Community Chat, November 20 @ 1:00 pm PT - General Topics

[tyler@ebay]

Join the Community team here at 1 PM PT on November 20th for our Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. We don't have a set topic this week, so please bring any general questions you may have on buying or selling.

The chat will be open for questions from 1-2 pm PT, at which point we'll close thread. While no additional questions can be submitted after this time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that may 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 help!

[Anonymous]

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@maxoptical wrote:

I understand eBay is collecting the sales tax and paying this on our behalf.   I spoke with paypal and they informed me that the sales tax amount will be shown as income on our Paypal 1099K.   Speaking with Harry Tempkin in New York he said the tax would not be reported as income with Managed Payments 1099K.   

Will we get some kind of tax document from eBay showing the tax you paid on our behalf?  

I need to offset the income show on my Paypal 1099K as it really is not income.

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Hi @maxoptical, it looks like @mam98031 provided some good information on this later in the thread (here). You can review the tax information collected in your transactions through reports in Seller Hub and sellers have confirmed here on the boards that a column can be added to the reports in PayPal to show this information as well. If you have further questions on how to utilize the available reports when filing for your business we recommend that you consult with a tax professional.

[buyselljack2016]

However, you mentioned there could be other "seller protections" at play here. Can you please define that and explain? Like what?

When you do a return with a seller that offer "free returns" their perk is no negs.

Auto removed if they accept the return, and refund.

[coinslabz26]

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@coinslabz26 wrote:

Regarding sellers still accepting paypal in categories where managed payments are not yet available. Ebay's recent decision to combine sales tax as part of the payment is now showing as income for paypal 1099 purposes, and is not being separated as "sales tax" as far as paypal reports go. Is ebay going to provide us with some sort of statement we can use for tax purposes to show marketplace facilitator taxes were taken by ebay? Something that will allow us to prove we never actually received nor controlled those funds? Or will any other statement type documentation be provided so we can use it to show the IRS that these are not earnings?

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paypal support confirms this is a partner collected fee. That I need to contact ebay for reconciliation forms?

[coffeebean832]

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@coffeebean832 wrote:

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@dhbookds wrote:

Concerning the "final" notice on the IS problems....  Since they "will be finished" fixing in the next few weeks......how are we supposed to figure out WHEN everything is fixed.......so we can report problems that we still see?

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For example, when you list a women's top with size type Juniors- when eBay removed the "all categories" sizing they retained all of the numerical sizes but removed all of the letter sizes. This needs to be fixed.

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Where are we supposed to report these issues since the dedicated thread is locked?

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Reporting-issues-related-to-the-ongoing-technical-iss...

[mam98031]

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/seller-protection-policy?id=4345

[academic.ealim.books]

No, this was not a free returns situation.  In fact seller had a "no returns" policy and didn't reply and I had to have eBay step in.  So to the second part, no they did not accept the return!

[Anonymous]

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@no_zero369 wrote:

There was lively discussion on the boards recently about eBay labels. 

Can you confirm that labels are a profit cent for eBay or that the money flows through to Pitney Bowes and the shippers?  i.e.  do eBay have more of a discount than the Commercial rates they give  to sellers?

What is eBay doing to help smaller sellers that do no qualify for shipping discounts with FedEx or UPS?  Is see your competition is building its own fleet for delivery and often thus able to do 1 or 2 day delivery. How can eBay remain viable in the long run with ever increasing shipping costs for sellers as the small guys get priced out of the market? 

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Hi @no_zero369, we work to negotiate discounted rates for our sellers and pass these discounts on to any seller who prints labels on eBay. We will continue to strive towards supporting our sellers and giving them an opportunity to compete on an equal playing field, and also work towards improving the shipping options and tools available to our Community to remain competitive in an ever changing market.

[brian@ebay]

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@colorful*things wrote:

I was listing and noticed that the volume pricing option is now available on listings with a quantity of  one (before it was grayed out if your listing had quantity = 1). Does that mean if I activate it on all of my single item listings, a buyer can buy four separate items (from four separate listings) and get the discount I've set up for more than 4?  See attached screen shot.

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Hi @colorful*things happy to clarify! Volume discounts can be added to any Fixed Price item, including single quantity listings. However, if the item is single quantity then the buyer will not see the discount on the item, they will only see the discount if they add more than 1 item included in the volume discount to their shopping cart. Once in the cart, the discount will be displayed and applied during checkout. You'll find more details about Volume pricing here. 

Since the discount will not be displayed on single quantity listings you may want to consider offering an Order Discount instead. Order discounts will be displayed to buyers when viewing your listings.

