eBay

tyler@ebay · ‎10-13-2020

Hi everyone -

The weekly chat is back and ready for your questions!

I'll begin working on answers for you tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon.

Thanks!
Tyler

Tyler,

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎10-13-2020

Hello Tyler,

Is the "project" called Item Specifics still a work in progress? Today it was a movie listed months ago asking for Season with a drop down, but no option for Not Applicable. Tomorrows Item Specifics could be anyone's guess. This has become a big time nightmare for many sellers especially in Clothing, Books, Electronics and Hardware. Movies from recent past experience asking for information that would have been automatically filled in when listing was originally created. This was a new deficiency.

-Lotz

Note: Do not see again checkbox does not ALWAYS display. (Sortof hit or miss.) Still the issue of reverse compatibility. Creating a listing does not show what is mandatory. Tool does not give you access to your full listing to confirm specifics in body. Optiseller/Items Specifics Tool causes major problems for anyone selling unique, obsolete or items sold as lots.

alacar-8 · ‎10-13-2020

Hey Tyler, thanks for your time. I received an email today letting me know that I can no longer list, revise, relist etc. because I have not met the requirements of the managed payments program. I am in a bind for a few reasons as far as that goes mostly due to things beyond my control due to the pandemic. These are my worries, not yours. My question is; am I still going to be charged full price for my store even though I can no longer access it? I have old inventory still available, but.........? Thanks, Alan

motomike_canada · ‎10-14-2020

Hi I am having an issue with eBay "shifting" my "shipped on" dates, which has now dropped my seller rating from Top Rated to Above Standard. I have some specific examples if you want to PM me, but in general a large number of shipments are showing different "shipped on" dates in my Order Details page than the actual tracking from Canada Post, UPS, or FedEx, so on eBay it looks like i've missed my Shipped By dates, however if you go to the carrier page(s) and plug in the same tracking number it is clearly in transit by the correct Ship-By date.

I spoke with a rep (Jay) at Merchant Support who confirmed this with one listing, and submitted an appeal for my seller rating drop, as well as submitting a ticket to tech department. However, I still got my bill without discount.

While I was trying to resolve this, eBay issued another announcement about protecting seller performance due to carrier delays... Yet, the majority of my defects for late shipments due to carrier delay are only counted because of an eBay error where it seems i've missed the ship by date when that isn't true at all.

I was pointed to a previous post where you were looking into something similar for another member in August(?) but I don't know if that was resolved for them, however clearly whatever background issue is making this happen hasn't been fixed.

please advise.

pjcdn2005 · ‎10-14-2020

There seems to be a problem with the estimated delivery dates when using 'standard shipping from outside the US'. I sold item 274468761057 on Oct 12 so with a 2 day handling time so it needed to be mailed out by midnight tonight... Oct. 14. The estimated delivery time for that buyer in the US is Oct. 19-Oct. 26 which with 2 day handling is a 3-8 business day delivery window. On the sell your item form the eta when using that option shows 5-10 business days (which isn't always realistic anyway but will address that in another post) so either ebay is ignoring my 2 day handling time or there is a glitch. I have seen posts from ebay reps on the .com boards stating that ebay uses historical data for the delivery dates based on the seller's 'historical' data of when the seller typically mails out an item but I've never experienced that in the past so I did not think that they were doing that for sellers shipping from outside of the US or those who are using generic options. My historical data is definitely not showing that I ship the same day of purchase (and on a holiday) which is basically the time frame they are quoting.

I have one item left on that listing and if it was purchased today, ebay shows the delivery estimate to the US as Oct. 22-Oct. 30 so 4-10 day business days with a 2 day handling time. That is consistent to what it has been showing for the past year so it's been one day off at the front end for over a year. But now after purchase they seem to be shaving 2 days of both front and back so it is giving the customer even less of a realistic expectation.

Do you know if they are now going to be using our 'historical' handling time even though they didn't so in the past?

tyler@ebay · ‎10-14-2020

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

Hello Tyler,

Is the "project" called Item Specifics still a work in progress? Today it was a movie listed months ago asking for Season with a drop down, but no option for Not Applicable. Tomorrows Item Specifics could be anyone's guess. This has become a big time nightmare for many sellers especially in Clothing, Books, Electronics and Hardware. Movies from recent past experience asking for information that would have been automatically filled in when listing was originally created. This was a new deficiency.

