💬 Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 25.01.23 @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 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 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

[dave@ebay]

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@drakus-com wrote:

hi we sell vat and non vatable items. how can i get a breakdown on my payouts of what propoprtion of the payout is from vat and zero vated items. 

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Hi @drakus-com 

Ill have to reach out to the Payments Team to find out if this is possible. I'll come back to you directly once I have a response.

Thanks,

Dave

[seal-extrusions]

Following on from a request about adding a button so we can send buyers a copy invoice with one click! As so many requests by accounts departments etc... Would also like to throw in a request that on multi listings could it not be added on a way to put weights and sizes for each item if required.

[iceblue_uk]

Thanks Dave, but surely in this case ebay is charging the seller for a service that they did not receive. I am concerned that if this is not overridable, ebay will just shrug shoulders and keep on charging for a service they are not providing. That would not be acceptable at all. Could we have some feedback on this from that team on what they propose to do or not do?

[kat@ebay]

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@iceblue_uk wrote:

I assume that ebay started charging FVF on postage because, years ago, some unscrupulous sellers would try to reduce their FVF's by offering a £10 product for sale at £1 with £9 postage. Probably not the best solution for sellers or buyers, but it certainly resulted in millions of pounds of extra profit for ebay.
Now FVF on postage is one thing, but why is ebay now charging the sponsored listing fees on postage on top of the FVF?
Sellers generally don't make profit on postage because buyers are aware of postage costs and will simply go elsewhere if sellers overcharge. Unfortunately, we already have to inflate postage costs by up to 15% to account for the FVF's that ebay are charging on them. Now, on some sponsored listings, we have to charge £2-£3 more that the actual postage cost just to break even on it after ebay take all the fees off!
I doubt that buyers would be impressed if it was common knowledge that of the money they just paid for a guaranteed next day service, ebay were taking £2 - £3 of it for themselves with no benefit to anyone else.
Is there a valid reason for this policy change other than increasing ebay revenue?

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Hi @iceblue_uk ,

As you have mentioned sellers setting high postage prices was an issue previously. Charging FVF on postage does stop sellers setting unrealistic postage prices and changing the sponsored listing fees to include postage helps to keep how eBay calculate fees in line with their overall policy.

Thank you,

Kat

[kat@ebay]

Hi @e-breaker ,

If you want to send me an example of an order from one of these sellers and I'll review. Send it to me by private message.

Thank you,

Kat

[kat@ebay]

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@seal-extrusions wrote:

Following on from a request about adding a button so we can send buyers a copy invoice with one click! As so many requests by accounts departments etc... Would also like to throw in a request that on multi listings could it not be added on a way to put weights and sizes for each item if required.

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Hi @seal-extrusions ,

Thank you for the suggestion. It is something we have shared in the past. I'll share your feedback as a point of improvement for future changes.

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

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@ak_craft_crazy wrote:

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your response, other platforms allow the buyer to change the dispatch date with a reason and message the buyer at the same time so they are aware. Having i this way will allow genuine reasons for "late" dispatch and put those who arent genuine off from using it as you have to explain to the buyer.

At the moment it just seems unfair to punish sellers for "late" dispatch through no fault of there own

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Hi @ak_craft_crazy 

I totally understand your frustration with this, selling personalised items is not as straight forward as taking an item off the shelf and sending it. I'll link this thread with your feedback when I forward the suggestion to the Development Team. 

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

Hi All,

Providing an update here regarding the VAT invoice for business buyers topic that was raised on our last two weekly chats.

1. The information provided on the current printable document from order history is what eBay can provide. If VAT is on the order it will show. There are no plans for changes to be made currently. We have provided users previous feedback for future improvements.
2. If a business seller provides invoices separately it is their obligation to follow that through by providing the invoice at the buyers request. eBay has no control over the invoices that are provided outside of the platform.

 Thank you,

Kat