💬 Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 11.01.23 @2pm

[community-team@ebay]

Hi everybody!

The Community Chat will open at 2pm and will remain open until 3pm on Wednesday. After that it will be closed for further questions. Of course, we will continue to take care of answering any questions that may still be unanswered—We’ll get to everything as quickly as possible. 

Please ask your questions in the thread below. In order to be able to answer your questions as quickly as possible, we ask you to have one question per post. Of course, you can make as many posts as you like in the Chat- the more the merrier!

Our eBay Community Team is made up of kat@ebay , dave@ebay  and katie@ebay . Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, ProTrader, Fulfilment, Parts & Accessories, Payments, and the Community itself. Anything we aren’t sure on we’ll know the people who will be! Please ask us any questions you may have and we’ll do all we can to support. 

To ask your question, click Reply in the lower-right corner of this post, type your question, and click Reply between 2pm and 3pm. The community team will answer each incoming question in chronological order, and will quote the original question in each answer. 

Please note that any reply without a question to the community team or discussion replies may be removed from the chat. We want to keep on track to get through as many questions as possible. We welcome all discussion to be moved to the discussion boards. 

If you missed the weekly chat time, please ask your question in the community boards and tag us or we will be back next week with another chat! 

Many thanks,

Your eBay Community Team

[the-cardiff-stockroom]

Hi there. Will eBay please consider re-offering the ‘low cost item’ fee arrangement again? Many thanks.

[wickmesh]

Dear eBay,

You have a serious and infuriating bug in Custom Lists functionality. To get the dropdown list of custom lists to appear on ANY item listing requires repeated refreshing of the item listing (hitting F5; reloading of the page).

This dropdown list appearing is essential to (1) add the item to a chosen custom list and (2) see if the item is already saved in one of your custom lists. The repeated refreshes needed must be absolutely hammering your servers.

- This bug has existed for over 2 years, but as of 22/12/22 has got significantly worse. (It's been repeatedly reported via the "what do you think?" feedback box but clearly that gets ignored.) Each item has gone from needing 2-5 refreshes to get the dropdown list to show up to now 10-20+.
- I am not the only user to have this issue, other users have posted on my community posts with the same problem.
- There is no other way to get round this. Repeated refreshing is the only fix. (The clumsy workaround of adding an item to the main watchlist and then from that watchlist adding it to another custom list doesn't show me if the item is already in one of my custom lists; items end up in multiple lists if I do this.)
- Custom list functionality has many other significant bugs (as does ebay in general), but this bug is by far the worst. (This bug has itself revealed some other cascaded bugs.) This post considers only this single most important bug.
- This bug will be transparent to users who do not use custom list functionality.
- This bug wastes an enormous amount of my time. It takes pretty much an entire day to peform my usual searches on ebay, rather than the 15-20 minutes it should. It's now at the point that I have begun to "give up"; you are now missing out on sales.

I'd like to see this bug acknowledged and fixed please.

Regards

Andrew (Wickmesh)

(Attached screenshot is from my report on these boards prior to 22/12/22)

[elcon_europe_ltd]

With the end of the financial year fast approaching, has the request for monthly IOSS VAT report been actioned yet? It's virtually impossible to reconcile what portion of IOSS VAT has been paid by eBay without going through each order individually! Last year, my accountant charged my £200 + VAT to sort it but I consider this to be an eBay issue. 

[petals-and-paws]

Hi! Just looking for some clarification regarding duplicate listings. I was always under the impression that if a seller has a variation listing, you cannot then also list each one of those variations separately. However I'm seeing an increasing amount of sellers doing this and wondered if this is actually allowed? Also, I'm aware of sellers listing the same item 3 or 4 times, just with a different gallery photo and a few pence difference in the price (sometimes the same photo and same price!); again, I thought this was against eBays policies but despite reporting, they all remain on the site so wondering if this policy has changed too? Thank you.

[kat@ebay]

---

@the-cardiff-stockroom wrote:

Hi there. Will eBay please consider re-offering the ‘low cost item’ fee arrangement again? Many thanks.

---

Hi @the-cardiff-stockroom ,

I will feed this back to see what is currently in place and for future plans.

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

---

@wickmesh wrote:

Dear eBay,

You have a serious and infuriating bug in Custom Lists functionality. To get the dropdown list of custom lists to appear on ANY item listing requires repeated refreshing of the item listing (hitting F5; reloading of the page).

This dropdown list appearing is essential to (1) add the item to a chosen custom list and (2) see if the item is already saved in one of your custom lists. The repeated refreshes needed must be absolutely hammering your servers.

