Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 13.11.24 @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

[zoe_mrsbpreloved]

Hi, Please can you let me know if there is a contact I can email for the Preloved Partner scheme? I've been accepted but the badge is not showing on my listings and I'm keen to have it in place in the run up to Christmas. Many Thanks Zoe

[custom-giftsuk]

Okay I will be back in touch next week I'm sure asking again as its nearly a month. 

[dwtrading2015]

If the reporting of private accounts masquarading as business accounts is so impotant, why is there no direct means of reporting listings?  The 'Report this item' existing link does not have an option to directly flag the listing, it has to be reported by typing out a coment under 'other' for fees violation.  The new reporting system I tried doesn't even allow that and there appears to be no option at all to allow reporting of suspected listings.  Given the scale of the fraud going on it would be assumed a simple option in the existing and new reporting routes would allow a one click flag raise for the listing to be examined.

Not one single listing of the couple of dozen I have recently reported appears to have had any curtailment of their business-like activity curtailed.  All had mulriple identicle new products and many with options.

[dave@ebay]

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@exponential_developments wrote:

Hi, If I do a simple search, then click lowest price, ebay says that it has streamlined the search, ie missed lots of items out, when I have done this lots of my listings get filtered out…..so what am I paying to list for exactly?

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Hi @exponential_developments 

There could be a number of reasons you're not seeing your own listings when you search. For example if youre signed in to your own account best match tends not to show you youre own items. 

I did a quick search for one of your items and found it on the second line of the first page:

Its worth looking at optimising your listings titles, the first 3 word are the most important and some of your listings begin with the fits. This can cause issues with best match. 

There are some great videos on optimising listings on our eBay for business YouTube channel which will give you some great advice on the best steps to take, 

Thanks,

Dave

[marco@ebay]

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@auctiongabble wrote:

I think its terrible service having posted last week raising many valid points  about difference and benefits in service between private to business sellers, loyalty means nothing and no incentives being a business here.

I sent private messages to all 3 of the team members of this group and not received a single reply.

Please can business sellers be treated with some respect and communicated with?

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Hi auctiongabble, thanks for your question.

I will pass your comment on as feedback. Regarding you contacting us, we normally don't operate on private messages, and when a member contact us, it is not guaranteed that we will reply or that we are obliged to reply as we don't do 1 on 1 or customer services over this channel.

Thank you,

Marco

[moldosgifts]

Thank you just a simpler form because these kind of reports should not be lumped in with everything else or additional part to the list 

Im not  a techy but took me 2 hours today reporting sellers 2 hours i could have used listing things.

[nutrafituk]

Having been on eBay for 18 years it has become obvious that this platform allows to sell and buy illegal substances. And all of that happens despite bold claims for caring about health & safety of the members as well as making pledges to prevent unsafe goods being sold on this online platform.

The reality is different. A quick search returns plenty of these items being available for purchase. eBay takes pride in their tools, eg. search engine, AI or agents and teams who are apparently so-called experts in their fields. The fact is there is very little done or nothing at all.

Here’s an example: yesterday we reported a product (sports supplements) containing illegal substance – offered by 5 different sellers. That brilliant Safety Team removed only one listing and stated that there was no policy breach when it came to the other four listings. That is quite astonishing as that was the same product, with text & picture evidence including the illegal substance even listed in the Item Specifics. Not enough, eBay allowed to list this item to start with, but also refused to remove it upon our report. We contacted an agent afterwards to make them aware of their flawed decisions just to learn that there must have been clearly no sufficient evidence to support our claims.

Here is the thing eBay: you are not asked a favour or about your opinion. You are obliged to act by law, and by failing to do so you are an active part of this sale, literally profiting from illegal sales. We asked months ago what happens with those profits, especially from sales that had been reported but never received any response, and these are 5– or 6-digit figures per year. However, what eBay did was blocking our option to receive a copy of email sent to them – again never rectified that despite requesting so.

Just to make it clear – it was not one-off. That is just a common practice, and we have endless examples of selective actions being taken by eBay. As result, eBay collects from these sales as an item is still available on the market. Most likely the price is going to only increase due to higher demand and lower offer availability (‘funnel’ effect).

