eBay

rose-dee · ‎02-14-2015

Hello all -

I think those of us who have been following the boards all know about the discussions and complaints concerning what I call the "cart disconnect" between eBay.ca and other eBay sites. I've had some very illuminating responses from Raphael in follow-up to this week's board hour (which wasn't terribly productive itself). Please see my Post #39 in http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/buyers-saying-item-is-unavailable-when-trying-to-purchase... for my summary of his comments.

Essentially, he finally made it clear that the carts are site-specific, were not intended to be universal across all eBay sites, and that a "universally workable" cart is not realistically feasible due to eBay's decades-old and complex site design. Basically, WYSIWYG.

However, eBay apparently believes the "cart disconnect" is not an issue for the vast majority of Canadian sellers. My view is that the reason for this is because we can't be aware of something we don't see -- how do you measure the number of buyers from other sites (e.g. eBay.com, eBay.UK) who may have tried making a multiple purchase using their own site's cart, failed and given up?

So, given the fact that we're stuck with what we have, I know my multiple orders were working fine before the .ca cart was introduced. Perhaps --- just maybe -- if enough Canadian sellers ask for it, I wonder if the .ca cart could be pulled completely?

It would be very interesting to hear from Canadian sellers on this thread as to:

1) Have you seen a significant downturn in multi-item orders from non-Canadian buyers since about mid-summer of 2014 (in comparison to earlier months or years)?

2) Have any non-Canadian buyers contacted you to tell you they're having trouble getting through the checkout/payment process when attempting to make a multi-item purchase?

3) Do you sell regularly to U.S. buyers?

A "yes" or "no" to each of the above would be enough -- I just thought it would be interesting to gather some numbers. Whether it will do any good or not, well...

Thanks!

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

(My apologies for the multiple replies. I haven't quite finessed the art of including all within the same reply with the appropriate text response highlighted.)

Now, however, when I go to rose-dee's listings, I am able to Buy It Now and then I do get that pop-up screen that tells me I have the option of Continue Shopping or Proceed to Checkout for This Item Only. When I do that, I get all the same error messages in the same order that she has demonstrated. Precisely. Item up for Auction when the second is added to the cart, Not Available for the third, Buy Five More and Get Free Shipping and See Which Are Eligible but none are because the Offer is Not Valid.

merritt-motorcycle-salvage · ‎03-18-2015

If you do not require immediate payment on your listings the up for auction and item nor available messages will appear.

With immediate payment required they must pay for each item seperately.

Either they can not combine items, but it makes more sense to require immediate payment than your items showing as not available.

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

Interesting. I remember your post on that from an earlier thread, or earlier in this one. None of my listings are set up for Immediate Payment, though. The only difference that I can see between me and rose-dee is that she lists in USD whereas I list in CAD. Also, I calculate postage discounts using the combined calculated method whereas I think she does flat-rate? Don't quote me on that.

I think it's interesting how there are different roadblocks here. The bottom line is that the ebay.com cart and ebay.co.uk basket do not work for ebay.ca listings but the reasons seem to be different. As a seller whose business depends or depended on international purchases, it's important for me to see exactly what's going wrong here so that I am knowledgeable in terms of what I can tell my prospective buyers.

With my can't-find-the-cart-at-all problem, at least a buyer seems to be forced to pay for my item if they want it (one at a time) whereas hers get stuffed into a cart and then get given the royal runaround until they figure out how to empty their cart and buy one thing at a time.

Mind you, I haven't actually logged into paypal to try to buy one of my own items. Maybe things go wrong at the paypal* payment level because of an error I'm not aware of. I don't want to go that far. Since you know, it's like against the rules!

*Gotta love autocorrect: it changed 'paypal' to 'payola' before I went back and fixed it. Fitting.

berubegirl · ‎03-18-2015

@merritt-motorcycle-salvage wrote:
If you do not require immediate payment on your listings the up for auction and item nor available messages will appear.

With immediate payment required they must pay for each item seperately.

Either they can not combine items, but it makes more sense to require immediate payment than your items showing as not available.

