💬 Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 19.07.23 @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 , 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 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

[pg_kicks]

Could you please give feedback to the team who are in charge of the now updated AI help bot, it is terrible, when you want to contact Authentication Guarantee scheme because they never actually refund a customer it asks for the order number which you give from an option of all the items I have sold, then says sorry we cant find that purchase. Shock because its not a purchase on my account as I'm the seller and the bot brought up all my sales. You are then stuck in a loop with a bot created by somebody who hasnt a clue on eBay, so you just have to keep repeating speak to agent until it finally caves.

[keelinge]

Would there be a way of showing the amount a seller would recieve when they sell an item? at the bottom of the page when they list. It would be useful for a number of sellers in the community that are shocked by the fees they receive at the end. It could have a section with 'you will save x when using the 80% off promotion' for example for private sellers. 

[swiss_expert_uk]

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dave@ebay wrote:

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@keelinge wrote:

Impressions appear to be down for a number of sellers in the business community.  Which is then also correlating directly with sales. One member has even been told by a rep they have a soft block on their account.  Can someone please have a look at the thread and respond? 

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Hi @keelinge 

I cant comment on anything that may be happening on another account but I did speak to the Tech Team about the reports on that thread. There was no tech issue causing a drop in impressions but it I am looking into the impressions report to see if there are any issues with the report itself. I'm waiting on the team that deals with the report to come back to me. 

I'll update the thread once I have more information.

Thanks,

Dave

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Hi Dave, I updated the drop in organic impressions thread yesterday, not sure if you saw the recent posts? 

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Business-Seller-Board/Impressions-broken-again/td-p/7442399/page/5

yesterday a large simultaneous drop in promoted  impressions for many sellers, has not recovered so far. Are you looking into yesterdays reports? Thanks. 

[keelinge]

Looking at the boards the offers are frequent, ie every 1-2 weeks for private sellers. However business sellers normally get an offer with a huge claus maybe 1-2 times a year. 

[lord_and_lady_m]

I've been to the roadshows. I've spoken directly in person and via email with some of the people that presented at Birmingham.

The divide is clear if you read the business seller boards. You're either doing great or you're not. Even those that are the exact same category and products are split. Very much like in the switch on or off lottery, some win and some lose.

It's very odd that impressions have collapsed for some. And it's not the reporting. If sales hadnt collapsed then the impressions wouldn't be being raised. But impressions dropped and so did sales / clicks etc. That's not a reporting error. Literally, someone has typed an if statement in the code. If sellers name starts with N or greater than you're in team B, else team A and switched off!

[dave@ebay]

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@ducatimondo wrote:

Is eBay ever going to address the issue of the duplicated listings in the vehicle parts category?

We have been asking for eBay for help with it for 7 years now and they still don't do anything.

I have occasionally had some help from colleagues on here, some help on the phone, a lot of reassurances that it is taken seriously but the same old line, we can't share about any action we take on another members account, blah blah blah.

If the sellers still sells stuff and the duplicated listings remain, then there is no need to share as we know eBay are doing nothing.

I am sick of paying extra for sponsored listings to try and get our items found when these sellers have the same item often listed more than 500 times with no consequence, ever.

Thanks

Russ

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Hi @ducatimondo,

As you know this is one I've worked on, unfortunately I'm not in the P&A team anymore so I don't have a view as to the plans for the category. I know it was something they were focusing on.

At the moment we send the reports on to the policy team and they will then take the action. 

I'll reach out to the category manager with your concerns, I'm sure its something they are aware of and its possibly something they are working on. 

Thanks,

Dave

[marco@ebay]

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@keelinge wrote:

But the filter is there for a reason? I chose where I wanted the items from but you are suggesting ebay knows better than the buyer in this situation?

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Thanks for getting back to me on this, keelinge.

The filter is there and it works ok, but as advised before, sometimes your search might not have any results for UK sellers or not enough results, so if that's the case, we will still show you items from sellers from different sites, so you can still take a look for the item you are looking for in case you are interested.

Thank you,

Marco

[keelinge]

Could the multivariation listing fuction be changed or at least the search parameters as it is incredibly frustrating as a buyer to see the 99p item is a sample or something else completely irrelevant in order for sellers to manipulate a search. Ie is you are searching for packaging materials, you have to go into all the pages to select the option you want to even begin to start comparing prices. 

[hatsford]

I ask this every few months but nothing ever changes.

so, with no expectations, is there  chance someone can fix  some of the broken issues in the dispatch/tracking.

It would be really nice to add a tracking number and it stay added, and not get an error page .

It would also be helpful it orders which were marked as dispatched, didn't either stay in the awaiting dispatch, or randomly re-appear in them a few days later.

It takes almost as long to 'tell' ebay that the order has been sent, then it does to physically pack and send it.

