💬 Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 14.09.22 @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 refrain from opening discussions here, any posts without questions may be removed.

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

[hill-walker]

Hi guys.

Can you please explain to me, why eBay marks items as “Dispatched”, when all I have done is purchase the postage?

I have a 3-day dispatch set on my listings, as I usually only get into town twice a week to drop items off at the Post Office or Courier Shop. Despite packing and labelling on the day of the sale, say, Monday, actual dispatch may not occur until Thursday morning.

This is most confusing for my customers, as I frequently have to message them, and tell them to ignore eBay's “Dispatched” date marking, as actual dispatch will only happen in another 2 or 3 days time, as I state in my listings, which they knew when they purchased.

I am perfectly capable of ticking the “Dispatched” box myself, when the item actually IS dispatched.

I've even tried buying labels direct from Evri/P.O., but when adding the tracking numbers on the actual day of dispatch, the items STILL gets marked, retrospectively, as Dispatched on the date I bought the label!

Ebay are over-promising, on my behalf, a service which I do not provide, that can only end with a negative buying experience for my customers.

Plus, this is making even more of a mockery of the already seriously flawed Estimated Delivery Date algorithm, as the basic “start date” is wrong from the outset.

TIA

Steve

[rsfootwear]

Hi,

Can you please explain how the ticket system with customer support works?

I have had a glitch on my listings for six months now and have called customer support on numerous occassions to get resolved. I presumed that if I quoted the ticket number they would have details of what the problem is and put me through to the correct department.

I called cusomer support three times yesterday morning and I was cut off three times as when the person realised they could not help me they said they would transfer me and then I got cut off. The last person I spoke to promised to call back in five minutes that was over twenty four hours ago.

I had to explain what the glitch was three times to the three different people as the ticket number did not seem to help them. If you could please explain what the ticket number is for, how it works and how I can get through to someone to solve my six month glitch problem?

[2015-enste]

Hello folks,

The verification code is never received on my telephone. I've tried to obtain one 4 times now with no success. I have no way way of giving you an alternative telephone number in order to try and resolve this issue, therefore I can't use my 'ebay' account.

[kat@ebay]

---

@rsfootwear wrote:

Hi,

Can you please explain how the ticket system with customer support works?

I have had a glitch on my listings for six months now and have called customer support on numerous occassions to get resolved. I presumed that if I quoted the ticket number they would have details of what the problem is and put me through to the correct department.

I called cusomer support three times yesterday morning and I was cut off three times as when the person realised they could not help me they said they would transfer me and then I got cut off. The last person I spoke to promised to call back in five minutes that was over twenty four hours ago.

I had to explain what the glitch was three times to the three different people as the ticket number did not seem to help them. If you could please explain what the ticket number is for, how it works and how I can get through to someone to solve my six month glitch problem?

---

Hi @rsfootwear ,

The tech team can have high volumes of different issues. Each issue can have a set priority against it which means some issues can have longer resolution times.  If you want to give me more information on what the technical issue is that you have reported I will follow this up offline for you.

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

---

@hill-walker wrote:

Hi guys.

Can you please explain to me, why eBay marks items as “Dispatched”, when all I have done is purchase the postage?

I have a 3-day dispatch set on my listings, as I usually only get into town twice a week to drop items off at the Post Office or Courier Shop. Despite packing and labelling on the day of the sale, say, Monday, actual dispatch may not occur until Thursday morning.

This is most confusing for my customers, as I frequently have to message them, and tell them to ignore eBay's “Dispatched” date marking, as actual dispatch will only happen in another 2 or 3 days time, as I state in my listings, which they knew when they purchased.

I am perfectly capable of ticking the “Dispatched” box myself, when the item actually IS dispatched.

I've even tried buying labels direct from Evri/P.O., but when adding the tracking numbers on the actual day of dispatch, the items STILL gets marked, retrospectively, as Dispatched on the date I bought the label!

Ebay are over-promising, on my behalf, a service which I do not provide, that can only end with a negative buying experience for my customers.

Plus, this is making even more of a mockery of the already seriously flawed Estimated Delivery Date algorithm, as the basic “start date” is wrong from the outset.

TIA

Steve

---

Hi Steve,

The system tracks the history of the label which starts when the label is created as you know.  An email is automatically sent to you and the buyer when you purchase a postage label . The email includes details on how to track the package. The idea being this should helps reduce the number of questions you receive from buyers about the status of a package.  When a Packlink label is purchase the tracking updates automatically and the item will be marked as dispatched for the same reason.

I understand this isn't Ideal for your set up, I'll feed this back to the shipping team to see if its a possibility for a future update.

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

---

@2015-enste wrote:

Hello folks,

The verification code is never received on my telephone. I've tried to obtain one 4 times now with no success. I have no way way of giving you an alternative telephone number in order to try and resolve this issue, therefore I can't use my 'ebay' account.

---

Hi @2015-enste ,

I know this situation can be frustrating. Can you check a few things in regards to your phone number?

- that the number on your account is correct

- that there is not a reception issue at the time you are requesting the code

-that you allow a maximum of 15 mins before requesting a new code

- in some cases SIM cards do not support sms messages. you can check your contract with your mobile provider

-apps like signal or treema if used for sms messages can have issues receiving codes

Thank you,

Kat

[hill-walker]

---

dave@ebay wrote:I understand this isn't Ideal for your set up, I'll feed this back to the shipping team to see if its a possibility for a future update.

Thanks,

Dave

---

Thanks Dave, appreciated.

