Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 28.08.24 @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, marco@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

[cobwebcottage]

Hello All,

Since changing to business policies, I have had issues with my postage policies. I have 3 pages of policies as some of them self duplicate and even after deleting them on a regular basis, they come back.

If I miss a new duplicate policy and list an item, it may choose this new policy.

I know I can manually update them but looking at the consolidate flat postage option, I am hoping this will do it in one shot.

My question is, what does this mean?  'Listings using a consolidated policy will retain their costs as postage cost overrides, if the costs differ from those in the policy'.

I don't want to chance pressing the big red button and then messing everything up. If this happens, can you revert back to the original policies?

[marco@ebay]

---

@cobwebcottage wrote:

Hello All,

Since changing to business policies, I have had issues with my postage policies. I have 3 pages of policies as some of them self duplicate and even after deleting them on a regular basis, they come back.

If I miss a new duplicate policy and list an item, it may choose this new policy.

I know I can manually update them but looking at the consolidate flat postage option, I am hoping this will do it in one shot.

My question is, what does this mean?  'Listings using a consolidated policy will retain their costs as postage cost overrides, if the costs differ from those in the policy'.

I don't want to chance pressing the big red button and then messing everything up. If this happens, can you revert back to the original policies?

---

Hi cobwebcottage, thanks for your question.

I am not entirely sure on this one to be honest with you, so I will double check that for you first to make sure I am providing you with correct and accurate information. Once I get an update on this for you, I will post back here to let you know.

Thank you,

Marco

[cobwebcottage]

Thank you Marco,

I am also still having issues which I have mentioned before, with the postage changing on new listings after I have selected one. It will often default to the one I last used and you can physically see it doing it. This happens both on the app and laptop.

I have to check all my new lisitings to make sure the  correct postage has been applied and sometimes have to edit the listing 3 times before it will stick.

[marco@ebay]

---

@cobwebcottage wrote:

Thank you Marco,

I am also still having issues which I have mentioned before, with the postage changing on new listings after I have selected one. It will often default to the one I last used and you can physically see it doing it. This happens both on the app and laptop.

I have to check all my new lisitings to make sure the  correct postage has been applied and sometimes have to edit the listing 3 times before it will stick.

---

No problem at all, happy to help cobwebcottage.

I will check that as well, and then I will update you on it. 👍

Thank you,

Marco

[mteconlineshop]

Hi Team

Regarding customer returns. Have had a buyer by some wheel studs, he then proceeds to cut them and gring parts of the stud off and then comes on to us and claims the item is defective. Starts a return stating this. How can something like this be allowed by eBay. I know we can refund 50% but we still loose money 

if someone can look into this that woul dbe greatful, return id 5272033924

[returns_andexdisplay]

You may notice a slight increase in cancellation requests, but should receive fewer direct messages from buyers inquiring about cancellations. 

Why don't ebay actually start displaying the listings that buyers is looking at instead of messing around with adding a button to make it easier to cancel once they have bought?

eBay claim to be the home of preloved or recommence market where items are not perfect and faults need to be mentioned. Yet the important information is hidden away to make room for promoted listings.

This is more likely to make a difference and keep both buyers and sellers happy and save everyone time and money. Plus more like to help sellers avoid false not as described defects.

[lincolnshiremarine]

Good afternoon

We had several sales that ebay told the buyer the item was arrving the next day.  

One of them is Item number: 15-11973-40170

The buyer has now contacted me asking what is going on.  

There are also several purchases where ebay did not take into account the August bank holiday. 

I recall last year we had the same issue, and ebay said this would not happen again.

Well it has happened again, can no one see in ebay, what sellers are seeing with regards ebays delivery dates. 

How do we stand as sellers if we receive feedback on delivery dates, despite us highlighting the issue to ebay and ebay still continuing to tell buyers dalse delivery dates.

This is getting silly now.

Best wishes 

[bobsbrickstuff]

In last week's chat, kat@ebay said there aren’t any planned changes with International shipping. Does this mean the long standing issue where international shipping labels won’t print correctly on 6x4 shipping labels isn’t being worked on?

For reference, this is the issue - inland shipping labels are formatted correctly, but International are formatted for A4, no matter what you do.

 

[tressygirl]

Afternoon All !

This question came up last week and I wasn't 100% sure of the answer.

If an auction is ended early, that has bids and a Reserve.  The Reserve is not met.  I know the listing fee for the Reserve needs to be paid, but because the Reserve was not reached , is there also, still a seller fee to pay on the highest bid placed for ending the auction early ?

Thanks.

[kat@ebay]

---

@lincolnshiremarine wrote:

Good afternoon

We had several sales that ebay told the buyer the item was arrving the next day.  

One of them is Item number: 15-11973-40170

The buyer has now contacted me asking what is going on.  