Worse offenders are where one customer has bought a few different items 

[keelinge]

Thanks Marco, but surely like other sites, if I didnt find what I was looking for, I could expand the search myself to fit with what I was looking at. 

[hollybee4ever]

The selling page format has changed to a simplified but abysmal app style layout. When going to the bottom of the page it says mobile/classic view. When clicking classic view it takes you to the homepage but when clicking the selling link again it's the mobile page once again.

[katie@ebay]

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@keelinge wrote:

However this puts the onus on the seller to get in touch and spend time trying to get through to the correct person. Why can an email/ message not be sent to inform of the decision directly? With a way to follow up if if it is decided against the seller?

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There is no automated service to refund postage at this time and we would ask for sellers to reach out to appeal. This outcome does vary depending on the situation so must be reviewed by an agent.

Thanks,

Katie 

[messier44000]

Any plans to introduce a 👎 / not helpful icon to replies.

This is a genuine question, as we can do this on your you-tube channel 

and numerous other chat forums.

[ducatimondo]

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marco@ebay wrote:

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@keelinge wrote:

Private sellers appear to have frequent 70-80% off fvf promotions. Could businesses sellers be offered some incentives as well as a lot of 'private' sellers are just businesses that are trading at an advantage to those who abide by the rules.

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Hi keelinge, thanks for your message.

This type of offers/promotions are sent out to sellers from time to time, and there is not an actual schedule or program for them to be assigned to private/business sellers. However, I will make sure to pass your feedback on, so this can be taken into consideration for future offers for business sellers.

Thank you,

Marco 

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Hi Marco, welcome to the team.

I know you say there is no program for the to be assigned to private/business sellers, but i have been here more than 20 years and they are only ever offered to either of the following:

Private sellers.

Carefully selected business sellers that seem to get priority from eBay, such as large retailers you are "working extra hard" to encourage to be here.

I have never been offered any of these promotions that didn't involve me giving away all of my profits to get some more sales and that said, I only got invited to that one once.

There is a saying that has served me well over the years:

You can shear a sheep as often as you want but you can only kill it once.

If eBay continuously expect sellers to pay more and more and more and we get less and less and less, you are going to kill the proverbial sheep as you are going to ask more of the sheep than the sheep can give

Genuine incentives for business sellers with some meaning and actual value, that helps the seller as opposed to just helping eBay would encourage sellers to try and be more engaging as a generalism.

If feels too much like an us and them scenario, where eBay fall over themselves for private sellers or buyers and forget that a large share of eBay's profit comes from the smaller hardworking independent sellers that always get forgotten and left behind.

Back to your reply:

"there is not an actual schedule or program for them to be assigned to private/business sellers"

Is there no schedule because it just applies to private sellers?

Thanks

Russ

[marco@ebay]

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@keelinge wrote:

Could a function be added so that sellers can see the number of images on listings from the active seller page, rather than having to go into each individually?

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Thanks for the question, keelinge.

If you go to your seller hub, and click on the "Performance" tab, there you will find the "Listing Quality Report", with this tool, you can perform this action you are looking to do.

Thank you,

Marco

[dave@ebay]

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@eco-green-chicken wrote:

Dave - the terminaology might be different, some say block, others say limit.

the post might be refering to account selling limits that ( I have now discovered on my account ) been applied by ebay . I have no reason for my accout to be limitied as I am perfect in every way..... but still limited by ebay. please check with the poster, to see if that's what tehy mean.

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Hi @eco-green-chicken,

Every selling account will have a limit of some sort this is based on your selling history. This can be reviewed every 30 days once you hit that limit. 

You can request an increase here if you need to.

Thanks,

Dave

[keelinge]

Katie that is not how it comes across in the message following reporting the case or in the details when I searched. However this does mean anotherf phone call to ebay each time to chase up something that has altready been actioned. 

[marco@ebay]

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@lord_and_lady_m wrote:

There is constantly private sellers selling on ebay, when they should be registered as a business. It's been brought up so many time.

How is it fair the private sellers can have special offers on fees etc when businesses cannot?

Businesses cannot compete with private sellers fairly in these instances.

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Thanks for your question, lord_and_lady_m.

We perform reviews to make sure that no business sellers are trading as private sellers, so we are constantly reviewing this to make sure all sellers are in compliance. If you see a business trading as a private seller, feel free to report it to us, and we will be happy to review.

Thank you,

Marco

[pg_kicks]

Reporting it doesnt work, I have reported hundreds of listings, all still there, if you like I can send you a dm with a list of accounts? More than happy to do so if you will personally take care of the situation.

[keelinge]

Dave I just tried the link you sent and it comes up with: 

Unfortunately, you're not currently eligible for a selling limit increase.You may need to build up your selling history or wait until your current monthly limit is reset before you can request another increase to your selling limits.

I have been on ebay for over 20 years and have feedback over 41,000. How can I i need to build up my selling history?