Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 09.08.23 @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 marco@ebay and dave@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

[marco@ebay]

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@returns_andexdisplay wrote:

I know this has been a regular topic on here but ebay need to do more to help the small business which they keep claiming to support at any event sellers attend. 

How many policies do sellers like this one have to break before ebay actually take some action? 

Trading the same type of items off multiple accounts!

Clearly running a business so avoiding distance selling regulations!

Can pretty much guarantee it is the same person as picture/style are all the same, same location.

As a business I pay a shop fee and anything over 250 listings I am charged extra for each listing, yet accounts like this avoid all these fees by being a private account, getting lower final value fees, more promotions, and avoiding buyer remorse returns.

No mater how many times they get reported to eBay, they still trade the same way as a private account with no business information or buyer remorse returns accepted. 

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Hi returns_andexdisplay, thanks for your question.

It is within eBay's best interest that all sellers are in compliance, this means we constantly check accounts to make sure that private seller trade as private sellers, and that business sellers trade as business sellers. If you believe that certain private accounts should be trading as business, please continue to report them as we do review these reports, and actions are taken accordingly.

Thank you,

Marco

[dave@ebay]

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@messier44000 wrote:

To help sellers understand how to get more visability, which of the two 

scenarios is favoured more by the eBay algorithm , and so, get higher in eBay search.

1 - Quality unique photo and professional description giving the potential buyer 

confidence they are buying from a specialist in the field.

2 - None of the above, but paying more in PL

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Hi @messier44000 

For listings to get better placings in best match it can actually be a combination of both.

Best match looks at a number of different factors including, the number of photos, the title and the item specifics. A great description helps potential buyers with their decision when purchasing an item but this is not something that best match uses as part of the search.

While PL gives a great boost to listings the listing quality will be something that also factors in to it.

Thanks,

Dave

[marco@ebay]

Thanks for your reply, returns_andexdisplay.

I see where you are coming from. However, estimated delivery dates are dynamic, and they won't be overridden by the time away settings. So, in this particular scenario, you would need to hide your listings to prevent this from happening again in the future.

Thank you,

Marco

[dave@ebay]

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@pg_kicks wrote:

Thanks for getting back to me, apologies in advance if you have only just received this information this morning but I'm slightly annoyed that it's taken 7 days and me asking again to get a reply when I asked in last week's and mentioned it in the thread that you said both you and that team directly read. It's not the customer service I'd expect. 

Also can you please find out how long a report should take to be actioned upon, not an exact time but some sort of guidelines would be great as its currently not fit for purpose, again I will happily send you a list of accounts trading illegally, selling fake items bypassing the authentication guarantee scheme if you wish. 

Thanks 

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Hi @pg_kicks 

I totally understand the frustration with this. We always do our best to come back to you with updates as soon as possible. In some cases the other teams can come back with questions and there is some back and forth fo a while. This can lead to a delay in posting back in the community with an update.

I cant give an exact time on how long it takes to action a report, these are handled in a different location. It can generally take about 72hrs but this can change depending on the volume of reports.

Thanks,

Dave

[dave@ebay]

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@rahrah9 wrote:

Hi, I have purchased an item from a seller on eBay. Consequently the item has proven to be stolen. I know this, as it's my original item that went missing in transit! Seller was going to offer a refund but has consequently changed their mind. I've tried to contact eBay customer services, but they've just opened a return item case. I don't want to return my item, I just want refunded. I've reported the seller to the police.

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Hi @rahrah9 

It can be very difficult for us confirm items from different transactions are the same as we never see what was sent. If you sold the item through eBay originally PM me the details of the transaction and I will forward it on to the Policy Team. Ill ask them to review both to see if there is any action that they can take.

Thanks,

Dave