Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 06.11.24 @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 kat@ebay, marco@ebay and dave@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

[kat@ebay]

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@custom-giftsuk wrote:

Sure. So I did a generic search for a lot of items. and it comes up with lots of items, all the data is false anyhow because I know how many items I sell in a week and none of that data matches anything like the Product Research data and when you do a search for that particular item it says zero sales and defaults to the US site 

You can see this from the image attached. So above the red line is a generic search for the category in question showing 53 sales in the last week for one particular item. When you do a search for a particular item number or listing title - it says zero sales and defaults to US dollars. 

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Hi @custom-giftsuk ,

Thanks for this. I have seen another user on a thread mention about US results on one of his searches also. I'll have it checked with tech again to review.

Thank you,

Kat

[krafty-kreations]

Hi Marco 

Not a reply to any question I have asked and I know you cannot do anything about the changes but....

We appreciate your feedback, and I can see where you are coming from. I will make sure to pass your feedback on, so this can be taken into consideration as feedback for the changes recently made on private and business selling.

This isn't feedback, this is business sellers who have had enough, business sellers who cannot compete with business sellers on private accounts, business sellers who will either have to start selling on a private account or sell elsewhere.

We need more than our feedback passed on 

Reports are a waste of time and I read on the forums where one poster stated they had a warning for making too many unfounded reports even tho the reports were for business sellers on private accounts

I will be hanging around until Christmas, no change then I think I am just wasting my time and will close.

My question is are their any plans in the future for business sellers? 

[custom-giftsuk]

Thank you Kat, hopefully they'll get it sorted soon.

[kat@ebay]

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@pottsy62 wrote:

Good AFternoon Kat,

Thanks for your response.

In Home Garden > Garden & Patio > Landscaping and Garden Materials, when I select the sort order as Distance: Nearest first, it shows as 'Postage to GBR'.
In Home Garden > Garden & Patio > Garden Structures & Shade, when I select the sort order as Distance: Nearest first, it shows as 'Postage to M25'.
One category uses my postcode the other doesn't, the auctions it returns are in the UK but the sort isn't location based.

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Hi @ pottys62,

Thanks for this example. Let me take it offline and have it looked into further.

Thank you,

Kat

[marco@ebay]

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@krafty-kreations wrote:

Hi Marco 

Not a reply to any question I have asked and I know you cannot do anything about the changes but....

We appreciate your feedback, and I can see where you are coming from. I will make sure to pass your feedback on, so this can be taken into consideration as feedback for the changes recently made on private and business selling.

This isn't feedback, this is business sellers who have had enough, business sellers who cannot compete with business sellers on private accounts, business sellers who will either have to start selling on a private account or sell elsewhere.

We need more than our feedback passed on 

Reports are a waste of time and I read on the forums where one poster stated they had a warning for making too many unfounded reports even tho the reports were for business sellers on private accounts

I will be hanging around until Christmas, no change then I think I am just wasting my time and will close.

My question is are their any plans in the future for business sellers? 

---

Hi krafty-kreations, thanks for your question.

For the moment, we're not aware of any changes. Should this change, we will letting users know as usual.

Thanks,

Marco

[dave@ebay]

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@darth_baggins wrote:

We used to be able to look at our listings and sort them by something like 'over 'x' days without a sale'. There was also a report we could download for items without a recent sale over a certain length of time.

Both of these seem to have been quietly removed by eBay. Given that the advice from eBay is often to end 'stale' listings and relist/sell similar, it seems odd to no longer be able to use these useful tools.

Can you explain why they were removed? And is there any chance we can get them back?

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Hi @darth_baggins 

Just so I understand the question. Its was available as a column on the active listings page? 

I guessing this was from a while back, I know some of the teams could manually run a stagnant listings report. I'll send it on to the site team and ask if it can be added to seller hub as an improvement. Its definitely a useful view for sellers.

Thanks,

Dave

[oakley_home_and_gifts]

It's not for a purchase but what ebay are displaying on a late Friday afternoon and evening to customers. 

I have checked postage preferences and are set up Monday to Friday with a cut off of 2pm each day. 

I dispatch everyday as a business across two ebay stores and other platforms. The courier TransGlobal Express I use for Evri does not show a scan till it is scanned at Evri main sorting hub usually in the evening or busy times the next day. 

I am wondering if ebay are using this data to calculate EDD and then display to buyers on a Friday evening they may get an item delivered on Monday when in fact an item won't be dispatched till Monday and delivery is never going to happen on a Monday. Tuesday to Wednesday in local areas yes. 

[equinox-electronics]

When will ebay be asking established accounts ( not accounts created this year )for NI & UTR numbers for the tax reporting to HMRC? 

[funkybunnie-direct]

When are ebay going to stop business sellers continue to list illegally as 'Private' sellers? Obviously seem to think this is ok. But with the new 'free selling' fees for private sellers it becomes totally unfair to the official business sellers - the ones that now are providing the majority of the fee income for ebay.

