"you’ll need to specify your handling time and return policy"

[jeffglobal]

Is this news to anyone else??? As per the latest eBay Announcement today:

"Also by late October, you’ll need to specify your handling time and return policy in your listings."

Did I miss something? They have included a link advising that these changes were all announced August 20th, but within that link there is zero mention of this latest annoyance anywhere that I see!

I've just finished updating over 700 listings of mine manually to ensure that shipping was included using the official eBay "Sell Your Item" form,....that process took 2 months to slowly complete on a part time basis.

I need to revise everything yet again??????????

To say I'm pissed off is saying it lightly.

The selling experience continues to turn into complete crap.

It's sad to see the writing on the wall with the near death of your eBay store and not having the ability to do anything about it. And this is coming from an extreme optomist!! I used to be optomistic that all these changes would ultimately be for the better in the end (despite the fact that sales and site visitors continue to consistently drop). Instead, I'm now optomistic that eBay's no longer the selling playground it once was and that there's better places out there to move my stock through. Sad but true, the truth hurts.

[axe_n_gear_music]

Yeah, although it seems like alot of B.S., I have been updating also, to show the handling time (1 day) & return policies, plus adding and improving other areas. But if I were a buyer, I think I would like to see these things shown too. Why hide these things? If you ship next day, cool, tell your buyer that up front. Also, the return policy shown up front to your customers is just as much for your benefit as it is the buyer.

In my opinion, eBay has made worse decisions than this.

Also, in looking at your listings, just my opinion, but I have personally been editing out the money order talk or visa/or mastercard payment options out of my write-ups also. Why revise all those listings again in 3 or 4 months when Paypal will be the only accepted payment option???
Just my 2 cents.
AXE.

[jeffglobal]

Thanks Axe, appreciate the feedback.

Regarding not editing out the money order references, that was my bad....with so many changes being force fed upon us that we have no choice but to adhere to, I mistakenly missed removing that reference in my listings (lucky me).

Too bad eBay forgot I was a customer instead of any employee. All I seem to do lately is report glitches / bugs, and do manual updates that eBay couldn't have made harder for me to transition into if they tried.

So much for customer service! I guess if Lehman Brothers can tank, it's hardly a stretch to think that anything is stable. Ultimately we (the paying customers) will be the victims of eBay's poor decisions in both the timing and facilitating of their change.

[recped]

They have included a link advising that these changes were all announced August 20th, but within that link there is zero mention of this latest annoyance anywhere that I see!

Have you looked at all the pages related to the August 20th announcements? There are probably 20 pages....

Here's the checklist of changes:

http://pages.ebay.com/sell/August2008Update/checklists/

[jeffglobal]

RECPED, have you bothered to look at the link they included that I'm referring to?

Or is their lack of mentioning it just another glitch / bug that you feel is my duty as the programmers end user to report??

[miriam@ebay.com]

Hi jeffglobal,

The return policy and handling time requirement was announced back in June at eBay Live: http://www2.ebay.com/aw/ca/200806201619142.html.

You are correct that there is no reference to this change on the overview page of the Aug 20 announcements. However, it is included in the Seller Checklist along with all the other changes that sellers need to make to their listings over the next few months to be in compliance with the new policies. The checklist is here: http://pages.ebay.ca/sell/August2008Update/checklists/.

I hope this clarifies. Are there any tools that could assist in updating your listings, such as Blackthorne, Turbo Lister, Selling Manager or File Exchange? I'm happy to connect you with resources around these if it would save you time in editing your listings.

Thanks,

Miriam

[momoftwingles2]

Hi Miriam,

I use BT Pro and am still working on getting my 3000+ listings up and running again.

The capability does not exist with BT to bulk edit IF there is a purchase on an item.

I thought that eBay was supposed to be doing something about this to help sellers get through these changes?????

It won't help me along, but...for those who need to change what they have already done YET again this year...any hope that eBay will roll a feature out to help?

Susan

[miriam@ebay.com]

Hi momoftwingles2,

You should be able to edit multi-quantity items with a sale in Blackthorne, but you are only permitted to edit certain fields such as:
- price
- quantity
- add shipping options
- add a return policy

Are you finding that you can't select the items at all for editing? Or are you able to edit, but BT won't let you push the edits live? If it's the latter, are you editing any fields other than the ones I've listed above?

If you could let me know more about what you're running into, I can help you further.

Best,

Miriam

[ampurtle]

The best approach might to be to define a standard set of statements for return policy, handling etc, and then bulk change them when the current listing expires.

It's a very simple operation to work on inventory listings off line to make these changes, but I suppose not everyone maintains an inventory of listings. If you do, Turbot Lister will make short order of the task.

[jeffglobal]

I found an even better way! After doing some further calculating (based on the new FVF's) I just yanked 200 listings that can no longer bring in what I consider to be a fair GP.

Closing these auctions saves me HOURS AND HOURS of revising / updating time -- I'll just dump the stock via other means.

Closing these auctions costs eBay fee's up-front for listing, and prospective FVF's should they have sold. It's also a hit to the total # of auctions on the site (virtually nothing in the scheme of things I'm certain, I'm still a decrease nevertheless).

It's really impossible for me to know whether closing these store listings have saved me $, or if it's cost me prospective $ (should they have sold), but the one thing I'm guaranteed to have saved is TIME! That's one thing eBay can't take away from me -- eBay can impose as many changes as they wish, and if we don't agree with the changes then we DO have a choice, I've learned. A choice of whether to use the service or not! Looking forward to my bill to decrease just a bit this month too.

[cello10]

Anyone know if stating your handling time within your decription is adequate enough or do you have to use the handling time section? If in the description itself is enough then you can mass edit and add the info via Selling Manager Pro, saving a whack of time.

[pierrelebel]

"do you have to use the handling time section?"

eBay does not "read". It expects a value in the field provided. .

[pierrelebel]

"you can mass edit and add the info via Selling Manager Pro, saving a whack of time. "

That works fine unless... you sell GTC inventory store listings with multiple quantities and some have been sold already.

At this time, eBay is NOT yet capable of added that information to listings where sale(s) took place. .

[cello10]

Try leaving in your descriptions as of Jan 2009 that you do take money orders and you'll find out that ebay does in fact read.

[pierrelebel]

"ebay does in fact read. "

eBay has robots looking for character strings. An example of a string on .com would be the offending "check".
It will be interesting to see how many listings are pulled by eBay.com because, somewhere in the listing, the seller advises: "check the great color...." or "check my eBay store listings" or words to that effect! ;-) .

[duujogl]

How about "I accept cheques"????

[pierrelebel]

It would break the new rules but would not be seen by the robot.

On the other hand, such listing may be reported by any other user and would be pulled while your seller account would show a policy violation. Not worth the risk. .