[Anonymous]

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@maxoptical wrote:

I am having an issue were I can't apply a rate table to my shipping profiles.  The option to add the rate table is missing.  I can see and create new rate tables I just can not apply them to my shipping policies.

This had been working for me but now all of sudden the option is missing when I modify the shipping policy.

How do I fix this?

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Hi @maxoptical, I'm not seeing that your rate tables have been set up for you to apply to your listings. You just need to go to the shipping rate tables page here and set up rates for different shipping options/regions, then edit your listings to enable the Rate Tables you've created.

[Anonymous]

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@greg213213 wrote:

It is under the listings section and where it says "ending today" I am seeing 25 but there are none when I click on that tab. As I stated before, this number changes throughout the day. This morning it was 35 and a few items were ended, but now it states 25 and there are none.

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Hi @greg213213, thanks so much for clarifying. It looks like this is a cosmetic issue that I will be happy to report on to our tech teams for review. 

[alan@ebay]

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@coffeebean832 wrote:

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@coffeebean832 wrote:

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@dhbookds wrote:

Concerning the "final" notice on the IS problems....  Since they "will be finished" fixing in the next few weeks......how are we supposed to figure out WHEN everything is fixed.......so we can report problems that we still see?

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For example, when you list a women's top with size type Juniors- when eBay removed the "all categories" sizing they retained all of the numerical sizes but removed all of the letter sizes. This needs to be fixed.

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Where are we supposed to report these issues since the dedicated thread is locked?

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Reporting-issues-related-to-the-ongoing-technical-iss...

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Hi @coffeebean832, 

You can use the Technical Issues board to do that: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/bd-p/technicalissues-db

If you tag us in your post, we'll take a look. 

Thanks. 

[Anonymous]

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@vrykalak wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@vrykalak wrote:

Ever since mandatory GTC started, I check my listings every morning to see what time the first one that ends that day is actually ending. Then I try to get to my computer comfortably before that time to end it. On occasion, I arrived too late, and some had already relisted.

Sunday night (11/3), I got there 15 minutes before the first two should have relisted...and they were already done. It was then 4.55pm, and they said they had relisted at 6:02pm (383189663597) and 6:03pm (383189665635).
Mandatory GTC is bad enough, but jumping the gun like this is really appalling.

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Hi @vrykalak, I looked at these two examples and it appears that they both renewed exactly 1 month after they successfully were published to the site. I'm not sure what information you are using as a point of reference for the start time, but item 383189663597 started on October 4, 2019 at 6:02 PM and item 383189665635 started on October 4, 2019 at 6:03 PM. This is actually more than a month from the time you created the listings, as both were created almost 24 hours prior. Since listings can take up to 24 hours to index into our site and become visible, the renewal clock won't start until your listing becomes visible on eBay. 

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The point is: I checked in at 4:55, and these two items had ALREADY RELISTED, and said they HAD relisted (past tense) more than an hour in the future.

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Hi @vrykalak, the issue here is something we've discussed in the past; the time zone you are currently residing in is not always going to be the time zone that is being displayed to you on eBay. Most of the time, the timestamps shown on eBay are either in PT or UTC, depending on the feature being reviewed. I've can confirm again that the examples you have provided were both renewed exactly one month after the listing started and this process is working as it should.

[Anonymous]

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@vrykalak wrote:

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brian@ebay wrote:

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@gwzcomps wrote:
What meaningful action is eBay taking to deal with false claims? Also dealing with buyers making multiple accounts to circumvent blocks and site policies? Why does it seem like buyers are allowed to run wild. Do the higher ups understand that unhappy sellers also equals bad experience for buyers?

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Hi @gwzcomps, we recently implemented enhanced Seller Protections for Top Rated Sellers. One of these protections includes returns where buyers claim a false Not As Described. Once the item has been returned, Top Rated Sellers can report the buyer for a false claim. Reporting the buyer will result in the seller receiving a $6 credit on their invoice to help subsidize the return shipping cost. 

Reporting the buyer also helps us identify members who abuse the Money Back Guarantee program. We encourage sellers to report buyers that abuse this process (such as reporting false Not As Described claims) so we have the information we need to take action on abusive buyers. If a buyer is attempting to circumvent a sellers block buyer list then they should contact customer service to report the situation. Customer service can take action on buyers that circumvent seller blocks. 

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This reminds me: why is this protection only available to Top-Rated Sellers?
It seems to me that the time when it is most needed is when a seller has LOST TRS status because of a false INAD claim.

