Is anyone else unhappy with eBay's new messaging system ???

[bittyboy101]

I've been a member of eBay for 20 years now...

Over the years they have made many changes, some good and some not so good...

This one of completely revamping the messaging system is NOT GOOD !!! ... and it is now a challenge to read and reply to my important eBay messages 😞

Why on earth did eBay have ruin the reliable and easy to use messaging system which worked flawlessly since 1995 and was easy to use...

The new format/layout is now horrible and skimpy... Now you can't even see the whole of any message you receive or send, I have a big 19 inch laptop and eBay have now reduced the area where my messages display to that of an basic Smart Phone ! - I have all this space on my screen now WASTED ! whilst I struggle to read all my massages in a small window in the tiny bottom right corner ???

This is far from acceptable - I want the option to revert back to the old original messaging format PLEASE.  

The old and original eBay messaging system was MILES BETTER in all respects and should have NEVER BEEN CHANGED.     

[denise4john]

You are quite right my friend, I have made the switch to Temu and Shein in recent weeks and considerably cheaper than most ebay sellers. Messaging is almost none existant but I feel I have to make a protest aginst ebay forcing us to use a feature which doesn't work.

John

[joethecrow7]

I couldnt agree more with your comments, all they seem to be interested in is directing you to making an offer without being able to read the message you have been sent, the box asking you to SEND AN OFFER OBSCURES MOST OF THE MESSAGE YOU HAVE BEEN SENT,ime getting well cheesed off with their impractical changes to formats and dictatorial style of one shoe fits all, ebay that is.

   Can we have an option to return back to the old format its 100% better.

[joethecrow7]

VERY UNHAPPY ITS TIME FOR ME TO GO SOMEWHERE ELSE WHICH DOSNT DICTATE TO SELLERS

[gtscollections]

This is exactly what has happened - App design vs PC uses. 

Having spent years in senior management, this smacks of some bright spark(s) having a rush of sh*t to the brain with eager eyes on some promotion over cleverly 'remedying' complaints from (proportionally) a handful of eBay users in relation to a messaging system that wasn't perfect but did work and was accepted (I entirely agree with you irritation over the non-threading of received and sent messages - what a 'clunky' nonsense that was).

What has evolved is a less than user friendly messaging system that has cost a lot of money to design and implement without anyone in middle management putting the brakes on during design process.  Most of the budget having been spent; going back by scrapping this new plan might be seen as failure.  Then, when some lazy more senior manager is shown it on a smart phone and adopts it enough to sign it off to final stages; it soon becomes much like the 'Emperor's new clothes' and to justify the manpower and expense (even if the project was contracted out) a good but brief presentation without focus on any shortcomings is passed by very senior managers . 

"Test it on the people." "Don't provide an option to Switch back to Classic view, that way they'll soon get used to it."   . . . . . . . . . . . . . until down the line, it proves so sustainably awful that another budget has to be agreed by the powers-that-be to MAYBE do something about it. 

Meanwhile (thankfully for the management) the people who were paid to produce such a dreadful system have since moved on.  Fortunately it all happened in a previous financial year that had " . . . . precious little to do with me".

Rolling it out/testing it and asking for feedback WHILST choosing to deny the user the ability to 'Switch back' is a hostile approach to achieving user friendliness.  They realise most would switch back and that way they wouldn't get the (free of cost) feedback from the Users they treat (foolishly) as idiots. 

Bad management I am afraid. 

A well run company would and do admit mistakes are made. eBay must have some good people, hopefully they keep their jobs . . . . . . . . . but in Business Management, not in the I.T department.

Ed.

[bittyboy101]

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@gtscollections wrote:

This is exactly what has happened - App design vs PC uses. 

Having spent years in senior management, this smacks of some bright spark(s) having a rush of sh*t to the brain with eager eyes on some promotion over cleverly 'remedying' complaints from (proportionally) a handful of eBay users in relation to a messaging system that wasn't perfect but did work and was accepted (I entirely agree with you irritation over the non-threading of received and sent messages - what a 'clunky' nonsense that was).

What has evolved is a less than user friendly messaging system that has cost a lot of money to design and implement without anyone in middle management putting the brakes on during design process.  Most of the budget having been spent; going back by scrapping this new plan might be seen as failure.  Then, when some lazy more senior manager is shown it on a smart phone and adopts it enough to sign it off to final stages; it soon becomes much like the 'Emperor's new clothes' and to justify the manpower and expense (even if the project was contracted out) a good but brief presentation without focus on any shortcomings is passed by very senior managers . 

"Test it on the people." "Don't provide an option to Switch back to Classic view, that way they'll soon get used to it."   . . . . . . . . . . . . . until down the line, it proves so sustainably awful that another budget has to be agreed by the powers-that-be to MAYBE do something about it. 