The conclusion is that a regulator should have a proper look into that and get to the bottom of it. It is unheard of that an expert fails to act based on plain evidence, and it is not a gross misconduct, or no responsibility taken for lack of actions. Your case outcomes contradict each other and that is sufficient to show the case.

Moreover, every time a report is filed, and no issue is found that counts against the user who has submitted that report as per False reporting policy. So, eBay allows to sell these items at first, then refuses to act and finally penalizes a user who does their job.

Having said that, due to being constantly ignored, it is time for the regulators and other institutions to look into eBay’s approach and decision-making process. Having seen other topics that also applied to other reports.

Enough is enough. eBay - you are legally obliged to protect the public. When we take our time to report, it is expected to respect it. Please respond here and explain why you fail to follow the law.

[dwtrading2015]

Despite meeting all of the requirements to receive a top rated seller 10% fee discount, I still do not receive it.  Even if a quirk in the rules has prevented this over the last year or two (no rule has been found so far by any CS I've talked too), that cannot be true of the last couple of weeks as three seperate CS agents have verified I should get the discount, the matter has been escalated twice and all promises to reply have not be honoured.  Ref 1-487207283822.  I think it is about time somebody owned this and resolved it, and that includes a histroy review of fees back to the moment the 10% discount suddenly stopped.  It's in my contract with eBay!

[marco@ebay]

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@dwtrading2015 wrote:

Changes to 'Traffic' graphs.  The solid area under the graph, the new layout, is wholly inappropriate for the data being presented.  It was correctly shown for impressions, views and sale volume as a bar graph before.  If a trend display was to be shown it should have been added as a line over the bars.  Furthermore, why have two of the three graphs been hidden behind tabs?  There is no reason at all to hide them.  This is yet another change that makes the layout of the information worse, less convenient and now unsuitable for the data.

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Hi dwtrading2015, thanks for your question.

New updates and changes are always done aiming for improvement and a better user experience, the reason why it is done that way is because it is considered that that's the best way design at the moment. However, if you feel that this is not helpful, this is something I can definitely flag for you no problem.

Thank you,

Marco

[kat@ebay]

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@guymafo wrote:

Hello community team

I have a simple question.

If I make batches of cakes and mince pies in my home kitchen, can I sell them on a private seller account, without any allergen information, ingredients or Environmental Health/Food Standards Agency certification and training ?

Thanks 

GM

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Hi @guymafo ,

All ingredients and allergen information should be listed. Please see the below for more information on the food policy. 

Thank you,

Kat

[funkybunnie-direct]

Why when I report a seller (ebay only allows reporting an item that I can see) do I mostly get no response.  I have reported 40, and only response from 2 (reporting going back to early October – and no response has gone into spam/junk). And the 2 were for sellers listing multiple copies of a new item (which is repeated in other items that they sell), and the reply comes back

We looked into your report and didn’t find the listing to be in violation of out policy. Why is ebay allowing sellers not only to go against ebay policy, but also breaking UK law?

[dave@ebay]

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@darth_baggins wrote:

Can someone explain why eBay thinks it's a good idea to remove basic information from the new 'improved' messaging system?

When a buyer sends a message about an order, the order details are no longer available in the message, meaning sellers have to open a new tab and find the order manually. Why?

Before the 'upgrade' - we could see at a glance which messages we'd replied to with a little icon. We can no longer do this. Why?

Please can someone from the team responsible explain why they've removed basic functionality and when they are going to put them back?

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Hi @darth_baggins 

We have been receiving a lot of feedback on the recent changes to the messaging format. We have been taking the points from these post and forwarding them to the site team. Ill forward this post to the guys but I cant guarantee a reply.

Thanks,

Dave

[pg_kicks]

First off just a request, can you please feedback to anyone possible that Michael within AG needs a raise/promotion/the keys to the office, not only did he fix and issue within 2 hours that numerous others 'worked' on for weeks but he replies to emails and calls you back when he says. I know that sounds like basic customer service but you know eBay don't normally do those. So again please report back that this man is doing more for eBay than 5 other staff members done.

Now the question, do eBay plan on making any comment on how ignored, failed, taken for granted, upset and basically annoyed its customers (business accounts) are feeling? You say you's comment on popular threads on this board but theres a few with 50/20/70+ replies and no input from eBay/staff yet threads about Royal Mail are getting replies instantly from staff. 

