Hello Canadian eBayers,
I thought the format from last week worked really well, let's try it again this week. Please start posting at your convenience, I'll be with you on & off until sometime in the afternoon.
Good morning Raphael
Steve Boehm, your Senior Vice President of Global Customer Experience, was recently quoted:
"We've spent a lot of time and money building a coaching practice to teach our teammates how to deal with complexity while simultaneously focusing on the needs of each individual customer. We have invested heavily in technology and tools so that our people have the information they need to serve customers well. We have made a tremendous amount of progress as measured through customer satisfaction feedback, and yet we have so much more room to improve.
"But being great at customer service is about a lot more than quickly and accurately solving issues after the fact. It's about simplifying our policies, being more transparent about actions we take and the steps customers need to take to return to trading on our platform. It is a holistic way of thinking about and designing the services and products our customers use to run their businesses on eBay, or that buyers use to shop."
In that context, what does eBay do when a Canadian buyer purchases a DVD set (for example) from an American seller (great feedback) to find, upon receipt, that the set is not genuine?
The seller maintains the set is fine and the buyer claims it is not. The old “she said… he said”.
If the American seller offers the buyer a refund on the purchase price (not the shipping) if returned at the buyer’s expense, then the buyer finds himself out-of-pocket for two shipping charges, most likely more than the value of the set. Plus the buyer is asked to export a bootleg item. Is that even legal?
If a claim is made through eBay for “goods not as described” what is eBay to do? Is there any possibility of the buyer being made “whole” since eBay – at this time – does not have the system in place to supply the Canadian buyer with a shipping label to return the item to the seller in the USA?
My question today is: what is eBay’s policy specifically when dealing with cross-border transactions involving Canadian buyers and counterfeit products?
@pierrelebel wrote:
Good morning Raphael
Steve Boehm, your Senior Vice President of Global Customer Experience, was recently quoted:
"We've spent a lot of time and money building a coaching practice to teach our teammates how to deal with complexity while simultaneously focusing on the needs of each individual customer. We have invested heavily in technology and tools so that our people have the information they need to serve customers well. We have made a tremendous amount of progress as measured through customer satisfaction feedback, and yet we have so much more room to improve.
"But being great at customer service is about a lot more than quickly and accurately solving issues after the fact. It's about simplifying our policies, being more transparent about actions we take and the steps customers need to take to return to trading on our platform. It is a holistic way of thinking about and designing the services and products our customers use to run their businesses on eBay, or that buyers use to shop."
In that context, what does eBay do when a Canadian buyer purchases a DVD set (for example) from an American seller (great feedback) to find, upon receipt, that the set is not genuine?
The seller maintains the set is fine and the buyer claims it is not. The old “she said… he said”.
If the American seller offers the buyer a refund on the purchase price (not the shipping) if returned at the buyer’s expense, then the buyer finds himself out-of-pocket for two shipping charges, most likely more than the value of the set. Plus the buyer is asked to export a bootleg item. Is that even legal?
If a claim is made through eBay for “goods not as described” what is eBay to do? Is there any possibility of the buyer being made “whole” since eBay – at this time – does not have the system in place to supply the Canadian buyer with a shipping label to return the item to the seller in the USA?
My question today is: what is eBay’s policy specifically when dealing with cross-border transactions involving Canadian buyers and counterfeit products?
Hi Pierre,
First off, let me express how much I like Steve Boehm. I have been on a few meetings with him and I'm extremely happy that he's in charge of the Customer Support organization.
Now on to your question, the answer is rather simple. Canadian buyers are protected under the eBay Money Back Guarantee, regardless of where the item came from. If an item is counterfeit, it is handled as any other item not as described claim. The return shipping is the responsibility of the seller, as well as refunding the original item price plus shipping. at the end of the claim, the buyer isn't out any money at all.
When it comes to counterfeit items specifically, one of two things may happen:
- If the item is a proven counterfeit (there are criteria to establish that), the buyer is required to destroy the item and the seller has to refund the original item price plus shipping.
