Ep 277 || Hiring A Virtual Assistant

[podcast_team]

eBay Seller Sandra Gustard of Paradise Pimento Oil shares her experience with hiring a Virtual Assistant. Griff and Brian answer questions about invoicing buyers, the “unit quantity” item specific, how to provide a blanket price markdown across a category, issuing partial refunds for shipping overages on an eBay International Shipping transaction, and adding the Custom Label (SKU) field in Seller Hub > Listings > Active View.

Episode Links:
Fountain Hair Growth & Skin Care eBay Store
Fountain Pimento Oil on FaceBook
The English Connection Media
Recurring Links:
eBay for Business Podcast
eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast
eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
eBay Seller News Announcements
eBay for Business Facebook
Community Chat with eBay Staff
eBay Seller Center
eBay Help
eBay Local Seller Events
Seller Hub
eBay Events

Brian: I'm Brian.

Griff: I'm Griff, and this is the eBay for Business Podcast. Your source for the information and the inspiration to help you start, manage and grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And for those of you keeping count, like Brian and I, this is episode 277.

Brian: Well, you keep count. I just go along.

Griff: No you don't. You keep count.

Brian: I do keep count. Because every Tuesday I see which number it is.

Griff: Of course you do. And it's like an odometer to you.

Brian: Exactly. I have to tell you, I was on our seller meeting call this week and this is the seller meeting host. We have a monthly call with all the hosts of the seller meetings that happen across the country. And there was a new host and we were all talking and then near the end, I don't know how the podcast came up, but she was actually a guest of yours a couple weeks ago, Nikki.

Griff: Oh, Nikki, right?

Brian: I wanna say 274 maybe 273? Something like that.

Griff: No, no, that's great. Yeah. Nikki Visconti.

Brian: Yes. And her husband I think too.

Griff: Yeah. Yeah. Jim. Yeah, they were great. Well, they have a new group, a new seller group. That's fantastic.

Brian: Yeah, they're starting a seller group. There were a whole bunch of like, well not a whole, but there were a bunch of new faces. And I'll encourage actually listeners to go check out the seller events page. So just go to community.ebay.com and click on events and click on seller meetings. For the month of January we've got 20 seller meetings this month alone and there are a bunch booked out in various parts of the country. Springfield, Illinois, a new one that's coming up. And so go take a look and see if there's one in your neighborhood and go visit with some other similar eBay sellers.

Griff: That sounds like fun. I haven't been to a seller meetup in years. I should go to one. Maybe we can start one in Palm Springs. So maybe I'll look into starting one.

Brian: Oh yes, I'll come down and visit.

Griff: Of course you will. It's not that far. it's a night ride, one hour plane ride. It's easy. Yeah.

Brian: The other thing that I'm excited about this week, Is this week's guest.

Griff: Oh, me too. And I should have first explained before I even introduced who the guest is, is that our interview this week was actually recorded many months ago, last year in August. And it was during the week where we host every year all the sellers who are gonna participate in providing sessions for eBay Open. So our next guest was here for that opportunity and we got a chance to meet her and she is such a delight. Her name is Sandra Gustard and she's gonna give us an update on her interesting business. I don't know if you remember, she started a business on eBay selling something called Pimento Oil. And she's coming on specifically though to talk about her experiences hiring a virtual assistant, both the pros and some interesting cons, which I think will be of interest to sellers considering this. It's stuff to keep in mind. And then we took a few minutes to talk about her other passion outside of eBay, which is her passion for music, specifically ska and reggae. But her tastes are very eclectic and she has her own radio show in New York. She does interviews with people in the music business and she travels around the world to meet them. So it should be interesting.

Brian: I got to talk to her a little bit when in person while she was here. So I'm really looking forward, to hearing this interview you had with her.

Griff: Yeah. So that's coming up. And before we do that, as we do every week, I think I know what the news is this week for Brian .

Brian: I'm not surprised because this week's news is about severe weather delays.

Griff: Go figure.