As a business account holder paying more than the a fair amount last year in fee's being constantly ignored or gaslit and told we are doing everything we can whilst ignoring all of the issues we highlight is not really what I come to expect, eBay never communicate with its actual customers, no other business has this level of silence when the place is a mess and broken. 

Also can you please report back that changing things that are not broken is not wanted or needed, fix the site where its broken and allowing illegal transactions before fixing stuff thats working perfectly well. 

Ps why is the spell check still broke on here?

[marco@ebay]

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@returns_andexdisplay wrote:

I messaged the other week about isses with Estimated Delivery dates and have a clear example. 

Order number 17-12289-41240 

Buyer buys item at 9pm on Friday evening and ebay are showing an estimated delivery of Monday to Wednesday. 

Item is never going to be delivered on a Monday when the item is not dispatched till Monday. Was told by a custeomer service rep that there is a chance it might get dispatched and delivered on the same day!!!!!

Tuesday possible and Wednesday yes. 

At what point are ebay taking the data from as the courier I use is a local third party and takes parcels direct to Evir hub so parcels often show being scanned late at night or early the next morning.  Starting to think this is where ebay are pulling some of the data from and causing the issues. 

If as we are often told EDD is working as designed then why are Saturday and Sunday orders showing EDD delivery after Tuesday? 

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Hi returns_andexdisplay, thanks for your question.

When was that order placed? I'd be happy to report the order in question to the shipping team, so they can review that for you and see what happened to provide you with more information on it. 

Thank you,

Marco

[kat@ebay]

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@guymafo wrote:

kat@ebay how do we report private sellers that are incorrectly registered? And obviously trading as business sellers, avoiding eBay fees.

Thanks]GM

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Hi @guymafo ,

I know they have recently changed the reporting system through the site to reporting a user and reporting an item. I will need to check to see the best option for reporting these types of accounts. I will get this followed up and come back and update.

Thank you,

Kat

[auctiongabble]

marco@ebay  You have many  business sellers on here raising the same problems and are extremely frustrated  for 2wks or more now in a row. 

Messages from business sellers to forum members should be responded directly and not be given generic answer week after week.

Can ebay do the decent thing and engage with business sellers who are the ones finding problems with the system, users and are the ones paying ebay?

[kat@ebay]

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@funkybunnie-direct wrote:

Thanks for your reply. Perhaps you can advise where they can be reported? I have reported 40 since the beginning of October (can only see via listing practices/avoiding ebay fees which is only reporting one item).

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Hi @funkybunnie-direct ,

I know they have recently changed the reporting system through the site to reporting a user and reporting an item. I will need to check to see the best option for reporting these types of accounts. I will get this followed up and come back and update.

Thank you,

Kat

[marco@ebay]

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@zoe_mrsbpreloved wrote:

Hi, Please can you let me know if there is a contact I can email for the Preloved Partner scheme? I've been accepted but the badge is not showing on my listings and I'm keen to have it in place in the run up to Christmas. Many Thanks Zoe

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Hi zoe_mrsbpreloved, thanks for your question.

We wouldn't have an email address to provide you with. However, if you contact our customer support here, they can flagged that for you and assist you further.

Thank you,

Marco

[guymafo]

kat@ebay 

Thank you for that information.

I'll be honest I was aware of all those rules and food safety regulations.

I just want eBay to apply to the 100's of home bakers that are listing baked goods without adhering to the directives and selling them to Joe Public via eBay.

If private sellers can no longer sell toys due to various new safety measures then why on earth are you allowing private sellers to sell food without being subjected to your own rules ie expiry dates, ingredients and being registered as a business seller?

In these days of food safety, increased allergy awareness I am flabbergasted that this allowed.

GM

[dave@ebay]

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@moonspender wrote:

I reported a private seller selling 100's of identical new items, on the 17/10, they have now had almost another month of selling for free, how can you justify that when ive had to pay just over £1400 in fees in the same period ?

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Hi @moonspender 

Unfortunately, we can’t comment on what happened with the report. As we are not part of the policy team, we can’t see what action was taken.

If you want to PM me the userID of the account you reported Im happy to send a separate report to the policy team to have them review it. I wont be able to let you know what action was taken as you’re not the account holder but I will ensure the procedure is followed.

Thanks,

Dave