Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 16.04.25 @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 marco@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. We understand that certain topics, such as concerns about businesses possibly using private accounts, can be frustrating and important to you. Please refrain from asking the same question repeatedly in our weekly live chats. We assure you that we carefully review all posts in the forum and ensure that your concerns are communicated to the relevant teams for appropriate action.
To maintain a constructive and community environment, posts that repeatedly breach this guideline may be removed. Continued violations could result in further action against your community account. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding in helping us keep our community focused and respectful.

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

[iansims]

Some questions for you or technical support to answer.

1. When an item is listed with Simple Delivery (which is quite supid in my view) eBay is not showing if an item is going to be dispatched via Evri or Royal Mail. Is this going to be updated to clearly show the shipping company?
The reason this is important is that the majority of my buyers will not buy items if they are shipped via Evri due to their poor reputation and I also will not buy if only Evri is enabled.

2. You do not appear to have a shipping option for the popular small parcel category (my listings mainly fall into this shipping which option) which currently costs £3.45 directly from Royal Mail at stamp price and eBay are charging around £1 to £2 extra for the nearest service. Will this service be added in and will it cost the same as direct for Royal Mail to my buyers?

3. A glitch I have noticed with RM tracked is that there is no option to have an item listing with Small Parcel or Large Letter. It only has one option and I have always just had two prices but get asked questions why some items differ. Will this be updated at any point?

Thank you for your time and I will check for answers later today.

[custom-giftsuk]

Now that eBay are bringing in details on sellers postage – like stating if an item is being send 1st class/2nd class, letter/large letter etc, which is a great addition as buyer can now see, if they wish or are interested how their item will be posted. Can you tell us what steps eBay are taking to tackle sellers who deliberately misrepresent their postage options to gain an advantage over other sellers. So for example sellers using “other 3 day courier” to hide the fact that they are sending their items via 2nd class post letters which they admit to doing in their listings in small print. So please let us know what steps eBay are taking to resolve this issue as, until now, reported sellers who do this have had no action taken against them.

[cobwebcottage]

Hello All,

Is there an issue sending messages via the community boards?

It says that I have reached my limit. I sent 3 in Jan, 7 in Feb and 1 in March.

Also sent an e mail to the contactcommunity address on the 5th April but haven't received a reply.

[phillsvinyl]

Good afternoon,

I trust you are well.....

I would like to understand the reasoning behind eBays surcharge ( protection fee) and why is it only the UK that this is being dealt to. As the buyer is proteced anyway.

As I am aware the US - you are unable to do this in several of thier cities due to legalisation.

[jjambadger27]

Hi, kat@ebay! Last week I asked what Standard & Express Delivery represent as postage options re Simple Delivery if the seller has their settings set to Royal Mail only as a carrier, and you said you'd get back to me - do you have an update? I presume they're Tracked 48 & Tracked 24 but it would be good to know for sure. 

[phillsvinyl]

Could you advise as to how many people have left the platform due to these changes that have been made - simple delivery - extra charge for buyer protection.

Is this something you agree on - or can you not get involed with that conversation?

[custom-giftsuk]

What has happened to the number of items sold on listings and searches?  Some show no previous items sold, some show a certain amount sold, some show false numbers sold and some which do show a number sold when clicked on, don’t show how many have sold?

Attached images to highlight this

[dave@ebay]

---

@cobwebcottage wrote:

Hello All,

Is there an issue sending messages via the community boards?

It says that I have reached my limit. I sent 3 in Jan, 7 in Feb and 1 in March.

Also sent an e mail to the contactcommunity address on the 5th April but haven't received a reply.

---

Hi @cobwebcottage 

I'm not aware of any current issues but this was a Tech Issue last year, its possible that its happening again. Can you take a screenshot of the error and PM it to me and I'll send it to Khoros to review. 

Thanks,

Dave

[cobwebcottage]

I can't send any messages Dave.

[marco@ebay]

---

@iansims wrote:

Some questions for you or technical support to answer.

1. When an item is listed with Simple Delivery (which is quite supid in my view) eBay is not showing if an item is going to be dispatched via Evri or Royal Mail. Is this going to be updated to clearly show the shipping company?
The reason this is important is that the majority of my buyers will not buy items if they are shipped via Evri due to their poor reputation and I also will not buy if only Evri is enabled.

2. You do not appear to have a shipping option for the popular small parcel category (my listings mainly fall into this shipping which option) which currently costs £3.45 directly from Royal Mail at stamp price and eBay are charging around £1 to £2 extra for the nearest service. Will this service be added in and will it cost the same as direct for Royal Mail to my buyers?

3. A glitch I have noticed with RM tracked is that there is no option to have an item listing with Small Parcel or Large Letter. It only has one option and I have always just had two prices but get asked questions why some items differ. Will this be updated at any point?