Brian: Due to winter storms and extreme weather across several regions of the country, many homes and businesses have been impacted. Our primary concern is that you and your close ones stay safe. You may also be concerned about shipping delays for items already shipped or difficulties getting sold items to your carrier. If your business is impacted, eBay will automatically protect your seller performance, including your late shipment rate, your valid tracking upload rate, any item not received cases due to late delivery as long as you uploaded tracking before the case was opened. And have a physical scan from the carrier, any defects resulting from transactions you canceled. And of course, we will also remove any associated negative and neutral feedback. And these cases will not impact your service metrics rating for item not received.

Griff: And I think it's important that we mention this again in the news for those sellers who tune into our podcast and aren't sure of this, most of this, if not all of it, happens automatically behind the scenes. So we have a team that does monitor extreme and severe weather conditions and then takes action accordingly so that shipping times are often adjusted so the buyer will see different shipping time than they would without the weather. And when we say automatically that is the case and this for the 99.99% of the cases that where this comes up, you'll be automatically protected. And if you feel that you weren't and you should have been a quick call to customer support will remedy that.

Brian: Definitely. Yeah. I think we've gotten very efficient with how we manage these in an appropriate way for both buyers and sellers.

Griff: I agree. So with all that behind us, we got through the desk work and we're ready to meet with Sandra.

Brian: Great.

Griff: Some of you who have been listening for the last four years to our podcast coming on five years now, may remember our next guest because she made her first appearance with us way back on episode 142 in May of 2021. It seems like it was forever. She was one of our more notable guests because her story was different than any other seller we had on. Long before Top Brands brought their flagships stores to New York and online shopping was a thing. Sandra G, also known as Lady English, was selling women's clothes and shoes to supplement her meager earnings after migrating to Brooklyn, New York in 1997. During a life-changing trip to St. Thomas Jamaica, she came across Fountain Pimento Oil. Now during the pandemic pimento oil sales soared and the increased revenues led to her designing and collaborating with a manufacturer to produce another product. So Sandra, since we last talked to you, you've had quite a bit of a success going on.

Sandra: It has been wonderful. Like I said, during the pandemic when lots of other businesses were really, really struggling, those were my best years. 2020, 2021. It was fantastic I think because people were seeking natural remedies because of the pandemic. You know, it just really helped a lot. And I was just encouraged, you know what I'm saying, that I could be one of those millionaire business owners. So I'm still on my way to reaching that pinnacle I hope. And it's been phenomenal. And of course I got the grant and that helped me to launch other products. So I'm grateful.

Griff: And I think we talked about that back two years ago, that you were one of the recipients of the Up And Running Grant for 2020 or 2021.

Sandra: I applied in 2020 and got it in 2021.

Griff: So a lot of water under the bridge in those two years. We went through the pandemic. I remember when we spoke we were right in the middle of it. And you've obviously expanded your product line. Tell us a little bit about this change to your business since then because it just started out with the pimento oil.

Sandra: Right? It started with pimento oil and then based on the success and people looking for other ways to grow their hair or their skin, especially in the Caribbean community, people were asking me, well, what do you do for hair? What do you do for menopausal hair loss? You know, what do I, what do I do? I've got bald spot and for men as well, you know, as, as we age and we have inflammation in our joints and we lose our hair, our hair thins and all the rest of it. So based on that, I continue to study and research about natural oils and remedies and leaves and trees and stuff that um, didn't have too much knowledge about before. 'cause we'd just be buying what's in the chemist, what's in the pharmacy, and not knowing about alternative remedies. So I just did my due diligence, read a lot, taught myself. And obviously in the Caribbean and and other countries, they have traditional medications and herbal remedies. So talking to people as well, you find out a lot about what people used to use before they had access to Western cosmetic and beauty preparations. You know, people used to use castor oil, they used to boil their own coconut oil. And it's just basically going back to their roots. Going back to roots.

Griff: I'm a big believer in coconut oil. I use it for everything,

Sandra: , everything. And you know, and during my research, I mean other than it being a great solution for moisturizing your skin and your hair, it's also good for memory. You know, I've found out that it's good for Alzheimer's and the treatment of Alzheimer's is, it's increased, building back brain cells. So you learn so much about what these natural fruits and trees and leaves and seeds, what they can do for you, you know, in other areas, not just cosmetically.