There are also several purchases where ebay did not take into account the August bank holiday. 

I recall last year we had the same issue, and ebay said this would not happen again.

Well it has happened again, can no one see in ebay, what sellers are seeing with regards ebays delivery dates. 

How do we stand as sellers if we receive feedback on delivery dates, despite us highlighting the issue to ebay and ebay still continuing to tell buyers dalse delivery dates.

This is getting silly now.

Best wishes 

---

Hi @lincolnshiremarine ,

Yes are aware of the orders with the August bank holiday and currently having it looked into with the shipping team regarding seller protections. Once we have full clarification on this we will post an update on the community.

Thank you,

Kat

[marco@ebay]

---

@tressygirl wrote:

Afternoon All !

This question came up last week and I wasn't 100% sure of the answer.

If an auction is ended early, that has bids and a Reserve.  The Reserve is not met.  I know the listing fee for the Reserve needs to be paid, but because the Reserve was not reached , is there also, still a seller fee to pay on the highest bid placed for ending the auction early ?

Thanks.

---

Hi tressygirl, thanks for your question.

That always depends on each scenario, as in how many hours are left, etc. If you click here, you can see a table which shows what fees would apply in each scenario, which you could also share with anyone who is asking the same question, so they can compare their listing to the table found on the link above.

Thank you,

Marco

[kat@ebay]

---

@bobsbrickstuff wrote:

In last week's chat, kat@ebay said there aren’t any planned changes with International shipping. Does this mean the long standing issue where international shipping labels won’t print correctly on 6x4 shipping labels isn’t being worked on?

For reference, this is the issue - inland shipping labels are formatted correctly, but International are formatted for A4, no matter what you do.

 

---

Hi @bobsbrickstuff ,

This sounds more like a technical issue regarding printing the labels. I recall something similar being raised in our postage board some time ago.  Leave it with me and I'll check to see if this is being looked into.

Thank you,

Kat

[lincolnshiremarine]

Thank you for your reply Kat

This is happening time and time again, and with respect all we have from the community team is ebay will look into it.

Lots of sellers have raised the issue about the bank holiday delivery dates,  and the estimated delivery dates in general.

We have highlighted the issues endless times,  and in fact I have supplied endless evidence to the shipping team.  With this in mind surely ebay should be protecting the seller from feedback.  If not, this is so unfair.

Best wishes 

[dave@ebay]

---

@returns_andexdisplay wrote:

You may notice a slight increase in cancellation requests, but should receive fewer direct messages from buyers inquiring about cancellations. 

Why don't ebay actually start displaying the listings that buyers is looking at instead of messing around with adding a button to make it easier to cancel once they have bought?

eBay claim to be the home of preloved or recommence market where items are not perfect and faults need to be mentioned. Yet the important information is hidden away to make room for promoted listings.

This is more likely to make a difference and keep both buyers and sellers happy and save everyone time and money. Plus more like to help sellers avoid false not as described defects.

---

Hi @returns_andexdisplay 

As I'm sure you know, best match works on a number of different factors. I'm not aware of any plans to change the algorithm but I will pass your feedback on to the site team to review.

Thanks,

Dave

[tressygirl]

Hi Marco,

I appreciate that,  but sellers cannot cancel auctions if there's less than 12 hours to run.

So with this example:

14 hours to run, Reserve placed but not met, 4 bids on the auction,  and seller ends the auction. 

They pay the Reserve fee as that is non refundable,  but because the Reserve is not met, do they still pay a seller fee on the highest bid placed ?

There would be a charge if there was no reserve.

[bojangled]

kat@ebay 

I'm sorry this isn't a question, but @bobsbrickstuff says is correct, the labels for international shipping have never printed in the correct format.
I don't think it's technical, it's never worked for me, I gave up buying postage via eBay because of the time consuming work around and label wastage. 

Jo

[kat@ebay]

---

@lincolnshiremarine wrote:

Thank you for your reply Kat

This is happening time and time again, and with respect all we have from the community team is ebay will look into it.

Lots of sellers have raised the issue about the bank holiday delivery dates,  and the estimated delivery dates in general.

We have highlighted the issues endless times,  and in fact I have supplied endless evidence to the shipping team.  With this in mind surely ebay should be protecting the seller from feedback.  If not, this is so unfair.

Best wishes 

---

Hi @lincolnshiremarine ,

We understand the frustration with it and we are making your sentiment clear when we provide your feedback.  Right now we are getting clarification regarding protections and once that is given we will update it on the community.

Thank you,

Kat

[chrbac.uye5b7]

Which retailer do we use now that you are stopping the use of paying by nectar vouchers? It certainly won't be Ebay anymore. I bet sellers and buyers are over the moon.

[lincolnshiremarine]

Hi Kat

Thank you

Best wishes