-Lotz

Note: Do not see again checkbox does not ALWAYS display. (Sortof hit or miss.) Still the issue of reverse compatibility. Creating a listing does not show what is mandatory. Tool does not give you access to your full listing to confirm specifics in body. Optiseller/Items Specifics Tool causes major problems for anyone selling unique, obsolete or items sold as lots.

Hi @lotzofuniquegoodies - Item specifics are always a work in progress, to be sure. I'll make sure that this feedback is passed on to the appropriate team.

Thanks!

Tyler,

tyler@ebay · ‎10-14-2020

@alacar-8 wrote:

Hey Tyler, thanks for your time. I received an email today letting me know that I can no longer list, revise, relist etc. because I have not met the requirements of the managed payments program. I am in a bind for a few reasons as far as that goes mostly due to things beyond my control due to the pandemic. These are my worries, not yours. My question is; am I still going to be charged full price for my store even though I can no longer access it? I have old inventory still available, but.........? Thanks, Alan

Hi @alacar-8 - the terms of your store subscription aren't changed by managed payments, so your pricing would not be reduced.

It may be worth considering contacting customer service to see if there are any exceptions that can be made. Thanks!

Tyler,

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎10-14-2020

tyler@ebay

Thanks, very much appreciated.

-Lotz

retroman_studios · ‎10-15-2020

What's with the forums each week at random times I can't login? Then after a few hours everything works like I never logged out?

Also, did you see my post regarding how PayPal shows MP payments? I tagged you in that post. Why does MP just show "eBay Authorization" instead of item number or restriction? I'm sure this will lead to many cases because it's not specific. First rule in finance, make sure you cross your t and dot your i. I think that's a huge mistake just putting "eBay blah blah blah something" and not a more specific description. My two cents.

richardcm · ‎10-15-2020

I have the same issue with logging into the forums. On iPhone and iPad. Just loops back to sign in repeatedly at time day or night. I give up and then later I click back on my saved bookmark and I am in with no sign in authorization request to my iPhone. Very annoying. I thought it was my saved bookmark so I hunted down an eBay.ca page with a link to the community at the bottom. Very rare that any page has a link!!! Even clicking on that link failed and I was stuck in sign in loop. I also cleared browser cache and cookies in Safari browser.

No I did not try my Windows 10 desktop as I use it rarely now. Uses too much power and takes five to ten minutes to start because I log in so rarely that it has a lot of updates to run and virus scams etcetera. I prefer instant on iPad and iPhone now to read the forums and the occasional buy. I do no selling anymore so my Windows desktop is rarely used.

Update. I did try the Community link at the bottom of the login page for the forums but it would not work either when I tried it instead. What I meant was why is there no community link at the bottom of eBay.ca site pages?

Update. I just logged out and cleared my iPad Safari browser cache and cookies. I was able to log in normally with authentication request to my iPhone. All normal this time.

richardcm · ‎10-15-2020

Why does the eBay logo on top left of community pages bring me to eBay.com site? So annoying. Why not eBay.ca? Been like this forever!

richardcm · ‎10-15-2020

On another note, late last year you mentioned cleaning up the forums and reducing or eliminating not used or slow forums. I know 2020 is a crazy year but is this still in the works. Maybe not this year.

Also is there anyway to change the overview page to show more than 10 current topics before Load 10 more? Like 25. As soon as I read the first ten and then hit Load 10 more, read the 11th unread and go back in browser or community link at top it shows me the 10 unread and I click on Load 10 more to get the 12th unread etc. Annoying. Yes I know I can go directly to the forum through the menu to see my default 50 per page but then I have to go through all the forums individually through the menus to avoid the Load 10 on main page.

Am I confused and missing something on the Load 10 at the bottom of the main page.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎10-15-2020

@richardcm

Logging into forums has been erratic on both dot com and ca for about a week. (On a PC). It may work on the first try. Next time several tries. This is the pattern each time you return so technically you should not be logged out. Sometimes the community link at the bottom will work or other times it can take several tries. Similar results with loading random Seller Hub shortcuts. Update item Specifics link will cycle, load and and then close by itself before you are finished processing. This can happen 4 or 5 times before it will work. Definitely a major annoyance.

-Lotz

pjcdn2005 · ‎10-15-2020

Same problems here with logging in on both community sites on my ipad and on my pc.