- It the item is not proven to be a counterfeit, the normal "item not as described" policy prevails, the buyer sends the item back to the seller at the seller's expense and gets a full refund.
Thank you Raphael.
"the buyer sends the item back to the seller at the seller's expense "
Specifically how does that work? The American seller cannot issue a postage label and does not want to pay expensive return shipping.
Does the Canadian buyer go to the post office, return with delivery confirmation, pay the postage and gets reimbursed by eBay?
@faircrochet wrote:
Hi. Since late last week, whenever bringing up the "My Ebay" page on .CA I get this error:
MyEbay.BIZ.QUERY_UNKOWN_ERROR
and I have zero showing in the sold area. This happens at least 80% of the time (if not more) but sometimes will show the page correctly. I have cleared the cache and history on my laptop with no change, and the error also shows up when using my Blackberry tablet. (I haven't seen the error message on .COM.)
Just wondering if this is a known issue with a possible fix coming up?
Thanks!
Jennifer
Hello Jennifer,
I have never seen anything like this but it is clearly a bug. I have forwarded this to the My eBay team for investigation. Thanks for reporting.
@pierrelebel wrote:
Thank you Raphael.
"the buyer sends the item back to the seller at the seller's expense "
Specifically how does that work? The American seller cannot issue a postage label and does not want to pay expensive return shipping.
Does the Canadian buyer go to the post office, return with delivery confirmation, pay the postage and gets reimbursed by eBay?
The seller has to pay for return shipping, no matter how expensive. Whether they do that by providing the buyer with a return label or money to pay for return shipping. If the seller doesn't comply with this, the buyer asks eBay to step in and if a the case is ruled in favour of the buyer, eBay issues the refund for all necessary monies and then collects from the seller.
Hello Maureen,
@mjwl2006 wrote:
1. Does ebay.ca use the same catalogue as ebay.com and/or ebay.co.uk?
As far as I know, eBay.ca and eBay.com share the same catalogues but not eBay.co.uk.
@mjwl2006 wrote:
2. If so, how does it recognize EAN versus UPC? (Does International Site Visibility at an additional 50 cents per item make any difference if the item is buried in the search because it has only an UPC and not EAN associated with it?)
A good question to which I don't know the answer. It might be tough to figure out but I'll ask around. Please remind me next week if I haven't gotten back to you by then.
@mjwl2006 wrote:
3. If Product Catalogues are not shared between ebays, does each version of ebay populate their own Product Catalogue per nation or general trade agreement?
As I mentioned in my response to #1, as far as I know eBay.ca and eBay.com share the same catalogues, which feasibly speaking should include Canadian and US products. However I don't know how aligned all the different catalogues are in terms of product coverage. I would suspect some are better populated than others (for example consumer electronics may be more up to date than vintage toys). For other countries, I really don't know.
@mjwl2006 wrote:
4. Specifically what process is followed to populate the details per UPC (and/or MPN where applicable) in the Product Catalogue?
I don't know about a specific process but I would think the catalogue data already includes UPS or MPN when it gets to us.
@mjwl2006 wrote:
5. Specifically who is responsible for ensuring those details are correct?
There is a dedicated Catalogue team who supports all eBay sites globally.
@mjwl2006 wrote:
6. Specifically what process is in place to correct incorrect data?
Sellers who list using the eBay product catalogue should see a "report an error" link in the listing process. Apologies if I can't tell you exactly where that link is, but when you click it you'll be taken to a form where you can explain what the error is and how it should be corrected. This gets sent to the catalogue team for review & implementation.
@mjwl2006 wrote:
I am assuming there is a quality control/continuous improvement function to populating the data contained within a Product Catalogue because incorrect details render it useless. What is the process and how do we reach those people directly when we find errors?
I can tell you right now that with EVERY match that has been made among my items, the details have been incorrect.
You can report catalogue errors by the method I outlined above. Aside from that, I suppose there are regular reviews & updates happening, which feasibly cannot catch every possible error in a data set this big.