I have a competitor that has over 16,000 listings (with multiple copies of many) and 99% brand new. This would cost me aan extra £870 approx in listing fees on top of the £92/month subscription that I pay. And that's every month! over £10,000 a year. And on top of that they now have free selling fees - so can be more competitive and get the sale with no income to ebay

[darth_baggins]

Yes, it was a filter on active listings. I can't remember the exact wording but it was along the lines of 'active for more than 180 days without a recent sale'.

There was also a downloadable report that showed listings without a recent sale.

[funkybunnie-direct]

If a report about an item is made to ebay, it states that I will be informed of ebay's decision. How long does it take to make a decison, as I have reported over 30 since the beginning of October and have not received one email and zero action has been taken on any of the sellers ...

[custom-giftsuk]

Was there any update or change to Premium Service Badge emails that went out this week?
I got 2 emails stating my listings werent eligable for PSB because I didnt offer 30 day return on % of my listings (note the missing number before the %) which is correct as I offer 60 day returns.
Also states that 8% of my listings offer tracked delivery service. Too which that is false as I offer tracked delivery on all of my listings. 

So can you let me know if this was someone doing a beta test or really iffy results on an ebay wide message?

[dave@ebay]

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@nakedkeg wrote:

Thanks for your reply Dave,

Having used the auto mated tool in seller hub, then reaching out to CS, and raising here, twice a week apart, please can you suggest any other route I can take to seek a resolution from ebay on this?

me sitting and waiting to see what happens coming into peak trade, while ebay is trashing my seller standards isn't an option for me.

What do you advise I do, to get eBay to resolve this ?

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Hi @nakedkeg 

If your late delivery rate is spiking and you are in danger of falling below standard the best advice I can give you is to speak to Customer Support as soon as possible. The teams there can review your dashboard with you and suggest the best possible action. 

Thanks,

Dave

[custom-giftsuk]

Before i get asked for a screenshot... here is one

[kat@ebay]

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@equinox-electronics wrote:

When will ebay be asking established accounts ( not accounts created this year )for NI & UTR numbers for the tax reporting to HMRC? 

---

Hi @equinox-electronics ,

Thank you for the question. They are currently in the process of asking accounts to provide those details.  I don't have a specific date but they are working through accounts so you should receive a request for this in the next few weeks.

Thank you,

Kat

[marco@ebay]

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@oakley_home_and_gifts wrote:

It's not for a purchase but what ebay are displaying on a late Friday afternoon and evening to customers. 

I have checked postage preferences and are set up Monday to Friday with a cut off of 2pm each day. 

I dispatch everyday as a business across two ebay stores and other platforms. The courier TransGlobal Express I use for Evri does not show a scan till it is scanned at Evri main sorting hub usually in the evening or busy times the next day. 

I am wondering if ebay are using this data to calculate EDD and then display to buyers on a Friday evening they may get an item delivered on Monday when in fact an item won't be dispatched till Monday and delivery is never going to happen on a Monday. Tuesday to Wednesday in local areas yes. 

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Thanks for your reply, oakley_home_and_gifts.

I see what you mean. Since is not friday and we don't have an example, we wouldn't be able check now. However, I remember someone last week reported something very similar, but we couldn't replicate the issue. If you spot it again, please let any of us know, and we will take a look for you no problem.

Thank you,

Marco

[nakedkeg]

Thanks Dave,

As I've already stated, I've spoken to CS, and other than being told that there is a known issue with Royal Mail interface/link with ebay, they weren't prepared or able to fix my issues.

Is there anything else I can do to get ebay to resolve this ?

[dave@ebay]

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@funkybunnie-direct wrote:

When are ebay going to stop business sellers continue to list illegally as 'Private' sellers? Obviously seem to think this is ok. But with the new 'free selling' fees for private sellers it becomes totally unfair to the official business sellers - the ones that now are providing the majority of the fee income for ebay.

I have a competitor that has over 16,000 listings (with multiple copies of many) and 99% brand new. This would cost me aan extra £870 approx in listing fees on top of the £92/month subscription that I pay. And that's every month! over £10,000 a year. And on top of that they now have free selling fees - so can be more competitive and get the sale with no income to ebay

---

Hi @funkybunnie-direct 

This is something that we are currently working on, Im sure you have seen the many posts across the forums on it. It is something that is ongoing so unfortunately there is no date the I can give you as to when we will have them all actioned.

Thanks,

Dave

[dave@ebay]

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@darth_baggins wrote:

Yes, it was a filter on active listings. I can't remember the exact wording but it was along the lines of 'active for more than 180 days without a recent sale'.

There was also a downloadable report that showed listings without a recent sale.

---

Thanks @darth_baggins 

Ill pass this on to the guys. 

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

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@custom-giftsuk wrote:

Was there any update or change to Premium Service Badge emails that went out this week?
I got 2 emails stating my listings werent eligable for PSB because I didnt offer 30 day return on % of my listings (note the missing number before the %) which is correct as I offer 60 day returns.
Also states that 8% of my listings offer tracked delivery service. Too which that is false as I offer tracked delivery on all of my listings. 

So can you let me know if this was someone doing a beta test or really iffy results on an ebay wide message?

---

Hi @custom-giftsuk ,

Did you receive the premium badge prior to this email being received?

Thank you,

Kat