Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 03.07.24 @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 marco@ebay and anita@ebay. Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, Fulfilment, 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

[elsie-louises-emporium]

Hello

I have had issues with linking my Instagram account.  I have created and linked Facebook but the link to Instagram does not give me an option and is linking to the incorrect account.

Thanks

Elsie

[tommystrezures]

Good afternoon,

Could eBay please quantify as a % the number of unpaid cases of auction items occurring for the uk site.

What is it eBay are trying to achieve or solve by automatically enrolling sellers in to making buyers have a pre payment before bidding on auction items and only then having an hour to pay?

This should be the choice of the seller not eBay as to whether they enrol and feels somewhat underhand. As there was again no communication from eBay and no communication on how sellers opt out, when this started rolling out the past weekend.

[elsie-louises-emporium]

Hello

Regarding postage I use eBay for labels.  I then take items to the Post Office where they are scanned for the Proof of Postage.  I do not understand why this cannot be linked to the item?

Thanks

Elsie

[pg_kicks]

Hi,

Hope the team are well.

I have just a quick question, I know what the dictionary/HMRC/google all think a business is but could you please tell me eBays official definition of what a business is? as currently it seems like either me/HMRC/google are wrong or eBay have a very different udnerstand to what one is. 

Sorry that its a very simple question but a simple reply would be enough.

Thank you

[kempseykate]

Good afternoon.

I noticed today that the 'send an offer' box has changed.
This is what it used to be - nice, stand out offer price in green, and it showed the postage charge.

This is the new version. 
Now the offer price isn't so clear as it's not in a stand out colour, and more importantly, it doesn't show the postage cost. So I had to come out of it to go back to the list to see which items were 'free ' post and how much postage I had charged for the other items.

I did do the 'Tell us what you think thing', but why do ebay always 'improve' something by making it far less user friendly than it was before. I honestly can't see any plus points in this new version over the old one, and 2 major faults.

---

[rmar52003]

Hi, how do I get a seller to respond to my messages? 

[anita@ebay]

---

@elsie-louises-emporium wrote:

Hello

I have had issues with linking my Instagram account.  I have created and linked Facebook but the link to Instagram does not give me an option and is linking to the incorrect account.

Thanks

Elsie

---

Hi @elsie-louises-emporium , thanks for your post.

Can you elaborate, what exactly happens when you click on the 'Link Instagram'? Can you also clarify please, what do you mean when you say it does not give you an option, but then you say it's linked to the incorrect account? 

Tanks,

Anita

[elsie-louises-emporium]

Hello

Please can you tell me when the drafts on the app will be fixed ?  When you click on an item it says unknown error.

Many thanks

Elsie

[marco@ebay]

---

@tommystrezures wrote:

Good afternoon,

Could eBay please quantify as a % the number of unpaid cases of auction items occurring for the uk site.

What is it eBay are trying to achieve or solve by automatically enrolling sellers in to making buyers have a pre payment before bidding on auction items and only then having an hour to pay?

This should be the choice of the seller not eBay as to whether they enrol and feels somewhat underhand. As there was again no communication from eBay and no communication on how sellers opt out, when this started rolling out the past weekend.

---

Good afternoon, tommystrezures.

We wouldn't have a number exactly of the percentage of unpaid item cases, sorry. What eBay is trying to achieve with this is to reduce the number of unpaid item cases. 

You do have the choice as a seller, as this is optional. You have the choice of using this feature by ticking the box in your buyer management settings, or untick the box if you wish to continue the way you used to before, so this change doesn't affect your account at all.

Thank you,

Marco

[elsie-louises-emporium]

Hello

It linked me to a page that I am an administrator for and not my Instagram business page.  I tried to add the Instagram information to the facebook page but could not see where it goes?

Kind regards

Elsie

[rmar52003]

An item I bought last April has developed an irreparable fault and I want the seller to take it back and send me a replacement but they're just ignoring my messages. (eBay's customerhelp says to go through the routine on the website but I can't find a suitable path through the process.)

[tressygirl]

Hi team,

Please remind the little grey cells here, as cannot remember,  sellers cancelling an item for ' out of stock reasons'.

I understand the seller pays no seller fee,  except for the 30p,  but do they also Not receive any defect on their account?

eBay have always stressed sellers have to have their items in stock to be able to list them for sale, then this doesn't seem like any great ' punishment'.

[fatbobfan]

Dave

Weekly chat 13th March - Post 1 - Still waiting, no comms, no credits, please resolve

Thanks  

FBF

[ak_craft_crazy]

Hi,

Please can I ask for some advise/assistance with some negative feedback. We sold some personalised ribbon where the customer is supposed to leave the details they would like (colour, wording ETC)

On this particular order we received not details along with the order, so we reached out to the buyer to ask for these details.  They did not respond to our message until 5 days later when they asked where the ribbon was. We kindly explained that no details had come through with the order and that we had sent a message 5 days earlier asking for the details but had not yet received a response. The buyer was adamant they left the details and it was our fault as they needed the ribbon that day. We again kindly explained that no details had come through and sent a screenshot of the order to prove this and also a screenshot of the message we sent asking for the details. However the buyer was not agreeing and saying it was our fault even though we explained we had done everything possible to obtain the details. They then left negative feedback with this “😶” as the feedback.

We requested a feedback removal using the reason beyond our control as it was the buyers fault for not passing us the details. However your bots within minutes just declined this and said it was not going to be removed. I spoke to customer services who just said that I need to request it to be removed and did not listen to me when I was saying I had done this.

Now this feedback is extremely unfair as there is nothing else I could have done to try and get the personalisation details form the buyer as they failed to put it along with their order but yet I am being punished as a seller when it is completely out of my control.

[marco@ebay]

---

@pg_kicks wrote:

Hi,

Hope the team are well.

I have just a quick question, I know what the dictionary/HMRC/google all think a business is but could you please tell me eBays official definition of what a business is? as currently it seems like either me/HMRC/google are wrong or eBay have a very different udnerstand to what one is. 

Sorry that its a very simple question but a simple reply would be enough.

Thank you

---

Hi pg_kicks, thanks for your question.

According to my research, this is what a business is: The simple definition of business, or business meaning, is explained as an organization that provides goods and services to the community in exchange for money, with the goal of becoming profitable.

Thank you,

Marco

[anita@ebay]

---

@elsie-louises-emporium wrote:

Hello

Regarding postage I use eBay for labels.  I then take items to the Post Office where they are scanned for the Proof of Postage.  I do not understand why this cannot be linked to the item?

Thanks

Elsie

---

Hi @elsie-louises-emporium ,

When you purchase the label via eBay, the item will be marked as dispatched and the tracking number added to the transaction automatically. You can see this in the Seller Hub Orders . Does it answer your question or do you need any further help?

Thank you,

Anita

[pg_kicks]

Hi Marco,

Thank you for the reply, is that your definition or eBays as I would like eBays and I'm not sure if you have gave me that as you start by saying your research, sorry but I'm just trying to get eBays definition of a business.

thanks

[a45heaven]

marco@ebay

We wouldn't have a number exactly of the percentage of unpaid item cases, sorry. What eBay is trying to achieve with this is to reduce the number of unpaid item cases. 

If you dont have a number- then how will you measure your success? 

[marco@ebay]

---

@rmar52003 wrote:

Hi, how do I get a seller to respond to my messages? 

---

Hi rmar52003, thanks for your question.

I'm afraid that there is no way to force any members to reply to any messages. If you are having any issues in particular, you can open up a case for your order if you are still within the protection period, or you can also report the seller if there was an issue with the seller directly.

Thank you,

Marco