This is exactly why we have those useless board hour reps. telling us that only a very minority of Canadian sellers are affected because most of the Canadian sellers like ourselves that used to offer combined shipping discounts simply removed them altogether so at least the sales can go through.

This has been a problem for more than a year now that we know of......most sellers simply removed combine shipping discount from their listings.

But this fact allows ebay to now claim that very few sellers are actually affected....total joke as usual with ebay customer service reps.

This whole situation is typical business practice for the clowns that make the decision at Ebay HQ,

merritt-motorcycle-salvage · ‎03-18-2015

Unfortunately it is the only logic solution/workaround at this point. Even with require immediate payment from ebay.ca multiple items can be added to cart and paid for at the same time. Let it be known ebay did not let us know about this, i was thinking about it one night and tried it. This way items are not shown as unavailable.

I have instructions for buyers to log into ebay.ca to complete multiple purchases in two places within description, Item specifics and payment details. As well as my custom Q's and A's and my store front page. I have yet to benefit from providing this information.

We have better odds of winning on a scratch ticket than buyers actually following this step.

It is nice to vent on the boards and that is all the boards are good for.

We need to put our heads together and start a social media campaign and we MIGHT just have a chance to see results. As mentioned before, I was advised by a little birdie that after speaking with higher ups in ebay, the only way they might escalate the matter is the result of a social media campaign.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-18-2015

@berubegirl wrote:
@merritt-motorcycle-salvage wrote:
If you do not require immediate payment on your listings the up for auction and item nor available messages will appear.

With immediate payment required they must pay for each item seperately.

Either they can not combine items, but it makes more sense to require immediate payment than your items showing as not available.
This is exactly why we have those useless board hour reps. telling us that only a very minority of Canadian sellers are affected because most of the Canadian sellers like ourselves that used to offer combined shipping discounts simply removed them altogether so at least the sales can go through.

This has been a problem for more than a year now that we know of......most sellers simply removed combine shipping discount from their listings.

But this fact allows ebay to now claim that very few sellers are actually affected....total joke as usual with ebay customer service reps.

This whole situation is typical business practice for the clowns that make the decision at Ebay HQ,

Removing your combined shipping discounts doesn't help in any way with the .com cart issue. Whether you have them or not, you items produced on .ca cannot be paid using the .com cart but have to be paid for individually.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-18-2015

@merritt-motorcycle-salvage wrote:
Unfortunately it is the only logic solution/workaround at this point. Even with require immediate payment from ebay.ca multiple items can be added to cart and paid for at the same time. Let it be known ebay did not let us know about this, i was thinking about it one night and tried it. This way items are not shown as unavailable.

I have instructions for buyers to log into ebay.ca to complete multiple purchases in two places within description, Item specifics and payment details. As well as my custom Q's and A's and my store front page. I have yet to benefit from providing this information.

As mentioned earlier, it seems that listings that have been done in Canadian dollars can not be put into the cart at all on .com so the buyer won't see the not available message. That means they are treated the same way that your immediate payment listings are. If you want to test this, mjwl2006 has listings in Canadian $ and does not require immediate payment. Also, any of my listings that are sports or Canadian specific (coins) are also listed in Canadian currency and do not require immediate payment.

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

@merritt-motorcycle-salvage wrote:

I have instructions for buyers to log into ebay.ca to complete multiple purchases in two places within description, Item specifics and payment details. As well as my custom Q's and A's and my store front page. I have yet to benefit from providing this information.

That's a good idea, actually. I hadn't thought of the Item Specifics. Even mobile users will see a notice there. I've put up a "promotion box" announcement on my store home page, but that relies on buyers actually going there and reading it.

It is nice to vent on the boards and that is all the boards are good for.

I don't know -- I've found it really helpful to get a handle on the various aspects of this enormous problem by reading what other sellers are experiencing.

For example, I never would have thought of Immediate Payment to avoid the "Item Not Available" issue. I may just give up completely on discounts and multiple-item orders and make everything IPR. I've resisted this in the past because it looks rather harsh to buyers, and I like to give my buyers a reasonable time to pay. On the other hand, most of my 1-item buyers pay right away anyhow. More "busy-work" on eBay for me I guess...