Griff: It's a good bit of timing, growing interest in natural remedies using plants and things found in nature as opposed to things found in in the lab.

Sandra: Right, right, right. Because what you find that when you travel throughout the Caribbean and even in Asian countries, like a lot of the people that live well into their nineties or 110 years old, some of them have never even been to a doctor. They just have their remedies that have been passed down through the generations. You know, different teas that they drink. And we learn from those people about detoxing your body, how important it is to detoxify your body and to cleanse your intestinal, your digestive system because that is the root of most diseases and cancers and things like that. So pimento oil really piqued my interest in a whole world of alternative medicine that I wasn't privy to in the UK. I mean a little bit because my parents and grandparents are from Jamaica. So they obviously moved to England with some of the remedies like ginger, white rum, pimento seeds, you know, so they will massage you your chest or your throat if you have the flu or a cold instead of using vix. Some of the remedies that they used to use, they travel with, but there's so much more out there. And that's why I'm so grateful that going to Jamaica and discovering Bar Fountain, that mineral spa and the pimento oil, 'cause it stopped me getting cortisone shots in my shoulder, which I might still have been getting, you know, 10 years later. And that oil helped me. It's a natural analgesic, it just literally numbs pain within a minute. So yeah, it's my favorite. It's my favorite.

Griff: One of the things that we knew from your success in the last couple years in growing your business, you actually had an experience with something. We've talked about a service we've talked about here on the podcast and that's virtual assistants. But yours didn't work out quite well.

Griff: Well, virtual assistants, I found out from colleagues that you can hire a virtual assistant abroad. So I was referred to a company that you can hire a Filipino assistant and it's like $8 an hour and you can have them help you develop your website or just manage your social media for which I really, really needed that. So I hired a young lady, Louise, and she was with me for about six weeks and then abruptly, the agency that I hired her through, they said she left, they said they can't get hold of her and she just went missing. So I emailed her privately to find out what happened. Is she okay? And she basically came back and said, they're not paying me, they're paying $2 an hour. So I hired her privately and she stayed with me. She was with me for like, well she left. She didn't come back after Christmas. So, I couldn't understand why, but then I discovered culturally you're supposed to pay in December, an extra month's wages, it's standard in the Philippines, so you're supposed to pay a 13th month. I didn't know.

Griff: Oh my.

Sandra: And then the other thing that I discovered is that they don't take well to criticism. Not like you are criticizing their work, but if they feel like you are unhappy with them. So Louise, she helped me put together the slides for a pitch competition. The pitch competition came and went and I wasn't successful. So I just shared with her I didn't win. And speaking to other people in the Filipino community and people who work with virtual assistants, if you wasn't successful in a project that they were involved in, they think it's their fault. So that's probably the reason why she didn't come back. One because she didn't get the 13th month, which I didn't know about. And two, because she thinks that she's somehow responsible for me not winning that pitch competition, which is not true 'cause her work was perfect. I mean she was just excellent. She just was worth every penny and I would have her again. So you know, I just started the process to hire somebody else, but it's just, when you advertise for one, 'cause I said well I'm not gonna use that agency anymore. 'cause if you're paying $8 an hour and she's only getting two and she's getting paid sporadically, then I'd rather hire someone and they're getting that money rather than enriching an agency. So I learned a lot about the importance of a virtual assistant and they're so talented. I mean we obviously have virtual assistants here we could hire, but you know, if you are trying to save money and grow your business, then it's cost effective to hire someone overseas. So now I fully understand 'cause I used to complain a lot. You know, I call a company here, T-Mobile someone, you get somebody far, far away. Do you know what I'm saying? But now I understand why.

Griff: Have you managed to hire a new virtual assistant?

Sandra: No, I haven't because I got overwhelmed with the application process. 'cause you put in an ad and you get like 150 people responding, do you know what I'm saying? And they're all available to you. So yeah, just the time to go through everybody and you know, how do you choose? I've just knocked it on the head for the minute, but I will be hiring someone.