[rsfootwear]

Thanks Kat, I will send you a message with the details

[seal-extrusions]

Are there any plans to introduce a simple click button to send copy invoice to buyer? It would be a handy thing to have with the requests for copy invoices we get all the time,

[dave@ebay]

---

@seal-extrusions wrote:

Are there any plans to introduce a simple click button to send copy invoice to buyer? It would be a handy thing to have with the requests for copy invoices we get all the time,

---

Hi @seal-extrusions 

Thanks for the suggestion. 

I'm not aware of any plans to introduce one at the moment but it is a great idea. I'll feed it back to the Site Development Team as an improvement suggestion. 

Thanks,

Dave.

[objectbook]

Hello,

One of the biggest problems I have is with the wrong estimated delivery time being shown to my buyers - it showing much sooner than is possible for their chosen postage speed.

So on the sellers side it says ship by 16th, post 2nd class/rm 48 I would expect delivery to say 18th-19th for example, and then on the buyers side they can see delivery by 16th or 17th. 

Are you looking at fixing this? It happens fairly frequently and means that buyers think I'm sending items late... even though I'm sending on time! I used to send messages to ebay help every time it happened to try and get my feedback protected.

[manchestar]

Hi, 

I have got an issue and wondering if you can help please.

I have 3 accounts on eBay and try to open a new account for a more specialised, brand new product line. But somehow every time when I opened one, it got suspended nearly straight away for being risky.

For my new account newpord_33, it got suspended on 23 Aug. I reached out to customer service, answered quite a few questions which may have risk concerns, and luckily got my account back on track.

However, it got suspended again on the next day. Tried to get help, but this time I was told my new account has been permanenetly suspended.

I really need a new account to manage my new product line. Can you help on my account newpord_33 or advise me if I am allowed to have a new account at all please? Ebay tends to be reluctant to give any more details which is very frustrating.

Thanks very much for your help.

Regards,

Kelman

[firkinspares]

is there any chance of ever fixing the issues in my seller hub. not being able to search for brands of my branded items. I've been moaning about it for years, putting in multiple requests but never goes anywhere. I have to use the (fairly poor) main search to find my own items or use google to search my own items. Its fairly ridiculous. 

If you are are going to say "ebay cannot look into individual accounts but we will feed this back to the technical team" then please just move along and dont bother answering. Because I know then its the usual answer. 

[firstgardencity]

Why would a customer be given my private email address by eBay on the phone when she phoned re:non-delivery of an item.  Surely she should have been told to use eBay messaging as this is probably a contravention of the Data Protection Act?

[kat@ebay]

Hi @objectbook ,

We have had alot of feedback on this for the estimated delivery dates and I do understand your view from the example you are providing. While we have no confirmation at the moment for this calculation to be changed we are pushing these forward with the shipping team to review.  

Thank you,

Kat

[2015-enste]

Hello there,

I've received codes on this telephone number before, the signal reception here is very good too so I've got no idea why this is happenning.  

[dave@ebay]

---

@manchestar wrote:

Hi, 

I have got an issue and wondering if you can help please.

I have 3 accounts on eBay and try to open a new account for a more specialised, brand new product line. But somehow every time when I opened one, it got suspended nearly straight away for being risky.

For my new account newpord_33, it got suspended on 23 Aug. I reached out to customer service, answered quite a few questions which may have risk concerns, and luckily got my account back on track.

However, it got suspended again on the next day. Tried to get help, but this time I was told my new account has been permanenetly suspended.

I really need a new account to manage my new product line. Can you help on my account newpord_33 or advise me if I am allowed to have a new account at all please? Ebay tends to be reluctant to give any more details which is very frustrating.

Thanks very much for your help.

Regards,

Kelman

---

Hi Kelman,

There could be a number of reasons for new accounts being suspended. It could be because of the items you are trying to list or even the details your account was set up with. Unfortunately I don't have access to review the accounts to see what happened in this case.

You will need to reac hout to the guys Customer Support, they will be able to give you more information as to the cause and if you can list the new items.

Thanks,

Dave.

[petals-and-paws]

Please can someone explain what is happening with estimated delivery dates?

Items which are due to be dispatched tomorrow are showing estimate delivery of tomorrow - Friday; it's impossible for an item to be delivered the same day it's posted and there's a high chance it won't be delivered the following day either, considering the current Royal Mail strikes.

Additionally, if a buyer sees an estimated delivery date of tomorrow, they understandably expect the item to  be posted today and I've had buyers message me with this exact query. I've even had estimated delivery times of 2 days before the item is due to be dispatched!

I know eBay have a new system for calculating delivery dates but to give buyers estimated delivery dates which are impossible to meet is incredibly misleading, clearly there's something not working somewhere.

Hopefully this can get resolved, thanks in advance for your help.

[kat@ebay]

---

@firkinspares wrote:

is there any chance of ever fixing the issues in my seller hub. not being able to search for brands of my branded items. I've been moaning about it for years, putting in multiple requests but never goes anywhere. I have to use the (fairly poor) main search to find my own items or use google to search my own items. Its fairly ridiculous. 

If you are are going to say "ebay cannot look into individual accounts but we will feed this back to the technical team" then please just move along and dont bother answering. Because I know then its the usual answer. 

---

Hi @firkinspares,

At the moment the option to search by brand or item specific is not available in seller hub.  It is not a tech issue it would require a product change which is why it would need to be fed back to the development team.

However as a workaround if the brand is in your items title you can search using the item title or the brand name. 

Thank you,

Kat