We need to put our heads together and start a social media campaign and we MIGHT just have a chance to see results. As mentioned before, I was advised by a little birdie that after speaking with higher ups in ebay, the only way they might escalate the matter is the result of a social media campaign.

Are you volunteering to start it up? I'm sure we'd all be very grateful and join in.

Another idea for now, perhaps easier to do:

I would encourage any Canadian seller concerned about this problem (and who wouldn't be if they realize the extent of it?) to go to the eBay.com buyer boards (and maybe also US Seller Board) and post a message like the following. I'm going to do this today, whether anyone else does or not.

Remember that not only might social media pick this up, but also eCommerce Bytes, which monitors the USA eBay boards, and their reports/articles are widely read and quoted in the community. If they see a whole lot of these identical "letters to US buyers", someone will take note.

You may want to do the same on the UK boards if you sell to the UK frequently.

Lastly, putting up a message like this may get some attention from eBay HQ in San Jose, who knows? They might not like the idea of people posting notices that a workaround is needed for such a fundamental aspect of a retail site!

(Feel free to paraphrase and revise as desired):

"To our valued American friends and buyers -- If you're buying from a Canadian seller, be aware that eBay has a "disconnect" problem between the U.S. and Canadian checkout systems.

This serious flaw has been going on for many months now. EBay HQ is aware of the issue, but has no ETA for a fix.

Here is what happens: If you're logged onto the US eBay site (eBay.com) and try to buy more than one item at a time from a Canadian eBay seller through the .com Cart you may get some bizarre, confusing messages. You'll find you can't check out and pay for your order as planned.

There is a solution, until eBay.com fixes this problem: If you're buying from a Canadian eBay seller, simply type over the ".com" in the eBay URL in your browser to change it to ".ca" (the Canadian site). You may be asked to sign in again.

From there, you should be able to use the Canadian Cart and make your purchases in one order as usual. Use the "Request Total from Seller" button to ask your seller to adjust for any offered discounts.

Regards from your Canadian eBay seller. "

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:

I think it's interesting how there are different roadblocks here. The bottom line is that the ebay.com cart and ebay.co.uk basket do not work for ebay.ca listings but the reasons seem to be different. As a seller whose business depends or depended on international purchases, it's important for me to see exactly what's going wrong here so that I am knowledgeable in terms of what I can tell my prospective buyers.

This is a very good point that no one has specifically mentioned to date. Without a clear understanding of the issues our US and other international buyers may be dealing with, it's impossible to direct them properly to check out and pay.

As I've said before, this is so fundamental a problem I simply can't understand the eBay.ca staffers continue to claim it's a limited issue.

From what 'pj' has said, it seems that listing currency is now also part of the mix creating issues. Now that I know how you list (in $Cdn and without IPR), I'll try a test on your items and let you know if I get the same results 'pj' mentions.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-18-2015

@rose-dee wrote:
@mjwl2006 wrote:

I think it's interesting how there are different roadblocks here. The bottom line is that the ebay.com cart and ebay.co.uk basket do not work for ebay.ca listings but the reasons seem to be different. As a seller whose business depends or depended on international purchases, it's important for me to see exactly what's going wrong here so that I am knowledgeable in terms of what I can tell my prospective buyers.

This is a very good point that no one has specifically mentioned to date. Without a clear understanding of the issues our US and other international buyers may be dealing with, it's impossible to direct them properly to check out and pay.

As I've said before, this is so fundamental a problem I simply can't understand the eBay.ca staffers continue to claim it's a limited issue.

From what 'pj' has said, it seems that listing currency is now also part of the mix creating issues. Now that I know how you list (in $Cdn and without IPR), I'll try a test on your items and let you know if I get the same results 'pj' mentions.

