Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 20.11.24 @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 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

[moonspender]

Having followed a number of these weekly chats I see that quite a few questions that you cannot deal with; have to pass on to the relevant departments or ask the individual to contact the relevant department themselves.

That’s fine, you answer loads of questions but I understand you have limited knowledge of areas you don’t work in and specialists should answer for their department.

Do you think it would be a good idea to periodically involve specialists from these departments in these weekly chats? It could be confirmed who is going to be attending these chats in advance as some questions we have might be better placed when that specialist is in attendance.

The benefit to sellers is that we are more likely to get more detailed answers at the time of questioning, I believe people are more likely to submit questions when specialists are involved and I believe it would also help these departments understand better the issues and challenges sellers are having as well as the impact of their decisions.

This would certainly be a good idea just before or after major changes are implemented where you are unable to answer effectively many of the questions we have at such a critical time such as the recent change and issues resulting from private sellers paying no fees.

GPSR is another example where fielding questions relating to GPSR in this weekly chat has added little to no value to sellers IMO; sellers who are taking time away from “selling “ to seek clarity on changes that dramatically impact themselves and their business.

Having come from a banking industry where similar weekly discussions were held it was a given that there would be employees fielding questions from departments who had or were in the process of implementing change that affected others areas of the business.

From my experience these other departments found value from being involved.

I know eBay’s main aim of these chats is that they are useful and I believe doing as suggested is a way of making that so.

[nutrafituk]

With regards to the last week’s chat and Dave’s bold statement:

We in no way allow traders onsite to break the law and will remove any listings that do so as soon as we are aware of them.

I can’t say why some of the listings you reported were removed and others were not, you will need to speak to customer support. They will have agents trained on the different polices and will be able to better advise you on what happened.

Thanks,

Dave

We contacted Dave via PM with examples of existing listing that had been reported and refused to remove, despite breaching ebay’s policies and UK regulations. Result – no response whatsoever.

The bottom line is that ebay have made it crystal clear that they are not interested in any reports and getting things right. Every single report submitted this week was declined despite being 100% policy breach. Interestingly, those forwarded to a regulator were removed swiftly right after. Having said that, we are not going to file any more due to being accused of false accusations and end up with account restrictions.

Instead, we are taking it all further outside ebay calling out their negligence. So, the question is:  do you really think your course of action is acceptable?

[howmuchtobid]

With regards to the ever increasing issue of businesses trading on private accounts.

Firstly when will this be addressed in a fair and equitable manner for the legitimate businesses who keep Ebay UK in business?

and

The current reporting system is not fit for purpose, there is no way to report businesses trading on private accounts, if there is please tell me how you do it?

[auctiongabble]

I tried booking a 1:1 selling clinic session with an ebay marketplace professional, the first time it came up saying I didn’t qualify and then the 2nd time there was no available dates / times for this month or December and I couldn’t view or book anything after that.
I contacted customer service yesterday who knew nothing about the 1:1 clinic and the support answers provided to me were very blank of ‘I don’t know’ and ‘there is no dept they can talk to’
why keep advertising it if you can’t provide it, I’m interested in what they have to offer and advise to improve sales on here because nothing else is working?

[moldosgifts]

I bang on about every week it seems

Business sellers masquerading as private seller

Suggestions you can pass on 

1 removing the ability to list as brand new, because if your private and selling your own property it is NOT new it is preowned or like new.

2 by removing the ability to sell multiples , so when creating the listing they can only list 1 of instead of 50 of.

3 Second hand restrict them to 100 per month all listing renew every 30 days same as businesses.

[dave@ebay]

---

@moonspender wrote:

Having followed a number of these weekly chats I see that quite a few questions that you cannot deal with; have to pass on to the relevant departments or ask the individual to contact the relevant department themselves.

That’s fine, you answer loads of questions but I understand you have limited knowledge of areas you don’t work in and specialists should answer for their department.

Do you think it would be a good idea to periodically involve specialists from these departments in these weekly chats? It could be confirmed who is going to be attending these chats in advance as some questions we have might be better placed when that specialist is in attendance.

The benefit to sellers is that we are more likely to get more detailed answers at the time of questioning, I believe people are more likely to submit questions when specialists are involved and I believe it would also help these departments understand better the issues and challenges sellers are having as well as the impact of their decisions.

This would certainly be a good idea just before or after major changes are implemented where you are unable to answer effectively many of the questions we have at such a critical time such as the recent change and issues resulting from private sellers paying no fees.

GPSR is another example where fielding questions relating to GPSR in this weekly chat has added little to no value to sellers IMO; sellers who are taking time away from “selling “ to seek clarity on changes that dramatically impact themselves and their business.

Having come from a banking industry where similar weekly discussions were held it was a given that there would be employees fielding questions from departments who had or were in the process of implementing change that affected others areas of the business.