Griff: I hear you've been traveling a lot and doing a lot of radio.

Sandra: Yep. As you know, you said my alter ego is lady English, which is actually how I even moved to America in the first place. Typically during the summer there's lots of reggae festivals like here in California and Jamaica and you know, for the past 12, 14 years I've always been going to Jamaica in the summer, not knowing that they've got huge reggae festivals in Europe. So the biggest reggae festival is held in Spain, it's called Rototom and it's between the 16th and 22nd of August. So this year I told my radio station person, I don't want accreditation for Jamaica, I wanna go somewhere else. So I went to Spain and it was beautiful, shockingly hot. I was really, really surprised. It's only two and a half hours away from the UK but I'd never visited. And it was just, I was just so shocked. 'cause a lot of British people, they do retire to Spain. So I always knew that growing up and people always go there for holidays, but I never knew it was so hot. I was just so shocked. But, it was beautiful, happy that I went happy that, um, reggae music has transcended the world 'cause there's all kind of Italian reggae bands and who knew. Do you know what I'm saying? Like there's some German speaking reggae artists and they just understand Jamaican better than me. And I'm like, oh my. You know, so it's overwhelming. It's like, you know, just a little music, small music from a small island how it had the impact.

Griff: And what do you do during the festival itself?

Sandra: I interview, I interview people and do commentary, edit, speak to people who patrons and walk around and take pictures. But mostly interviews. I did a couple of live interviews 'cause my show comes on Saturdays and Sundays, so I was able to call into the studio from the festival. But right now I did about seven interviews. So they're going to be edited and then put on the show. So it's great.

Griff: Let me get this straight. You have your own business, you sell online, including on eBay?

Sandra: Yes.

Griff: And you're conducting interviews in a radio show about reggae music? Do I get that right? Yes. And when do you have time to rest?

Sandra: When I come to California, like I'm just enjoying my um, hotel right now, like sleeping. But I'm really, I mean, you're quite right. I'm exhausted because I got back on Friday. I only spent a day in London and I was just home Saturday and Sunday and out to California Monday. So I feel really special and I'm just blessed and I've met so much wonderful people here at eBay and I just, I'm just, it's family. It is family. Do you know what I'm saying? I feel, I just feel blessed to be a part of it that I was chosen to come here and you know, I just reinforce for my own self that eBay is the number one selling platform because it's intimate, it's personal. You are definitely interested in your sellers and your consumers and I just love it. I just feel proud to be part of it.

Griff: Well I hope that you find a good virtual assistant. If you need one because it sounds like your business is really growing. And I love the advice that you give about this. I had no idea that the working in the Philippines, they consider that there's a 13th month after December.

Sandra: Right. And it's considered an insult if you don't pay the 13th month. But you don't know.

Griff: Yeah, exactly.

Sandra: It's because I only found out because as I said, I was trying to hire through a different agency and it tells you the protocols. And because, and there's quite a high turnover as well. Like they'll just disappear on you. So this website, they're explaining some of the reasons why. Some of the reasons like I've mentioned is the 13th month and criticism, like if you have a failure, they blame themselves. They're especially sensitive. But we won't know that and we can take a knock if someone says something, we'll answer back. But they're very polite and sensitive. So they're not gonna say anything. They'd rather disappear and give you the opportunity to hire somebody else. And it's really funny because now that I think back on a few of our conversations, she's done graphics for me and she'll say, is there's somebody else you wanna get, you know, she's very, yeah. So they kind of demure and, but you know, you wouldn't know. And thinking of when I've interacted with customer services myself and you do get a Filipino national, you can hear that they're anxious to please. Yeah. So it makes sense. But, and it's good to know.

Griff: So recognize them even if they're your VA, recognize they're good work so they know they're being appreciated.

Sandra: Course, of course. You have to constantly reinforce the good things, you know, what they're doing and encourage them.

Griff: But that's probably a good practice for no matter where they're from.

Sandra: Exactly.