I have found that if I go to my ebay, log out and then come to the forum to log in, it is more likely to work but even that isn't guaranteed.

I wonder if Tyler hasn't replied to some of the posts yet because he wasn't able to log in.

lol

motomike_canada · ‎10-16-2020

@motomike_canada wrote:
Hi I am having an issue with eBay "shifting" my "shipped on" dates, which has now dropped my seller rating from Top Rated to Above Standard. I have some specific examples if you want to PM me, but in general a large number of shipments are showing different "shipped on" dates in my Order Details page than the actual tracking from Canada Post, UPS, or FedEx, so on eBay it looks like i've missed my Shipped By dates, however if you go to the carrier page(s) and plug in the same tracking number it is clearly in transit by the correct Ship-By date.

I spoke with a rep (Jay) at Merchant Support who confirmed this with one listing, and submitted an appeal for my seller rating drop, as well as submitting a ticket to tech department. However, I still got my bill without discount.

While I was trying to resolve this, eBay issued another announcement about protecting seller performance due to carrier delays... Yet, the majority of my defects for late shipments due to carrier delay are only counted because of an eBay error where it seems i've missed the ship by date when that isn't true at all.

I was pointed to a previous post where you were looking into something similar for another member in August(?) but I don't know if that was resolved for them, however clearly whatever background issue is making this happen hasn't been fixed.

please advise.

Looks like my October seller level forecast just dropped to Above Standard from Top Rated due to the same site issue.

This is incredibly frustrating for a number of reasons. I am not only losing $$$ on my invoices, but eyeballs on my ~10k listings. eBay has been pushing fast handling times for a while now, and those with same-day or 1-day handling will show first if users search using 'Best Match' which is the default. As do listings from sellers with Top Rated status.

To try to mitigate until the issue is actually fixed, I have increased my handling times to hopefully at least keep my Top Rated status -- even though I ship same or next-day on most of my items. This will obviously drop search results, and probably conversions since it looks like it's going to take forever to ship, but it may be better than losing top rated. who knows.

It also feels like I'm shouting into a void about it.

The issue was verified by a Merchant Support rep, service tickets were opened, but no status update has been provided and I have no way of contacting that particular rep anymore - he followed up with me once by phone to say that it was still open (weeks ago now) but did not provide email or other contact info. Calling in and explaining the situation yet again is not something I'm looking forward to doing, but as the end billing period approaches I guess I will have to try again.

This needs to be resolved once and for all, and retro-active credits for improperly billed FVF's need to be issued for myself and every other seller who has been affected by this site issue over the previous periods.

tyler@ebay · ‎10-16-2020

@motomike_canada wrote:

Hi I am having an issue with eBay "shifting" my "shipped on" dates, which has now dropped my seller rating from Top Rated to Above Standard. I have some specific examples if you want to PM me, but in general a large number of shipments are showing different "shipped on" dates in my Order Details page than the actual tracking from Canada Post, UPS, or FedEx, so on eBay it looks like i've missed my Shipped By dates, however if you go to the carrier page(s) and plug in the same tracking number it is clearly in transit by the correct Ship-By date.

I spoke with a rep (Jay) at Merchant Support who confirmed this with one listing, and submitted an appeal for my seller rating drop, as well as submitting a ticket to tech department. However, I still got my bill without discount.

While I was trying to resolve this, eBay issued another announcement about protecting seller performance due to carrier delays... Yet, the majority of my defects for late shipments due to carrier delay are only counted because of an eBay error where it seems i've missed the ship by date when that isn't true at all.

I was pointed to a previous post where you were looking into something similar for another member in August(?) but I don't know if that was resolved for them, however clearly whatever background issue is making this happen hasn't been fixed.

please advise.

Hi @motomike_canada - typically the 'uploaded' date refers to the date you uploaded tracking to eBay, not necessarily the date the item was shipped. For instance, if you printed your own label and shipped the item, but didn't upload that tracking number until a few days after your handling time, we would consider that a miss, even if the tracking number shows a scan within that handling time.

I'm not clear on the specifics of your process, so that's just some general info. I'll loop with Merchant Support to see if there's anything specific that has come of the tech ticket that was filed. Thanks!