- This bug has existed for over 2 years, but as of 22/12/22 has got significantly worse. (It's been repeatedly reported via the "what do you think?" feedback box but clearly that gets ignored.) Each item has gone from needing 2-5 refreshes to get the dropdown list to show up to now 10-20+.
- I am not the only user to have this issue, other users have posted on my community posts with the same problem.
- There is no other way to get round this. Repeated refreshing is the only fix. (The clumsy workaround of adding an item to the main watchlist and then from that watchlist adding it to another custom list doesn't show me if the item is already in one of my custom lists; items end up in multiple lists if I do this.)
- Custom list functionality has many other significant bugs (as does ebay in general), but this bug is by far the worst. (This bug has itself revealed some other cascaded bugs.) This post considers only this single most important bug.
- This bug will be transparent to users who do not use custom list functionality.
- This bug wastes an enormous amount of my time. It takes pretty much an entire day to peform my usual searches on ebay, rather than the 15-20 minutes it should. It's now at the point that I have begun to "give up"; you are now missing out on sales.

I'd like to see this bug acknowledged and fixed please.

Regards

Andrew (Wickmesh)

(Attached screenshot is from my report on these boards prior to 22/12/22)

---

Hi @wickmesh,

I saw you had a couple of threads for this issue, it has been reported to the Tech Team to looked into. 

Issues are prioritised by the number of reports we received and how it impacts the site. This can lead to some issues taking longer to get resolved. I will pass your concerns back to the guys in Tech and as soon as I have an update I will get back to you directly.

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

---

@elcon_europe_ltd wrote:

With the end of the financial year fast approaching, has the request for monthly IOSS VAT report been actioned yet? It's virtually impossible to reconcile what portion of IOSS VAT has been paid by eBay without going through each order individually! Last year, my accountant charged my £200 + VAT to sort it but I consider this to be an eBay issue. 

---

Hi @elcon_europe_ltd ,

I understand it can take time to go through orders for reconciliation for IOSS Vat.  However this is not a report that is currently in place.  I will share your insight for the need for the report with our development team. Any updates on one being made available will be shared with users.

Thank you,

Kat

[henjac1402]

Hi there!

I just wanted to ask about changes to the way search results are displayed via Best Match in the 'Video Game Consoles' category, these changes were made around 5th/6th January.

For the past couple of years, it has been observable that new buy it now listings start at their highest point in search results, i.e. just under the top 4 promoted spots and gradually slide down 1) as time passes and 2) as more people list. Getting at least some time on the first page of search results is a major factor that helps generate sales due to the basics of consumer behaviour.

Ever since the date described above (Jan5th/6th), new listings (may not be limited to this catrgory) go straight to e.g. Page 5-9, and as a result get very little views from potential buyers compared to before the changes were made, greatly reducing changes of a sale even at a competitive price.

I have been able to observe these changes through incognito mode to gain an accurate review of what the buyer can see when they use a particaular search term. I have been doing this often for the past couple of years which is why a change in how this works has been so noticable to me. Some sellers I know have had their impressions drop by up to 90% in this category since around January 6th.

Could you give more details about these algorithmic changes that were made without announcement, and if so are they here to stay or do eBay plan to go back to how it worked pre-Jan5th/6th?

Thanks!

TLDR: Listings in some categories such as (but may not be limited to) the 'Video Game Consoles' category are now ranked differently via Best Match as to how they were prior to January 6th 2023, greatly effecting sellers who operate within this category. No announcement from eBay was made about the change and customer services deny knowledge of any algorithmic changes made to the website and said they would forward concerns to the relevant team, no resposne has been given so far.

[elcon_europe_ltd]

I have reported this many times to eBay including at your Roadshows. I guees I will have to take it up with HMRC and get them to force eBay to produce such a report.

[dave@ebay]

---

@petals-and-paws wrote:

Hi! Just looking for some clarification regarding duplicate listings. I was always under the impression that if a seller has a variation listing, you cannot then also list each one of those variations separately. However I'm seeing an increasing amount of sellers doing this and wondered if this is actually allowed? Also, I'm aware of sellers listing the same item 3 or 4 times, just with a different gallery photo and a few pence difference in the price (sometimes the same photo and same price!); again, I thought this was against eBays policies but despite reporting, they all remain on the site so wondering if this policy has changed too? Thank you.

---

Hi @petals-and-paws,

What you're describing does sound like a duplicate. There are no changes to the policy around this. 

Its possible that the automation hasn't picked up the items yet. You can report the items directly through the site, this should trigger a manual review. If this hasn't happened PM me the item numbers and I can reach out to the policy team directly to review.

Thanks,

Dave

[petals-and-paws]

Hi dave@ebay, thank you for your reply. I have reported the listings, I actually even discussed it with someone over the phone (I didn't call for that reason, we just ended up talking about it!); they looked at the listings, absolutely agreed they were duplicates and said they would be removed, but they haven't been. So I'll contact you with the item numbers shortly. 

Regarding the variation listing with items also listed separately - is this actually allowed? If not I'll also provide the item numbers for those too.