Griff: Well, Sandra, before we let you go though, I think I want to give our audience an opportunity to understand why you're in San Jose, but you're here for eBay Open this week. So what's your contribution? What are you doing for eBay Open? Or what did you do? What did you do in the past tense for eBay Open?

Sandra: I'm sharing my experience with eBay and like I was saying to Stephanie, I've learned so much from the other sellers and the relationships that the sellers have built with eBay executives and stuff. Like, it's literally family. And I just love that because I feel like you're just not about profit. Obviously we're in all in business to make money, but it goes beyond that with eBay. Okay. It is about encouraging the sellers, do you know what I'm saying? And having the sellers be a part of the process and asking their opinions, taking their suggestions so that eBay can build, working in collaboration with the seller rather than just imposing a new policy and just expecting you to follow it. You encourage input and I just love that because that means we are part of eBay. Yes. I just love that. I just love the cohesiveness and everybody's engagement and obviously there's a couple of sellers that have been here at South San Jose before and they've met with staff and you know, it's just one big happy family and I like that.

Griff: It is your first trip then?

Sandra: This is my first trip. Yeah. It's just family. Like everybody knows everybody. It's just one big happy family and hospitality is wonderful and I could not hope and wish for a better selling home. I really, really do. I just feel, I mean what it's done for me, it just makes me want to do more with and for eBay. That's what it's done for me. Yeah. I'm just like humbled.

Griff: We're humbled by your success because without sellers like you, this company ceases to exist. So it's the whole idea of a marketplace is dependent upon people like you who work hard and bring your products to our marketplace. So thank you.

Sandra: Love it. I appreciate it.

Griff: Are you heading back to the UK after this? Are you based in the UK again?

Sandra: No, I'm based in Brooklyn, New York.

Griff: So what is your eBay store?

Sandra: My eBay store is called Fountain Pimento Oil. So it's spelled PIM for mother, ENTO and then OIL. So my story's Fountain Pimento Oil

Griff: And we'll put the link in it in the transcript so people can find it. And can we lead people to your music interviews that you do?

Sandra: I'm on two radio stations. Well this show streams on eight different platforms, but it's essentially two shows. One on a Saturday morning between 8 till 10. Well you are three hours behind so I guess for you guys it'll be five till eight, five till, yeah, 5 AM till 7 AM 'cause it's eight till 10 AM in New York, or one till three in the UK. And that is soundchatradio.com and the show is called the English Connection Media. And then on a Sunday, theenglishconnectionmedia.com, two till four Eastern Standard Time. I will travel anywhere for reggae and music. You know, I grew up, my mom reggae wasn't around, but she liked Tony Bennett, Marvin Gaye, Nancy Washington. So as children, you know, we went to see Tony Bennet's children at London Palladium, Marvin Gaye, you know, she took us to lots of shows. So my musical tastes are really, really diverse and I think that my love for reggae is the rebellion in me because we didn't have it in the home when I was growing up. So, but you know, I love all musical tastes, I love pop music, I love jazz, I love Ska, I just love all kinds of different music.

Griff: We could talk for hours then.

Sandra: We really could . So yeah, I'll listen to everything.

Griff: Well Sandra, I want to thank you so much. I know it's a busy couple days here on campus and I want to thank you for taking time to talk to us.

Sandra: And I appreciate you Griff, for having me back. Thank you so much. Take care.

Griff: Sandra Gustard has a business on eBay called Fountain Pimento Oil. We're gonna put the links to that eBay store and also the links to her radio shows on Saturday and Sunday. So you can tune in and listen to Sandra as she's interviewing people from the reggae world.

Brian: You got questions?

Griff: We've got answers. Oh yes we do. And we have three questions this week, Brian, as we usually do. And the first one is from a woman seller named Mary and her user ID or a store on eBay is appealing fines and her email actually contains three questions. So we'll read them all and then we'll take each one in kind. You want to read the email Brian?

Brian: Sure. Love to. So Mary sent this to podcast@ebay.com. Hello Griff and Brian.

Griff: Yeah, I was first.

Brian: Pardon?

Griff: I was first.

Brian: You were first.