Meanwhile (thankfully for the management) the people who were paid to produce such a dreadful system have since moved on.  Fortunately it all happened in a previous financial year that had " . . . . precious little to do with me".

Rolling it out/testing it and asking for feedback WHILST choosing to deny the user the ability to 'Switch back' is a hostile approach to achieving user friendliness.  They realise most would switch back and that way they wouldn't get the (free of cost) feedback from the Users they treat (foolishly) as idiots. 

Bad management I am afraid. 

A well run company would and do admit mistakes are made. eBay must have some good people, hopefully they keep their jobs . . . . . . . . . but in Business Management, not in the I.T department.

Ed.

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Totally agree Ed.

If their new their new messaging system is anything to go by these USELESS chimps should GIVE UP  I.T.  and stick to eating bananas !

[johnwash1]

@gtscollections   absolutely spot on.  The even more  depressing aspect is that, as I write this, just 5 people have clicked the 'thumbs up' on your post.  Perhaps after a few days it will be 10.  So that tells us how many people actually read these forums.

So even if ebay cared about feedback (fat chance),  why would they pay any attention to anything here?

[bittyboy101]

WELL THIS IS THE LAST STRAW WITH EBAY - A POTENTIAL BUYER HAS MESSAGED ME ASKING FOR THE MEASUREMENTS OF AN ITEM I AM CURRENTLY SELLING ON EBAY... I REPLY BACK BY SAYING;- "ALL THE MEASUREMENTS ARE SHOWN IN MY LISTING DESCRIPTION BUT I WILL ALSO PROVIDE THEM AGAIN IN THIS MESSAGE" (COPY AND PASTE FROM MY LISTING)...

POTENTIAL BUYER THEN REPLIES BACK SAYING; "THANKS FOR THE MEASUREMENTS, I WILL CHECK AND BE IN TOUCH IF THE ITEM FITS MY TOOLBOX" (IT IS A BOX LOCK)... POTENTIAL BUYER ALSO SAYS THAT WHEN HE WENT TO CHECK MY LISTING DESCRIPTION FOR THE MEASUREMENTS HE WASN'T ABLE TO SEE ANYTHING ?...I RECHECKED AND COULD SEE EVERYTHING JUST FINE... SO I SUSPECT THERE COULD BE AN ISSUE WITH HIS WEB BROWSER OR CACHE...

NEVER THE LESS I MADE 2 SCREENSHOTS AND ATTACHED THEM TO AN EBAY MESSAGE AND SENT THEM OVER TO HIM (THE POTENTIAL BUYER), NOW WHEN I CLICK ON MY SENT MESSAGES THERE IS NO SIGN OF ANY ATTACHED IMAGES ! - WHERE DID THEY GO ? WHY AREN'T THEY THERE ??... SO I SENT ANOTHER MESSAGE TO THIS POTENTIAL BUYER WITH THE IMAGES RE-ATTACHED AND THEY NOW SHOW UP WITH THE SECOND MESSAGE... SO WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE FIRST MESSAGE ??? WHERE DID MY IMPORTANT ATTACHMENTS GO ????? 

THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE EBAY !!

I WANT THE OLD MESSAGING SYSTEM BACK AGAIN - THIS ONE IS NOW TOTALLY UNRELIABLE AND HARD TO VIEW COMPLETE MESSAGES - THEY JUST DISAPPEAR NOW  !  :o(

[department28]

The following message appeared on 27/11/24 in the thread 'Multiple glitches when sending messages on Windows' :-

'Tech have confirmed the issue with attaching pictures to messages has been fully resolved. If it is still impacting you please let me know...'

If the issue had been fully resolved, it should not be still impacting anyone, should it...?! 

[johnwash1]

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@department28 wrote:

The following message appeared on 27/11/24 in the thread 'Multiple glitches when sending messages on Windows' :-

'Tech have confirmed the issue with attaching pictures to messages has been fully resolved. If it is still impacting you please let me know...'

If the issue had been fully resolved, it should not be still impacting anyone, should it...?! 

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Two aspects that certainly aren't resolved, no change at all, is that the icons still have no tooltips and the icon for attaching a file isn't a paperclip or camera icon, much more widely understood than a zigzaggy mountain outline.

Evidently no usability testing was done before release.  But that's normal with ebay.

[bittyboy101]

Thanks ! Department 28 🙂

The first lot of images did finally appear on my first message to that potential buyer after 3 hours... They must have been stuck/caught up in one of eBay's servers...🙄

I really really loathe this new eBay messages setup, it is NOT user friendly and it is really difficult to read entire messages, especially with NO SCROLL BAR to move the TINY message window UP and DOWN.