From my experience these other departments found value from being involved.

I know eBay’s main aim of these chats is that they are useful and I believe doing as suggested is a way of making that so.

---

Hi @moonspender 

This is one that has come up a few times but unfortunately, it's not something we are able to offer through the community. 

We do however run roadshows and seller feedback sessions where we bring in specialists to speak one to one with sellers. I'm not aware of any upcoming events but we will usually reach out through email and the announcement board here to let sellers know of any upcoming events. 

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

---

@nutrafituk wrote:

With regards to the last week’s chat and Dave’s bold statement:

We in no way allow traders onsite to break the law and will remove any listings that do so as soon as we are aware of them.

I can’t say why some of the listings you reported were removed and others were not, you will need to speak to customer support. They will have agents trained on the different polices and will be able to better advise you on what happened.

Thanks,

Dave

We contacted Dave via PM with examples of existing listing that had been reported and refused to remove, despite breaching ebay’s policies and UK regulations. Result – no response whatsoever.

The bottom line is that ebay have made it crystal clear that they are not interested in any reports and getting things right. Every single report submitted this week was declined despite being 100% policy breach. Interestingly, those forwarded to a regulator were removed swiftly right after. Having said that, we are not going to file any more due to being accused of false accusations and end up with account restrictions.

Instead, we are taking it all further outside ebay calling out their negligence. So, the question is:  do you really think your course of action is acceptable?

---

Hi @nutrafituk ,

While I cannot comment on the reports you have sent through as we don't action those accounts here eBay has its own internal processes and procedures for reviewing accounts. There are accounts that have action taken on them for trading on private accounts when they should not be but and as we have mentioned before we do not disclose those accounts for privacy and security reasons. 

Thank you,

Kat

[pg_kicks]

Hi,

Hope all is well within eBay towers.

As 'At eBay, we are dedicated to ensuring a fair and equitable marketplace for all business sellers' I'm just wondering if you have any knowledge of when this will actually happen?  Also as this was announced at the same time as the free selling for all private accounts which eBay claimed would bring extra sales for correctly registered business accounts who still pay to use the site, do eBay have any plans to release figures (for the UK not a different country) that will prove this as it seems on these forums, reddit and other social media that in fact the complete is happening and many business accounts are seeing a large drop in sales, more so on eBay than any other platform.

eBay seems to be treating its business customers (the only ones who seem to pay these days) with such little respect and zero loyalty its pretty sickening. For the amount we as a collective pay in fee's surely an hour of Sholto/Eve's time answering questions isnt too much of an ask.

[maggna]

This morning I received an email from eBay about delivery tips for sellers.

In the email, eBay say "Peak season essentials" "Buyers want things fast" which made me laugh. I would suggest to eBay that buyers who need things delivered fast don't even consider eBay. This is because there is no way to filter search results based on delivery speed. The only way to find out the full delivery speeds and services a seller offers is to go into each listing and go to the postage collection and returns section. No one will spend a long time doing this and will likely give up and shop elsewhere.

This has been pointed out to eBay many times, I can only assume eBay disagrees that a delivery speed filter would be helpful to buyers. Why is that?

[pg_kicks]

Can you just confirm if we are still expect to use 'other' as the reason when reporting businesses on private accounts? The one checked by either AI or people who dont know UK law so never actually take action or do we need to tell CS now as last time I spoke to them they told me it had to come direct from them.

[kat@ebay]

---

@pg_kicks wrote:

Hi,

Hope all is well within eBay towers.

As 'At eBay, we are dedicated to ensuring a fair and equitable marketplace for all business sellers' I'm just wondering if you have any knowledge of when this will actually happen?  Also as this was announced at the same time as the free selling for all private accounts which eBay claimed would bring extra sales for correctly registered business accounts who still pay to use the site, do eBay have any plans to release figures (for the UK not a different country) that will prove this as it seems on these forums, reddit and other social media that in fact the complete is happening and many business accounts are seeing a large drop in sales, more so on eBay than any other platform.

eBay seems to be treating its business customers (the only ones who seem to pay these days) with such little respect and zero loyalty its pretty sickening. For the amount we as a collective pay in fee's surely an hour of Sholto/Eve's time answering questions isnt too much of an ask.

---

Hi @pg_kicks ,

They would not be in position to answer questions here on the community. I will share your points and feedback with the relevant department.

Thank  you,

Kat

[russellmattin]

I`ve been following the chats between members on GPSR but they are no real help as they just seem to be about the ridiculously complex interpretation of how the scheme is supposed to work, so typical of EU legislation you need to employ a team of bureaucrats just to work out what it means never mind actually putting it into practice! For this reason I can understand why ebay have been rather quiet on giving business sellers advice but time is running out and we NEED TO KNOW…..