Griff: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Brian: You deserve to be first anyway. Okay, I digress. Yes, hello Griff and Brian. Hi, love the podcast. I learned so much. Thank you for doing a great job keeping sellers informed and in the loop. Wondering if you can help with my questions. This is the first one. Occasionally buyers ask me to invoice them, doesn't eBay already email the buyer and invoice when they choose to buy. Now the second question, how are the unit and unit quantity fields different from quantity field? I find this confusing. Hoping you can clarify number three and most important question. She says, I wanna run a sale on the items in a genre, say pants. Currently there are varied prices. I want to temporarily price them all at $17.99 after the sale runs for a few weeks, I wanna bring the price back up to where it was before the sale. I've been trying to find a way to accomplish this easily to no avail any advice If you're sending swag, I'm in. Thank you and have a great week. Well thanks Mary.

Griff: Yeah, and of course we'll send you swag. We'll send anybody who sends a question into the podcast if we use it, we'll send you swag. How's that? But you have to include your non PO shipping address. It has to be a street shipping address. So that's the only request on our end and that's because our distributor doesn't use anything with FedEx. And you know, FedEx won't deliver to a post office box.

Brian: They will not.

Griff: So Mary, let's take each of your questions in turn. First, you said occasionally buyers ask me to invoice them. Doesn't eBay already email the buyer an invoice when they choose to buy now? And the answer is no, not necessarily. So if you have a listing and it's set up for immediate payment and someone puts it in their shopping cart and they buy it, then they don't need an invoice, they've already paid for it. But if you have a situation where you are allowing for combined purchases, for example, if a buyer adds two or more of your items to the cart, they're gonna see a link where they can request an invoice for the items as long as they didn't use immediate payment to pay for them once they paid for them it's invoices off the table. So my suspicion is that you have your settings set for allow for combined purchases and in that case, if the buyer puts two or more of your items in the eBay shopping cart, they can then request an invoice from you so that you could give them some sort of discount on multiple purchases or the shipping. And of course as Brian and I always say the best way to make this more efficiently is to provide, if you're willing to give those discounts, is to provide them upfront either in promotions for shipping discounts or volume quantity for example, if they're buying more than one item from your single listing. And those are much more efficient than having to have somebody send you a request for an adjusted invoice. But that's how that works.

Brian: Hopefully that one covers question number one. Mary's next question was how are the unit and unit quantity fields different from the quantity field? Well Mary, the item specific for unit quantity is for indicating how many pieces are in each single quantity. For example, a seller offers a multi quantity listing of a set of tools. Each set is quantity of one. However, each set is comprised of five separate tools. The unit quantity would be five. What is less clear is unit type, which offers a selection of weight and dimension options. That one isn't clear to me, but it appears most sellers who opt for including the item specific for unit quantity select unit. Keep in mind neither of these are required item specifics recommended I believe.

Griff: And that's how those different, and in your defense Mary, I don't think it's surprising that you might be confused or anyone might be confused by this because they're not very self-explanatory. So I hope that that made, and I actually had to ask someone else because I wasn't sure of this either. I think that the labels used for these item specifics aren't clear enough and they need to be a little clearer. And Mary finally to your third question, which you said, I want to run a sale on all items in a genre like pants. And there's, they've currently have varied prices and you want to temporarily price them all at one price and run that for a few weeks. Well you wanted to know if there was a way to accomplish this easily. And the answer is no. There actually isn't a mechanism like a markdown sales event or promotion option for pricing a group of items at a single amount. All of the promotions offer two options and that's price reduction by a single amount, not to a specific amount or a percentage off. So you can apply two different options for discounts, but there's no way to set the prices of everything in a markdown event to a specific price. Now you could do it, it's just not easy. If you want to reduce the prices of a group of listings like all the pants in your inventory to a single amount like $17 and 99 cents and all of the current prices in the listings of that group are varied. So a discount percentage or amount isn't gonna work, then the way you would do it is to select the listings from your active view and Seller Hub and then click the bulk edit option. Then you would check them all and then in the boxes above you would select price and then change all of the prices to $17.99. But keep in mind that if you intend this discount to be temporary, you would have to bulk edit the same listings after a certain amount of time and change the prices individually back to whatever they were prior to the first bulk edit. And now you can see that I, when I said this isn't easy, I wasn't kidding. So our advice, instead of reducing everything down to a specific single price, use the markdown sales event option and just reduce the prices for selected pants by a percentage or a specific dollar amount. You can indicate the duration of the event by day and time for the sale and the prices will revert automatically to what they were prior to the event once the end event ends. Based on what you provided for an end in time date, there's an easy way and a hard way to give a discount. And the way that you'd like to do is not impossible, but you're gonna have to put a lot of work into doing it. And is it worth it? That's what you have to ask yourself at the end of the day.