@block36 wrote:
Hello Raphael,
While processing the SELL SIMILAR ITEM which has the calculated shipping cost, the system wipes out the item's weight and demands a new entry which may be identical or different, depends on the case.
Until this I always new to change the weight when it was a case and acted accordingly.
At the same time the system does not wipe out parcel's metric measurements (L-W-H) or any other information such as item's condition, etc.
Because this is the only field's disappearance I have experienced many times already, and other sellers have similar problems with other fields, could you or someone from your team to look into this problem and fix it?
or PLEASE EXPLAIN the necessity for a such system's behavior.
This subject was addressed by me yesterday on sellers' discussion board, please attend it for wider illustration of the problem.
Thank you.
Inna
Hello Inna,
I apologize but I'm not sure I fully understand what you're saying. Do you mean that when you use Sell Similar on an item that had calculated shipping, only the weight gets dropped out and the dimensions, item specifics, description and payment + returns terms stay the same as in the original listing? Also, other sellers get different attributes dropped?
Happy to review the other thread you mention if you would please give me the link. Thanks!
Hello afantiques,
@afantiques wrote:
NO matter how expensive?
How does this square with cost of return being capped at the cost of sending?
Remember we are talking about cross-border transactions here. When the shipping is capped on outbound shipping in certain categories, they are capped as per the average cost of shipping for items in that category, in the country corresponding to the eBay site the item was listed on. For example, DVDs listed on eBay.com have a shipping cost cap that corresponds to how much it costs to ship DVDs via USPS.
When we start looking at cross-border returns, it's logical that we wouldn't hold the buyer against the same shipping caps as the seller, since shipping costs vary greatly between countries.
@afantiques wrote:
How do you prevent disgruntled buyers using overnight courier services at vast expense, many time the cost of the original shipping?
In case of a return on an item that was not as described, the seller is instructed to make arrangements with the buyer for the return. As such, it is up to the seller to instruct the buyer on which shipping service should be used for the return. This is all recorded in the Returns Centre, on which eBay has full visibility if we are asked to step in by either party. If a disgruntled buyer decides to use the most expensive shipping service against the seller's direction just out of spite, eBay would know. In a case like that the seller would likely only be on the hook for the cost of the shipping service that they originally told the buyer to use.
@afantiques wrote:
Assuming a dispute is already open, ebay have already 'stepped in'. How do you ask them to step in again?
A dispute remains open until such time as the issue is resolved. If whomever "loses" in eBay's decision on the case wants to dispute eBay's decision, they can appeal the decision by contacting eBay and providing any further proof or information they might have.
@afantiques wrote:
Has this paid returns ever been enforced internationally. No just in theory, but in actual practice?
Yes.
@pierrelebel wrote:
Raphael, here is the link:
Thanks Pierre.
I think more efficient way to look at this would be get some item numbers from sellers who see this happen, so I can try for myself.
@block36: could you give me 2-3 of your item numbers where the Sell Similar feature stripped the weight on the new listing?
@block36 wrote:
Hello Raphael,
To illustrate the problem with the link, I have attended four items with calculated shipping costs and tried to process the SELL SIMILAR ITEM and to my surprise the system did not wipe out their weights.
One of items was the one I struggled with exactly this morning and had to go to other room in my residence to check the weight of it.
I look very stupid now but please believe me the problem was not invented - it existed!
But I am very happy this problem has disappeared! Hope someone pressed right button! Magic touch?
Thank you for your attention.
Inna
Haha no worries! It... err.. was me! Yes I fixed it myself! 😉
Joking aside, if you ever see anything like this happen please send me an email with the item numbers involved and any other relevant details so I can take a look for myself. You can reach me directly at raphael@ebay.com
"item numbers from sellers who see this happen, so I can try for myself."
OK - here is a different type of problem.
Take a look at:
Whenever I attempt to "relist" or "sell similar" eBay gives me a message that the image does not meet eBay's standards!
Why?
It keeps happening, from time to time.
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