Whoever came up with the crazy idea to change the way we see and read our eBay messages should be SACKED ! - They have now done a BAD JOB and we are now all suffering and STRUGGLING to read IMPORTANT MESSAGES.  😞  😞  😞  😠

This new setup should have only been rolled out to the Smart Phone App users NOT THE PC USERS.

[Anonymous]

Do ebay take any notice of feedback ? !!!

[bittyboy101]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Do ebay take any notice of feedback ? !!!

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Doesn't look that way does it ?...  They just please themselves and tough luck if we're not happy !  😞 

Poor attitude eBay !

[department28]

'This new setup should have only been rolled out to the Smart Phone App users NOT THE PC USERS.'

I agree! Having to fix multiple issues & glitches after a new system is rolled out, indicates it was not properly tested. The new messaging system certainly doesn't look like it was meant for pc users. Why couldn't they have just left well alone? No-one would be having these problems with the old messaging system!

'Do ebay take any notice of feedback ? !!!'

I don't know why they bother asking for feedback... they never seem to do anything with it.  Bad decisions are seldom, if ever, reversed, leaving users to grapple with all the difficulties of these 'new look' pages. It is time-consuming & stressful... I'm sure I spend more time fiddling around, looking for things, clicking & filtering & scrolling & muttering & grumbling, than doing any actual buying or selling these days!

[buyeb]

Does anybody know how it works ?

I have just sold an item and wish to contact the buyer to thank them and to confirm shipment.

The 'Contact buyer' option from my 'Manage orders awaiting dispatch' page takes me to a screen where I can send the message. However I cannot see any way to actually enter any text.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[department28]

Are you using a mobile or laptop? On a laptop, the 'send message' box is the tiny little box down at the bottom right of the screen. There is a little paper aeroplane symbol to click on, to send the message.

I don't know what the mobile messages layout looks like - I assume it is much the same, but probably even more fiddly!

[department28]

Some of us were complaining about the new message layout automatically opening/displaying the top message.

Today it has stopped doing this... I went into messages this morning and there is a picture of a pigeon sitting in a mailbox...  underneath it says 'select message to read'. 

So, at least we can now choose which message we want to open first. Strange to see such a large, colourful image in the middle of the message page, especially when everything else, typeface & icons etc have been made smaller...🙄

[centrefloater]

The new system is not fit for purpose.  I was a VDU ergonomics adviser for over 10 years ; the inexplicably TINY field for drafting a message is hopelessly un-ergonomic, and in Europe it breaches the Display Screen Equipment Regulations.  WHY is it so small ??

Further, among several defects, I have found recently that the new system makes some of my sent and received messages just vanish, with no apparent method of recovering them.  They aren't in my Inbox, Sent folder or deleted folder.  Where did they go to?  And bafflingly, it puts sent messages into my Inbox, and received messages into the Sent folder.  I presume this is Ebay's "Artificial Stupidity" bot failing to be up to the job, as usual.

Whoever designed this new system was an incompetent idiot ; but not as incompetent as the senior manager who approved its release.

[department28]

'The new system is not fit for purpose.  I was a VDU ergonomics adviser for over 10 years ; the inexplicably TINY field for drafting a message is hopelessly un-ergonomic, and in Europe it breaches the Display Screen Equipment Regulations.  WHY is it so small ??'

Yes, the size of the message box is just ludicrous... and uncomfortably situated right in the bottom corner, like an afterthought. The message box needs to be at eye level, & big enough to see the whole message at once, rather than have to write a line at a time to see the message 'bob up'. 

And cramping the page into three columns, each requiring mini scroll bars, which you can't see until you happen to mouse over the right bit, is equally ludicrous. It is like fumbling around in the semi-dark!

And I don't see why that pigeon in the mailbox should hog all the space... that is the bit where the message box should be! 

If you mouse over the pigeon, there are two 'hidden' icons:- 'visual search' and 'settings'. I only found them by accident, so others may not be aware of them. Whether they are of any use to anyone, is another matter...

[eburtonlab]

And cramping the page into three columns, each requiring mini scroll bars, which you can't see until you happen to mouse over the right bit, is equally ludicrous. It is like fumbling around in the semi-dark!

There is an option to collapse the leftmost column with the folders by clicking on the square icon with the plus sign in the upper left corner. That at least provides a bit more width for the message entry field.

The pigeon icon appears to be a recent addition due to complaints that the message inbox was automatically loading the most recent message by default -- and subsequently marking it as "read", much to the consternation of many users.

The new message format definitely does not seem fully thought-out or well-implemented at this point, but perhaps more changes are still in store.

[moldosgifts]

 perhaps more changes are still in store.

I've a change for the message system bring back the old system.