• will ebay tell us exactly which of our items need GPSR info
• will ebay just suppress the search facility on non compliant items in a) just the EU/NI or b) everywhere

• or will ebay remove non compliant items completely

these are the questions business sellers need answers to, its no good just referring us to various web sites and copies of the regulations they don’t tell us WHAT EBAY WILL DO. We need to know so we can make informed decisions about our future selling methods

[returns_andexdisplay]

Thanks for your reply last week. Hi returns_andexdisplay, just an update on this.

The shipping team has confirmed that the service you used for the transaction in question was 48 hours, so that's why the EDD was showing Monday-Wednesday. Monday being the dispatching day + 48 hours, would give a result of Wednesday max. So that's why the EDD was showing that date. That would confirm that it is working ok, and no issues were found either.

Thank you,

Marco

Whilst I don't disagree the EDD is working as designed. The issue seems to be in the design, when on A Friday evening a item was shown to a buyer with a chance the item may arrive Monday. In my world this is never going to happen, as after 3pm on a Friday nothing is going to get dispatch till Monday. 

At what point are ebay taking the data from to show buyers EDD?

If it is when the parcel enters the courier network something needs changing with the way EDD is being calculated to reflect a more realistic EDD to buyers as currently ebay are over promising and underdelivering. I prefer to work on under promise and over delivery as it save the hassle of wheres my item emails or defect which ebay hit sellers with.  

If as you claim EDD is working as designed why are Saturday and Sunday orders not showing EDD Monday - Wed as well when they are all being dispatched at the same time? 

[a45heaven]

Refunds

This was brought up in June - a Mentor confirmed the issues exists - as it is a financial issue, one would have though it mattered in the production of accounts for sellers.

The shown information below is what you show when i refund a buyer £4.00 to offer a postage discount.

Any thoughts?

Review refund

Total refund

£4.00

Refund summary

Refund summaryTransaction details Transaction amount

Purchase price	£3.07
Postage	£0.93
Fee creditsShow details	-£0.46

Amount you owe

£3.54

[kat@ebay]

---

@moldosgifts wrote:

I bang on about every week it seems

Business sellers masquerading as private seller

Suggestions you can pass on 

1 removing the ability to list as brand new, because if your private and selling your own property it is NOT new it is preowned or like new.

2 by removing the ability to sell multiples , so when creating the listing they can only list 1 of instead of 50 of.

3 Second hand restrict them to 100 per month all listing renew every 30 days same as businesses.

---

Hi @moldosgifts ,

Thank you for raising these points. I'll share them as feedback for possible future changes on private sellers.

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

---

@howmuchtobid wrote:

With regards to the ever increasing issue of businesses trading on private accounts.

Firstly when will this be addressed in a fair and equitable manner for the legitimate businesses who keep Ebay UK in business?

and

The current reporting system is not fit for purpose, there is no way to report businesses trading on private accounts, if there is please tell me how you do it?

---

Hi @howmuchtobid 

This is currently something we are working on and although it may not look it to from the outside there is a lot happening in the background. The action we have been taking is on these accounts in general is only visible to the account holder. 

I understand how frustrating this is to many sellers we do read the posts on the different forum. The reporting and how its handled is something that we have passed back to the site team and they are looking into it. 

Thanks,

Dave

[nutrafituk]

Hello Kat,

thank you for your response. We were not referring just to 'so-called' private sellers but also food, controlled substances, duplicated listings, search manipulation and so on. Your only option was to act however ebay decided to ignore.

There is now way we are going to carry on paying pay ebay 100k in fees per annum for that kind of service.

[dave@ebay]

---

@auctiongabble wrote:

I tried booking a 1:1 selling clinic session with an ebay marketplace professional, the first time it came up saying I didn’t qualify and then the 2nd time there was no available dates / times for this month or December and I couldn’t view or book anything after that.
I contacted customer service yesterday who knew nothing about the 1:1 clinic and the support answers provided to me were very blank of ‘I don’t know’ and ‘there is no dept they can talk to’
why keep advertising it if you can’t provide it, I’m interested in what they have to offer and advise to improve sales on here because nothing else is working?

---

Hi @auctiongabble 

I just spoke to the head of the team running the 121s and it looks like you are eligible. The appointments run on a 30 day rolling window and there is one slot left for the 20th, you can book it here: 

https://calendly.com/sellerclinics/book-a-seller-clinic-1-1

If that slot is gone check back first thing tomorrow morning and there will be fresh slots for the 21st.

Thanks,

Dave

[howmuchtobid]

Dave,

With regards to this, will these sellers be liable for the final value fees they have avoided paying for months?  as it is a real kick in the teeth to think these sellers have gained hundreds / thousands of pounds from acting in a way that violates Ebay policy and breaks UK law.