💬 Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 29.03.23 @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

[john1297576]

With the various numerous cases of sellers having to refund for items not received in recent months, has eBay ever considered a procedure for buyers to repay sellers when item eventually arrives.

[uncle_arthurs]

I post my sales out the very same day as my orders 1st class, I cannot do anything at all
faster, and yet I still get defects for late delivery due to Royal Mail not delivering on time,
do you think this is fair that I cannot upload a proof of postage receipt to defend my case?

[kat@ebay]

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@john1297576 wrote:

With the various numerous cases of sellers having to refund for items not received in recent months, has eBay ever considered a procedure for buyers to repay sellers when item eventually arrives.

---

Hi @john1297576 ,

The EMBG runs off a timeline so we can ensure the same experience for all users. Outside of this timeline we can't control the funds. I understand the frustration when this situation happens and this may have increased recently due to the Royal Mail strikes. We will share this feedback with the relevant team for future changes. 

Thank you,

Kat

[ducatimondo]

Do eBay know it is Easter next week and do they plan to factor this into the ship by dates and estimated delivery dates?

Only asking as I am getting tired of eBay promising faster delivery than Royal Mail actually bother to do and then being blamed for it.

Thanks in advance

Russ

[elcon_europe_ltd]

Please can you show me where I can download a report that shows how much VAT eBay collected & paid to HMRC on my behalf via the IOSS system.

It's my finacial end-of-year Friday and I need the figures

[dave@ebay]

Hi @uncle_arthurs 

I understand the issues that can arise when shipping, however we can only use independent information that can be found on a tracking number for example. We cannot confirm the information that is shown on a proof of postage so these receipts cannot be used.

Thanks,

Dave

[a-touch-of-sparkle]

Hi

I am having a few  problems with "BUY 2 GET 1 FREE" offers.

1. Certain items, you are giving a discount of £1.92 for each item that costs £1.90, and I have had others where you have given a discount worth more than the original cost ( on multi items of the same price)

2. sometimes you are  allowing two free if they purchase 6, which is what I would expect, but on other items I am having to manually refund when I notice.

Should it make a difference if the buyers mix and match from different listings, as I was assuming that this was the point of the offer? 

[kat@ebay]

---

@ducatimondo wrote:

Do eBay know it is Easter next week and do they plan to factor this into the ship by dates and estimated delivery dates?

Only asking as I am getting tired of eBay promising faster delivery than Royal Mail actually bother to do and then being blamed for it.

Thanks in advance

Russ

---

Hi @ducatimondo ,

Yes eBay is aware that Easter is next week. Bank holidays are taken into consideration when calculating estimated delivery dates.

Thank you,

Kat

[williabaxte7]

This item not received and refunded,then turns up debunkle  needs sorting sooner rather than later. . Please add this to your feedback 

[vjm-supplies]

I have seen lots of different threads with sellers like myself who are commenting about experiencing extremely low sales.  Given the amount of sellers that are saying the same thing the issue cannot just be an individual issue.  There must be a bigger, wider issue involved here that ebay are aware of.  Have ebay amended their site that is causing a drop in sales to everyone.  What are ebay doing to remedy this dire situation.

Any comments on this?

Many thanks 

[a-touch-of-sparkle]

But the proof of postage is printed by the post office when you post, and it is what they use to prove when you have posted, so why can't  Ebay take it as proof of postage? 

[dave@ebay]

---

@elcon_europe_ltd wrote:

Please can you show me where I can download a report that shows how much VAT eBay collected & paid to HMRC on my behalf via the IOSS system.

It's my finacial end-of-year Friday and I need the figures

---

Hi @elcon_europe_ltd 

If you're using Seller Hub, you can download a report of all orders by going to My eBay > Selling > and download the report of all orders.

You can also find more information in the invoices section here.

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

---

@a-touch-of-sparkle wrote:

Hi

I am having a few  problems with "BUY 2 GET 1 FREE" offers.

1. Certain items, you are giving a discount of £1.92 for each item that costs £1.90, and I have had others where you have given a discount worth more than the original cost ( on multi items of the same price)

2. sometimes you are  allowing two free if they purchase 6, which is what I would expect, but on other items I am having to manually refund when I notice.

Should it make a difference if the buyers mix and match from different listings, as I was assuming that this was the point of the offer? 

---

Hi @a-touch-of-sparkle ,

It may be that the amount is being rounded up. I will need to take this offline and have a further look into it. I can see that this is being discussed on another thread on the selling tools board so will update there once we have checked into it.

Thank you,

Kat

[a-touch-of-sparkle]

Ending auctions early / the law?

I am sure you will have seen the news about the chap having to pay £12000 to a buyer because he ended an auction early, as apparently UK law states that bids are legally binding. With this in mind, how can we as sellers make sure that we do not get  hit for this? Obviously accidents happen, so sometimes auctions need to be cancelled.

The flip side is- if somebody bids and wins one of our auctions, surely that is legally binding, but they can get away with it if we insisted on honouring the sale and sending the item.  They can then  claim that the item arrived damaged and get a full refund. How would we prove that the item was not damaged when sent, as some unscrupulous buyers will maliciously damage the item just to get the return postage paid?

[mteconlineshop]

Hi

Can it be explained please why eBay have now removed the buyers contact phone number when they ask for a delivery to a drop shop, i.e Argos etc

Due to the shops or eBay not contacting the buyer a text to there mobil is a great solution. Now causing isses with phone number being removed

[a-touch-of-sparkle]

Thank you Kat@ebay, but the amounts are £1.90. and the discount given  is £1.92, how can you round up a free item?

[dave@ebay]

---

@a-touch-of-sparkle wrote:

But the proof of postage is printed by the post office when you post, and it is what they use to prove when you have posted, so why can't  Ebay take it as proof of postage? 

---

Hi @a-touch-of-sparkle 

We need to be able to independently verify the information provided. Royal Mails system does not provide any way for us to confirm the information on the receipt so we cant accept them.

Thanks,

Dave

[774paulr]

Hi Dave

Thanks for your reply - However, please at least do me the decency of a proper answer to my SPECIFIC question and not some "copy & paste" reply!

Where is the PRECISE report I asked for please?

Last year I had to pay my accountant £400 + VAT to work out the hideous report supplied by eBay!

Regards

Paul

[kat@ebay]

---

@vjm-supplies wrote:

I have seen lots of different threads with sellers like myself who are commenting about experiencing extremely low sales.  Given the amount of sellers that are saying the same thing the issue cannot just be an individual issue.  There must be a bigger, wider issue involved here that ebay are aware of.  Have ebay amended their site that is causing a drop in sales to everyone.  What are ebay doing to remedy this dire situation.

Any comments on this?

Many thanks 

---

Hi @vjm-supplies ,

There is no confirmation of a change on the eBay site that is causing a drop in sales. If you are noticing a drop in sales on your account then we recommend having an overall look at your listings for optimising them. Checking things like overall processes, titles, images, prices and using some of the promotional tools available. Please see some helpful tips here.

Thank you,

Kat