrics will not impact a sellers account unless they are rated 'Very High'. If you are not rated 'Very High' then Service Metrics are not impacting your account.
This is also true for your seller level. If these cases have not changed your seller level (for example, if you were Top Rated and are still Top Rated) then it indicates these cases did not have an impact your seller level standing.
Our teams constantly monitor the site to see if site traffic, sales volume, etc. are impacted when changes roll out. There are no confirmed site issues that are impacting sales in the manner you've described.
It's true that our site engineers do not take phone calls as that would consume the vast majority of their time. Instead, their time is spent working on the site. A primary role of customer service is to document potential site issues and send them to our tech teams for review.
If you'd like to speak with the payments team then you can go here and select 'Have us call you' at the bottom of the page. A member of the payments team will contact you and answer your payments related questions.
@divwido wrote:
Can I ask a quick one? What is the purpose of eBay's spinning indefinately wheel? I listed a perfume bottle, came back thirty minutes later and it was still spinning.
Why is that? Was there something wrong or did it just go crazy?
@divwido A spinning wheel indicates something is processing/loading. Typically if a processing/loading indicator on any web page never ends then it means something went wrong with the request to process. In most cases this is a browser issue, meaning the browser failed to completely load the request made by the site. Clearing cache and cookies typically resolves these kinds of issues, so it's suggested that these are cleared often to avoid browser related issues.
@og-s.cards wrote:
Are you going to revert Item Specific changes until you ask the community if they want that or even until you have fixed the bugs everyone in community has complained about?
Hi @og-s.cards - there hasn't been any announced change to the roll-out of the category implementation, and accompanying Item Specific changes. If you find any issues with specifics that don't make sense for the category you're listing in you can alert the team at sdsupport@ebay.com who can help. Thanks!
@glasser If I had to guess, I would say the increase in item specifics is directed more toward keyword search than to the lefthand filters. Item specifics might evetually eliminate scanning and indexing item descriptions (many of which are absurdly lacking in information).
However, I agree that structured data shopping is not how the just-out-browsing public purchases items. Like you, I hope eBay's programmers don't lose sight of that.