I'm not sure what mj means by the 'reasons seem to be different' but it makes perfect sense that I was not able to add anything to the cart on the UK site as .ca listings can not be done in UK currency. As the .com art is for U.S. $ items only, I'm sure that the UK cart only accepts UK pound listings.

merritt-motorcycle-salvage · ‎03-18-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
@merritt-motorcycle-salvage wrote:
Unfortunately it is the only logic solution/workaround at this point. Even with require immediate payment from ebay.ca multiple items can be added to cart and paid for at the same time. Let it be known ebay did not let us know about this, i was thinking about it one night and tried it. This way items are not shown as unavailable.

I have instructions for buyers to log into ebay.ca to complete multiple purchases in two places within description, Item specifics and payment details. As well as my custom Q's and A's and my store front page. I have yet to benefit from providing this information.

As mentioned earlier, it seems that listings that have been done in Canadian dollars can not be put into the cart at all on .com so the buyer won't see the not available message. That means they are treated the same way that your immediate payment listings are. If you want to test this, mjwl2006 has listings in Canadian $ and does not require immediate payment. Also, any of my listings that are sports or Canadian specific (coins) are also listed in Canadian currency and do not require immediate payment.

Interesting, but not surprising. I gave it a shot and I see they can not be added at all on .com. I have always listed in USD, it is a proven fact you will get increased sales listing in USD. I have tried reverting to CAD once or twice and my sales dropped WAY down, and with that comes along the never ending question from US buyers how much is that in USD even thow it shows CAD to USD rate.

merritt-motorcycle-salvage · ‎03-18-2015

@rose-dee wrote:
@merritt-motorcycle-salvage wrote:

I have instructions for buyers to log into ebay.ca to complete multiple purchases in two places within description, Item specifics and payment details. As well as my custom Q's and A's and my store front page. I have yet to benefit from providing this information.

That's a good idea, actually. I hadn't thought of the Item Specifics. Even mobile users will see a notice there. I've put up a "promotion box" announcement on my store home page, but that relies on buyers actually going there and reading it.

It is nice to vent on the boards and that is all the boards are good for.

I don't know -- I've found it really helpful to get a handle on the various aspects of this enormous problem by reading what other sellers are experiencing.

For example, I never would have thought of Immediate Payment to avoid the "Item Not Available" issue. I may just give up completely on discounts and multiple-item orders and make everything IPR. I've resisted this in the past because it looks rather harsh to buyers, and I like to give my buyers a reasonable time to pay. On the other hand, most of my 1-item buyers pay right away anyhow. More "busy-work" on eBay for me I guess...

We need to put our heads together and start a social media campaign and we MIGHT just have a chance to see results. As mentioned before, I was advised by a little birdie that after speaking with higher ups in ebay, the only way they might escalate the matter is the result of a social media campaign.

Are you volunteering to start it up? I'm sure we'd all be very grateful and join in.

Another idea for now, perhaps easier to do:

I would encourage any Canadian seller concerned about this problem (and who wouldn't be if they realize the extent of it?) to go to the eBay.com buyer boards (and maybe also US Seller Board) and post a message like the following. I'm going to do this today, whether anyone else does or not.

Remember that not only might social media pick this up, but also eCommerce Bytes, which monitors the USA eBay boards, and their reports/articles are widely read and quoted in the community. If they see a whole lot of these identical "letters to US buyers", someone will take note.

You may want to do the same on the UK boards if you sell to the UK frequently.

Lastly, putting up a message like this may get some attention from eBay HQ in San Jose, who knows? They might not like the idea of people posting notices that a workaround is needed for such a fundamental aspect of a retail site!

(Feel free to paraphrase and revise as desired):

"To our valued American friends and buyers -- If you're buying from a Canadian seller, be aware that eBay has a "disconnect" problem between the U.S. and Canadian checkout systems.

This serious flaw has been going on for many months now. EBay HQ is aware of the issue, but has no ETA for a fix.

Here is what happens: If you're logged onto the US eBay site (eBay.com) and try to buy more than one item at a time from a Canadian eBay seller through the .com Cart you may get some bizarre, confusing messages. You'll find you can't check out and pay for your order as planned.

There is a solution, until eBay.com fixes this problem: If you're buying from a Canadian eBay seller, simply type over the ".com" in the eBay URL in your browser to change it to ".ca" (the Canadian site). You may be asked to sign in again.