Brian: And I would also question what's the value there? Like if there's one pair of pants that she's trying to get $29.99 for and now that that's $24.99, what's the magic in getting them both to $17.99?

Griff: Yeah, and I don't wanna second guess the intention. No, I just would say that it's just not really very workable and you're better off just providing a dollar amount or a percentage off all the items altogether.

Brian: Good questions.

Griff: Yeah. Three questions, three good ones. They were fun to research. So thank you Mary. And our next question, question Brian was sent to podcast@ebay.com by seller Kim Cox and she says I work for a 5013C. We have an eBay store. The name is The Porch Marketplace, her user ID is the porch marketplace. She says, I recently shipped an item using eBay International shipping. My estimated weight was more than the actual weight. So I gave the buyer a refund for the difference, but my refund only included the freight from Texas to the shipping hub in Illinois. Does eBay see my corrected weight and also offer a refund to the buyer? The total shipping paid by the buyer was $43 .72, but my portion was only $11. I would hope that eBay does offer a refund, but I'm not sure how that works. Love your podcast Kim.

Brian: Well Kim, in this situation that is a partial refund for shipping to overages on an eBay international shipping transaction. The buyer only receives the amount of partial refund you send her. It is not shown as a partial refund for anything specific item costs, fee, shipping, et cetera. A buyer would not see a corrected weight and for an eBay International Shipping shipment, the buyer would not see a partial refund for their portion of the shipping from the eBay hub to the international location.

Griff: And that's because it's not just shipping. There's also duties and, and taxes that were paid or added on based on the sell price, not the shipping price. So what you're hoping that eBay would do is not possible and we wouldn't do it. And also for an eBay International Shipping sale, we would not recommend ever sending a partial refund for shipping in any amount over the total for shipping that the buyer paid at checkout. That portion that eBay charges for from for transit from the hub to their destination. You never see that in your account. That goes directly to eBay. So you don't want to be refunding money that was never in your bank account to begin with. Keep that in mind.

Brian: It's great that she wanted to refund the buyer. Oftentimes though, I think like the buyer has already calculated that that's an appropriate price when they made the purchase. So even if you felt like, oh there is an opportunity, I think great for you to do that. But to me it might add confusion to the buyer as well, like in the whole purchase.

Griff: And this brings up the point, it's to make sure when you're listing an item that you know the size of the box it's gonna go in and to the ounce, how much it's gonna weigh yes and to the inch, how big the box is from width, height, and depth.

Brian: Yeah, if that's done upfront, then this scenario would never occur.

Griff: We love you Kim, for thinking about the buyer, so please don't take that the wrong way.

Brian: Exactly. Our last question this week is from eBay seller Nicole, who wrote this to podcast@ebay.com. Hi Brian and Griff. And now we're back to me first.

Griff: No, I darn it. . Oh Nicole, you're ruining my perfect record here. Okay, I'll I'll give you my crown. You're the king now.

Brian: Nope. You always should have top billing. Nicole says, sometimes I start my listings on my laptop so that I can use Terapeak to click sell similar on a sold comp that I like. I fill in all of the info except the photos and save the draft. Then I will move to my phone to upload my photos to that draft. My question is that the custom SKU field only seems to appear for me on my phone app item specifics and not on the laptop. Am I missing a setting? I would like to assign a custom SKU when I am drafting my listing on the laptop if possible. Thanks for your show. I look forward to it each week and I'm glad I found it. Nicole Beatty, eBay user id. Nicole and Griffs, Griffin was my heart dog. So of course I love your name. Griff.