Thank you for your time and I will check for answers later today.

---

Hi iansims, thanks for your question.

For the first one, this has been flagged already and we've passed on the feedback. However, that is how it currently works, and this is something that could potentially be added in future, but please note that this necessarily means that it will definitely change, same for the second one, we are constantly report this based on the comments and thoughts we are seeing here, but I cannot confirm that this will be changed. 

For the third one, you should be offered the correct option to list those items, I am wondering if the items are bigger than the sizes/dimensions that that service covers? What kind of items are you trying to list if you mind me asking?

Thank you,

Marco

[driftworks]

Hi, is there any scope at all to work with an ebay account manager to help neutralise a couple of problematic orders? We're a longstanding business seller but hadn't used ebay much last year. We started selling again but have 3 problematic orders on our account (one of which was us getting scammed for a £700 product which never got returned) due to a staff dismissal and the christmas break. That now puts us in Below Standard rating, which attracts significantly higher fees (20.4% overall instead of 13%) until we get it resolved. But to get the numbers back, we need 900 more orders, which is not practical for us at 20% fees, or to wait until November until a year has passed and they drop off. 
So basically we want to work with ebay, give them our custom and sell on the platform, but we're in a stalemate situation due to the current fees. Please could someone help us to identify this as a mistake and not our regular standard of business? 

[kat@ebay]

---

@custom-giftsuk wrote:

Now that eBay are bringing in details on sellers postage – like stating if an item is being send 1st class/2nd class, letter/large letter etc, which is a great addition as buyer can now see, if they wish or are interested how their item will be posted. Can you tell us what steps eBay are taking to tackle sellers who deliberately misrepresent their postage options to gain an advantage over other sellers. So for example sellers using “other 3 day courier” to hide the fact that they are sending their items via 2nd class post letters which they admit to doing in their listings in small print. So please let us know what steps eBay are taking to resolve this issue as, until now, reported sellers who do this have had no action taken against them.

---

Hi @custom-giftsuk ,

Thank you for the details. I don't have information on how eBay review this type of data internally. I will share your feedback on these type of accounts to the relevant team.

Thank you,

Kat

[kat@ebay]

---

@jjambadger27 wrote:

Hi, kat@ebay! Last week I asked what Standard & Express Delivery represent as postage options re Simple Delivery if the seller has their settings set to Royal Mail only as a carrier, and you said you'd get back to me - do you have an update? I presume they're Tracked 48 & Tracked 24 but it would be good to know for sure. 

---

Hi @jjambadger27 ,

I'm still following up confirmation for this and as soon as I have it I will let you know.

Thank you,

Kat

[custom-giftsuk]

To give some context in regards the false postage details - I've attached an image showing this false representation for postage

[kat@ebay]

---

@custom-giftsuk wrote:

What has happened to the number of items sold on listings and searches?  Some show no previous items sold, some show a certain amount sold, some show false numbers sold and some which do show a number sold when clicked on, don’t show how many have sold?

Attached images to highlight this

---

Hi @custom-giftsuk ,

Thank you for the screenshot example. Other users have raised this query yesterday and we are currently having this checked to see if there has been a change in design. I will post back once we confirm.

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

---

@phillsvinyl wrote:

Could you advise as to how many people have left the platform due to these changes that have been made - simple delivery - extra charge for buyer protection.

Is this something you agree on - or can you not get involed with that conversation?

---

Hi @phillsvinyl 

Unfortunately that's not something we would have access to at the moment. We normally release traffic figures to the public at the quarterly or yearly business updates. 

Thanks,

Dave

[custom-giftsuk]

Thank you for that update on the missing sales details Kat

[kat@ebay]

---

@custom-giftsuk wrote:

To give some context in regards the false postage details - I've attached an image showing this false representation for postage

---

Hi @custom-giftsuk ,

Thanks for the extra details. I'll include that with the feedback shared.

Thank you,

Kat

[marco@ebay]

---

@phillsvinyl wrote:

Good afternoon,

I trust you are well.....

I would like to understand the reasoning behind eBays surcharge ( protection fee) and why is it only the UK that this is being dealt to. As the buyer is proteced anyway.

As I am aware the US - you are unable to do this in several of thier cities due to legalisation.

---

Hi phillsvinyl, thanks for your question.

The reasoning behind the buyer protection fee is that we can offer protection for transactions, item not received cases, returns, etc. Also, we offer 24/7 customer support, secure transactions as all payments are protected. For further information on this you can see full information here.

In terms of the regions, different regions or markets require different actions, others have different laws or regulations, while we are the same company and try to operate as similar as possible in all regions or markets, this may change from time to time or from region to region in order to meet different requirements and offer the best service possible.

Thank you,

Marco