Thanks again.

[j.w.w.]

We have noticed that eBay has recently changed the estimated delivery time for the 'Royal Mail International Standard' service to  3-5 working days for packages being sent to Europe. Last year the estimated delivery time was 15-21 days depending on where in Europe the package was being sent to. This was a realistic delivery time for the service. 

From experience, this delivery estimated delivery time of 3-5 working days is completely unrealistic. As can be seen on other forum threads Royal Mail are struggling to deliver a lot of post within the UK in 3-5 days at the moment and we know from experience that they can not deliver anything to Europe this quickly.

This change has resulted in lots of disappointed buyers and we have had to refund a lot of orders.

For now, we have had to stop selling to European buyers. Is there any way we can adjust our eBay listing to make the estimated delivery time a bit longer? I am aware that we could add extra days to our dispatch time but this would affect our domestic sales. 

[kat@ebay]

---

@henjac1402 wrote:

Hi there!

I just wanted to ask about changes to the way search results are displayed via Best Match in the 'Video Game Consoles' category, these changes were made around 5th/6th January.

For the past couple of years, it has been observable that new buy it now listings start at their highest point in search results, i.e. just under the top 4 promoted spots and gradually slide down 1) as time passes and 2) as more people list. Getting at least some time on the first page of search results is a major factor that helps generate sales due to the basics of consumer behaviour.

Ever since the date described above (Jan5th/6th), new listings (may not be limited to this catrgory) go straight to e.g. Page 5-9, and as a result get very little views from potential buyers compared to before the changes were made, greatly reducing changes of a sale even at a competitive price.

I have been able to observe these changes through incognito mode to gain an accurate review of what the buyer can see when they use a particaular search term. I have been doing this often for the past couple of years which is why a change in how this works has been so noticable to me. Some sellers I know have had their impressions drop by up to 90% in this category since around January 6th.

Could you give more details about these algorithmic changes that were made without announcement, and if so are they here to stay or do eBay plan to go back to how it worked pre-Jan5th/6th?

Thanks!

TLDR: Listings in some categories such as (but may not be limited to) the 'Video Game Consoles' category are now ranked differently via Best Match as to how they were prior to January 6th 2023, greatly effecting sellers who operate within this category. No announcement from eBay was made about the change and customer services deny knowledge of any algorithmic changes made to the website and said they would forward concerns to the relevant team, no resposne has been given so far.

---

Hi @henjac1402 ,

We are not aware of changes in the algorithm. eBay shares information on best match practices but does not share information specifically on algorithm. As a rule of thumb new items receive a boost in best match however there are a number of other factors which may affect how they may place in search results. This can include but not limited to titles, images, specifics, account performance

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

---

@petals-and-paws wrote:

Hi dave@ebay, thank you for your reply. I have reported the listings, I actually even discussed it with someone over the phone (I didn't call for that reason, we just ended up talking about it!); they looked at the listings, absolutely agreed they were duplicates and said they would be removed, but they haven't been. So I'll contact you with the item numbers shortly. 

Regarding the variation listing with items also listed separately - is this actually allowed? If not I'll also provide the item numbers for those too.

Thanks again.

---

Hi @petals-and-paws 

If an item is listed in a variation listing it shouldn't be listed separately unless it in used condition. 

If you still have them send the item numbers over to me and I'll look at them. I can speak to policy directly with the examples. I wont be able to share any action taken but I can at least give you a clearer answer. 

Thanks,

Dave

[henjac1402]

Hi kat@ebay - thanks for your response.

So basically, eBay may change things in terms of how search results are displayed, but they do not have share this? If this is the case then fair enough, it is their company at the end of the day.

Pretty much shows the significance of not relying on one platform to sell items, as one flick of the switch can completely ruin your entire operation!

[kat@ebay]

---

@j.w.w. wrote:

We have noticed that eBay has recently changed the estimated delivery time for the 'Royal Mail International Standard' service to  3-5 working days for packages being sent to Europe. Last year the estimated delivery time was 15-21 days depending on where in Europe the package was being sent to. This was a realistic delivery time for the service. 

From experience, this delivery estimated delivery time of 3-5 working days is completely unrealistic. As can be seen on other forum threads Royal Mail are struggling to deliver a lot of post within the UK in 3-5 days at the moment and we know from experience that they can not deliver anything to Europe this quickly.

This change has resulted in lots of disappointed buyers and we have had to refund a lot of orders.

For now, we have had to stop selling to European buyers. Is there any way we can adjust our eBay listing to make the estimated delivery time a bit longer? I am aware that we could add extra days to our dispatch time but this would affect our domestic sales. 

---

Hi @j.w.w. ,

I'm currently following this up with the shipping team as I've seen your post on another thread here. Once I have more information I will come back and update you on that thread.

Thank you,

Kat