Griff: I'm honored.

Brian: Her eBay store is Baron Fox co.

Griff: Well Nicole, so I read this through and I actually tested as well just to make sure. And I'm pretty sure that the issue here is that you're gonna need to add the custom label SKU field to your active view in seller hub. Now on the active, there's two ways it appears. So when you list an item on your laptop, you create a listing, there is a place where it says custom label. And if it's not there, you can add it on one of the, uh, edit links in the listing flow page where you can make sure it shows up. And once it shows up there, you can fill in whatever data you want to put there. But that's not gonna show up on your active view for listings unless you've added it in, uh, what's called the customized table. A feature on the active view. And you can find this link to customize your table, your active view table. It's up in the upper right hand corner, it says customized table. And if you click it and the next pop-up window, you can select a whole bunch of options to appear as columns on your active view. And one of them is custom label. You'll see that there's a checkbox and if it's empty, that's why it's not appearing. So if you check that box and then you click save, that custom label field will also appear now in active view so that you can see it and edit it there as well. Now there's also a window in the popup that says range. It'll show all of the options that you've selected to appear as columns and you can drag and drop them in the order where you'd want them to appear on the active listings page too. And when you've done all this, just click save and then it shows up. And now the the custom label column will display in your active view for listings in Seller Hub. And of course it, it will show up as it always does as an item specific. When you are viewing your item in the app, it doesn't show up to the public so you won't see it on your listing as an item specific when you're viewing your listing on the desktop. That's a different display of data because that information that you put in the custom field is not meant for public view. It's only meant for you and you will see it on either the app or the desktop if you click revise item. But rather than having to change it or view it, you can see it on your laptop. At the very least if you go to your active view page and you'll see it as a separate column with that information. That's the answer to that.

Brian: I bet Nicole's not the only one who has this question.

Griff: Well that's why we include it on the podcast.

Brian: Definitely. Hopefully that helps her be more efficient when she's listing off her laptop.

Griff: Absolutely. And I love the way she does it. I kind of do it the same way. I think a lot of sellers now list this way. I create the draft listing on my desktop and then I take all my pictures and add them on the mobile app. I use my iPhone and then you can either list them there. I usually click save for later. And then once I've done a whole batch, I go back to my laptop and then I will select them all and click submit. And that takes you to the bulk page. Again, if there's any errors, they show up like you forgot to put a volume for this fragrance and you can correct them pretty quickly and then submit them all and they all go. And I usually do batches of around five to 10 at a time. That's great. And I've heard from a lot of sellers that they do the same thing. Well Brian, that's all the questions for this week.

Brian: Those were some good questions. They were very, very practical ones and I think it sets a good bar for next week.

Griff: And if you want to meet that bar right?

Brian: Exactly. So if you have similar vexing questions about selling on eBay, vex not call us on (888) 723-4630.

Griff: That is (888) 723-4630. You can call that number any time of the day. Operators are waiting. So call now. No they're not. It's a tape. But we listen every time I get an alert that someone's left a voice message, I go right to it and listen.

Brian: And if you're not a call on the phone person, you can email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: And now it's time for your weekly Three Point Podcast checklist. Number one,

Brian: Check the Announcement Board at ebay.com/announcements for up-to-date seller news every day.

Griff: And number two, your business might reach a stage in its growth where you're gonna need to consider hiring help. An online virtual assistant could be the answer, but remember to keep in mind what Sandra talked about when you're hiring a VA from outside of the US.

Brian: Need to review anything in this episode. It's easy. Check the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to find the links we referenced during the episode.

Griff: And in our next episode, in preparation for the upcoming tax season, we're gonna revisit the founders of Reseller Genie, that's a bookkeeping and inventory management system, their Faith and Paul Vaneck. And they're gonna discuss updates to their app. Brian: Fantastic. We'd like to again, thank our guests this week, Sandra Gustard.

Griff: The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.