Tyler,

tyler@ebay · ‎10-16-2020

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

There seems to be a problem with the estimated delivery dates when using 'standard shipping from outside the US'. I sold item 274468761057 on Oct 12 so with a 2 day handling time so it needed to be mailed out by midnight tonight... Oct. 14. The estimated delivery time for that buyer in the US is Oct. 19-Oct. 26 which with 2 day handling is a 3-8 business day delivery window. On the sell your item form the eta when using that option shows 5-10 business days (which isn't always realistic anyway but will address that in another post) so either ebay is ignoring my 2 day handling time or there is a glitch. I have seen posts from ebay reps on the .com boards stating that ebay uses historical data for the delivery dates based on the seller's 'historical' data of when the seller typically mails out an item but I've never experienced that in the past so I did not think that they were doing that for sellers shipping from outside of the US or those who are using generic options. My historical data is definitely not showing that I ship the same day of purchase (and on a holiday) which is basically the time frame they are quoting.

I have one item left on that listing and if it was purchased today, ebay shows the delivery estimate to the US as Oct. 22-Oct. 30 so 4-10 day business days with a 2 day handling time. That is consistent to what it has been showing for the past year so it's been one day off at the front end for over a year. But now after purchase they seem to be shaving 2 days of both front and back so it is giving the customer even less of a realistic expectation.

Do you know if they are now going to be using our 'historical' handling time even though they didn't so in the past?

Hi @pjcdn2005 - this is an interesting one. Yes, historical averages can be used to determine the estimated delivery date shown to a buyer, but I've rarely heard of an estimate changing so broadly after checkout. Unless a buyer was changing their address to a wildly different one at checkout maybe? Still doesn't seem to hold much water.

I'll see if I can suss anything out and keep you informed (thanks for the item number!).

Tyler,

tyler@ebay · ‎10-16-2020

@retroman_studios wrote:
What's with the forums each week at random times I can't login? Then after a few hours everything works like I never logged out?

Also, did you see my post regarding how PayPal shows MP payments? I tagged you in that post. Why does MP just show "eBay Authorization" instead of item number or restriction? I'm sure this will lead to many cases because it's not specific. First rule in finance, make sure you cross your t and dot your i. I think that's a huge mistake just putting "eBay blah blah blah something" and not a more specific description. My two cents.

Howdy @retroman_studios! The forum sign-in issue has been something I've been chasing since last week. It's a tech issue rooted in the exchange of info between Khoros and eBay, and they're making progress on getting it resolved. I don't love having to try to log in for 5-20 minutes each day, but I'm hopeful that there's a light at the end of the tunnel that isn't a train. 😉

I did see your tag on MP and the way it's displayed. I am...limited... in what I can talk about and discuss when it comes to payments, but I will make sure that this input is shared with the right folks!

Tyler,

tyler@ebay · ‎10-16-2020

@richardcm wrote:

I have the same issue with logging into the forums. On iPhone and iPad. Just loops back to sign in repeatedly at time day or night. I give up and then later I click back on my saved bookmark and I am in with no sign in authorization request to my iPhone. Very annoying. I thought it was my saved bookmark so I hunted down an eBay.ca page with a link to the community at the bottom. Very rare that any page has a link!!! Even clicking on that link failed and I was stuck in sign in loop. I also cleared browser cache and cookies in Safari browser.

No I did not try my Windows 10 desktop as I use it rarely now. Uses too much power and takes five to ten minutes to start because I log in so rarely that it has a lot of updates to run and virus scams etcetera. I prefer instant on iPad and iPhone now to read the forums and the occasional buy. I do no selling anymore so my Windows desktop is rarely used.

Update. I did try the Community link at the bottom of the login page for the forums but it would not work either when I tried it instead. What I meant was why is there no community link at the bottom of eBay.ca site pages?

Update. I just logged out and cleared my iPad Safari browser cache and cookies. I was able to log in normally with authentication request to my iPhone. All normal this time.

Hi @richardcm - sorry to cause you so many headaches with this tech issue. It's something that we're working to get sorted and I've got my fingers crossed that none of us will have to play 'Sign-in Roulette' for much longer.

Tyler,

tyler@ebay · ‎10-16-2020

@richardcm wrote:

Why does the eBay logo on top left of community pages bring me to eBay.com site? So annoying. Why not eBay.ca? Been like this forever!

That seems unusual @richardcm - I'm taken to eBay.ca like you'd expect. Can you share any more detail with me on this?

Tyler,