From there, you should be able to use the Canadian Cart and make your purchases in one order as usual. Use the "Request Total from Seller" button to ask your seller to adjust for any offered discounts.

Regards from your Canadian eBay seller. "

At some point I may take the time regarding the social media route, right now I am focusing all my time and effort on other eCommerce routes to compensate for lost sales.

Please post the link for .com forum thread. I have thought about that before, let us know.

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

CAD and all the postage is calculated. I also offer 'buy ten and get free postage' on all items being shipped domestically. (Which reminds me, I didn't test that with a Canadian address in my new ID shipping preference; my new ID has an American address.) But virtually none of the items in my store are flat-rate postage. I made that change to all my international postage rates because I incorrectly assumed that was what I had to do to make the .com cart work for me.

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:
CAD and all the postage is calculated. I also offer 'buy ten and get free postage' on all items being shipped domestically. (Which reminds me, I didn't test that with a Canadian address in my new ID shipping preference; my new ID has an American address.)

I'd be very interested to know, once you test this, whether you get the same sort of ludicrous messages I saw -- telling the buyer the seller is offering discounts for "X" number of items, and then leading them to a screen that says: "This Offer is no longer available", or simply not providing the appropriate adjustment on the order total.

I expect you may get the same results I did, in other words, discounts are useless at the moment. Almost worse than useless, as I think they are adding more confusion for buyers. I'm considering removing my discounts entirely and just manually adjusting if I ever get a buyer who makes a multi-item order (sigh).

For reference, here's the link to the US discussion board (the buyer board, but I also put my "Open Letter" up on the seller board: http://community.ebay.com/t5/Bidding-Buying/bd-p/bidding-buying-db. Just scroll down until you find my post (look for the rose picture).

One last note today, that I have to smile about (who was it here that said Americans don't like to leave their familiar US comfort zone?):

Shortly after posting my "Open Letter" on the Buyer board, I almost immediately got an American poster pointing out that "EBay Bucks" will be negated if a US buyer switches to .ca to buy. I don't know -- this may be true. How big is that programme in the US? I know it's been dumped in Canada.

After putting my note up on the Seller board, I got a US poster responding with a warning that policies would be different on the Canadian site. Probably true to some extent, but I think buyers are protected very similarly everywhere across eBayland. Still, that's not the perception US buyers may have.

I replied as best I could, but it makes me wonder about the usefulness of asking US Buyers to leave their "home" site by putting up notices on my listings, store, etc. The seller here who mentioned US buyers will suspect some sort of scam may be right.

Heck, we can't even get most Canadians to log onto .ca.

This issue feels like a hopeless case all around. I guess I should be glad I even get the occasional single sale. I surrender.

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

Hi 'pj' -- you seem to be up on policies regarding .com.

Do you know whether a buyer is covered by the buyer protection policies on the site on which they are logged on to purchase, or on the site on which they are registered?

This might make a difference to Cdn sellers in deciding whether to post a note to buyers to log onto the .ca or not.

If you don't know for sure, I'll try to remember to ask at the next Wed. board hour.

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

eBay Bucks are huge. When the program was running in Canada, I accumulated big money to spend on a regular basis from purchasing through it. It was a major disappointment to me to see it discontinued. I can see how not being allowed to accumulate those bucks would be a major detriment for Americans not wanting to shop on ebay.ca. But, no, the Money Back Guarantee is universal. That was the point of it. If we must accept the www.ebay.com cart will never work for us, we should start to lobby the Bucks program be re-established in Canada. ebay.co.uk has its own Nectar points. Why are we always getting the short end of the stick?

Well, rose-dee, I have bad news for you. When I logged into ebay.ca with my new ebay ID and created a valid Canadian ship-to address, my calculated shipping discounts worked, again, flawlessly with my items. Exactly as they should in the www.ebay.ca cart. The postage calculated correctly even when it was a mix of different postal services like Expedited with Lettermail. When I hit ten items, my promotional discount kicked in and postage was free, exactly the way I set it up to work.