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Hi @vrykalak, sellers have been asking for a long time that we take their account history and track record of successful sales into account when reviewing for potential protection options. The options available to Top Rated Sellers is an example of how we are working to meet this request. A seller would not lose TRS status because of a false not as described claim, but instead only face this kind of loss of status after a pattern of not meeting the expectations of this program has been established. The Top Rated Seller program is an incentive program for those who go above the standard expectations, working hard to provide positive experiences to their customers. This status can be challenging to obtain and keep, and this is exactly the way it should be - sellers who have achieved Top Rated Seller status are sellers who have proven they consistently go above and beyond for their customers. When a seller has proven this, we can offer additional protections not available to others.

[brian@ebay]

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@coinslabz26 wrote:

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brian@ebay wrote:

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@coinslabz26 wrote:
Regarding sellers still accepting paypal in categories where managed payments are not yet available. 

Ebay's recent decision to combine sales tax as part of the payment is now showing as income for paypal 1099 purposes, and is not being separated as "sales tax" as far as paypal reports go. Is ebay going to provide us with some sort of statement we can use for tax purposes to show marketplace facilitator taxes were taken by ebay? Something that will allow us to prove we never actually received nor controlled those funds? Or will any other statement type documentation be provided so we can use it to show the IRS that these are not earnings?

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Hi @coinslabz26, we can't speak for PayPal, so it would be best if you asked them directly. EBay provides a downloadable report in the Seller Hub Orders section. This report does separate the eBay Collected Sales Tax into it's own column. Beyond this report, we do not have plans to provide another report for Sales Tax

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Paypal is not collecting or remitting sales tax this has nothing to do with them. Ebay is simply adding the amount as income to our account so we can cover the fee and then removing it again. Why would you have no plans to provide a statement showing you took the money back from us? The downloadable report in seller hub is only available for a limited time and does not show that ebay remitted that sales tax to the state or that it was received by us and then taken back. Please double check your answer here because it seems more like it was something ebay forgot to consider when deciding to shift the fee to us.

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Hi @coinslabz26, I apolgize, you mentioned PayPals report and it not showing eBay collected sales tax information, which is something we do not have information about. The information regarding eBay provided reports that I provided is correct. Sellers will have to periodically download the report from the Seller Hub Orders page (or via File Exchange).

While we don't currently have a plan to offer an additional report, this does not mean that such an option won't be considered in the future, or that improvements to the Seller Hub Order download won't be made. We are aware of sellers feedback and do pass it along to the appropriate teams for review and consideration for future updates. 

[Anonymous]

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@mand-sales2014 wrote:

Hi, I have a few different questions, first of all I had a link above my Sellers overview page for at least a week offering me a loan and I started filling out the request for it but didnt finish it and now the link is gone and I really need to finish requesting more info on it because we could definitely use the loan to acquire more inventory! Is there any way to get this link to show back up above my Sellers Overview? 

Also, my company is named Like New Knives. We sell new and used knives and multi-tools here on Ebay, on our own website and few other platforms. We have had a major issue the past few months with several of our listings being removed for not following Ebay's knives policy. Let me explain that everytimyuue this happens we contact customer service and each listing is reviewed and each time they agree with us that the listings DO follow the policy. We are always very careful to adhere to the rules here on Ebay. Unfortunately, each time this happens we end up with three days of our listings being hidden from search and the Ebay teammates say they cannot help this and cannot do anything about this. As I am sure you can understand three days with our listings not showing is very troubling. We make our living through this business and the majority of our sales are still coming through Ebay. Also the last time a listing was pulled, the account specialist we talked to was quite confused because I guess the teammate that pulled the listing did not bother to leave an explanation about why they did so which she said they ALWAYS DO. Can you please help me with this? Thank you!

Jess @ Like New Knives

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Hi @mand-sales2014, though I'm not certain what offer you recently saw in your account for securing a loan I can offer resources for an eBay partner that provides this kind of service, Square Capital. Check our eBay's announcement on our partnership with this company here, and more information on the program directly on Square's website here. If this is the offer you were seeing, there would also have been an email sent to you with the invitation details. You would need an invitation to qualify for this offer, so if there was a different offer being displayed to you don't hesitate to start a thread on the Selling board here within the Community and @mention a member of the community team so we can look into this further for you (as you won't be able to reply to this message now that the chat has concluded for the week).

As for the listing violations you are running into, I will look into your account and touch base with the appropriate team to see what might be going on. We may be able to note your account so that extra care is taken to avoid inappropriate listing removals.