So, let's figure out what the difference is between yours and mine. I list in CAD only and calculated postage with the exception of lego minifigs. Those ship within Canada flat-rate and free by domestic lettermail. This did not affect the buy-ten-free-postage rule like I worried it would. My minifig got thrown right in there with the rest. So again: when I go to the cart on ebay.ca, everything works exactly like it should. I don't get any of the pop-up screens but again, I can't get those on ebay.com because the items from my store won't go into a cart at all.

If you switched to CAD and calculating postage, would that work for you? The shopping cart experience for your buyers on ebay.com probably can't get any worse. Just a thought.

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

Yes, I had more or less come to the same conclusion from reading "pj's" posts, i.e. that listing in $Cdn would at least make the Canadian cart work for buyers logged onto .ca, and that $US listings are not something the .ca Cart can handle. I believe Raphael acknowledged this today at the Board Hour.

This is now a serious trade-off question for me which I really wish I didn't have to consider. Over 90% of my buyers are American. Americans like to see prices in $US, they're familiar with it, they can calculate with it. They see other currencies and freeze up. Any of us who have ever been outside of North America have seen this in living action.

Or, as one poster mentioned, despite the currency conversion being displayed right on the listing, they won't see it at all. They will just see an unfamiliar price ($Cdn) and may go away.

I made the decision long ago to list in $US for the sake of my predominantly US customer base. It works well for my business model and my accounting in many other ways. It has worked beautifully and seamlessly with the eBay.com site for years. Now it apparently doesn't.

I think my best strategy at this point is to give up on multi-item purchases, give up on trying to make the automated discounts work, and give up on directing customers to go to .ca. It's the lesser of two evils.

I may even consider going to IPR on all my items if that will eliminate the problem of US buyers even trying to make a multiple purchase using the Cart that eBay directs them to (how's that for irony?).

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

Now, rose-dee, when I am logged into ebay.ca as an American (USA shipping address) I get free shipping once I hit five or your random items. But none of the pop-up screens telling me which are eligible in the cart. It just happens.

When I change to a Canadian shipping address (still in the ebay.ca cart) it also shows free at five items. Again, no pop-ups, error messages or dead-ends. No links to 'see which are eligible' because it just happens. Seems to work? It looks like that to me.

This would lead me to conclude that what they are telling us about the ebay.ca cart functioning fine is really true. Works great for mine in CAD, works great for yours in USD. (Although two separate check-outs would be required for the currencies, I believe. I'll check that next.) It's the US cart and UK baskets that are so utterly dysfunctional for items listed on ebay Canada. If our friends to the south are already xenophobic, this just compounds the problem. As soon as they stray outside their comfort zone, bad things happen.

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

Yes, except that on the test I ran (logged onto .com with my alternate ID and purchasing from my store) I could not get my discounts to work.

Again, I think this has to do with the fact that I list in $US. So as I said above, a really hard choice is in order. In any case, since the vast majority of my customers are American and will be working from the .com site, my discounts don't work anyway. I might as well remove them.

P.S. I could go AWOL at any moment here if the power goes out. I saw on TV that the NS government is close to declaring a state of emergency for the whole province. It's brutal everywhere here, although we're not getting quite so buried as they are in Halifax. Everything has shut down today, even the snow plows have given up.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-18-2015

@rose-dee wrote:
Hi 'pj' -- you seem to be up on policies regarding .com.

Do you know whether a buyer is covered by the buyer protection policies on the site on which they are logged on to purchase, or on the site on which they are registered?

This might make a difference to Cdn sellers in deciding whether to post a note to buyers to log onto the .ca or not.
If you don't know for sure, I'll try to remember to ask at the next Wed. board hour.

A buyer is covered by the buyer protection plan of the site they make the purchase on. That means that if a U.S. buyer makes a purchase on .ca they will be covered by the .ca MBG which as far as I know is identical to the U.S. MBG so that really isn't a factor.

I don't know for sure if ebay bucks is based on the user id/registration or based on which site the purchase is made. I suspect that the poster might be correct about not receiving ebay bucks if the purchase was made on .ca.