Not a small or isolated problem

Hi Rafael or whomever monitors this message board (hopefully someone!).

 

I got a message from a customer this morning 

 

 

I know this issue has been raised with eBay before and I know it's largely been written off as a small problem affecting a small group of buyers/sellers.

I am one seller who's been dealing with this constantly. I am thankful this customer and several others have chosen to contact me to figure out a solution to the cart functionality issue.

At the same time, I expect a similar number of potential customers are opting for the easier approach, walking away from a transaction what would create revenue for myself and eBay.

I hear we're supposed to tell customers to log on to eBay.ca where all problems will be solved.

Maybe.

But only if they contact us to ask.

 

Please don't write off the problem as small and insignificant. Please have your tech department give it the full attention it requires.

 

Thanks

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Not a small or isolated problem


@pjcdn2005 wrote:

 

He was aware that all or most of that was happening as myself and at least one other person had shown him screenshots a couple of weeks ago. If they can fix that so that .com shoppers can't add .ca items to the cart, then I can't see them placing a high priority on redesigning the cart. 

 


I'm sorry to have to disagree with you, but I think your memory of the exchanges may be a bit selective on this point.  I believe it's important for the sake of other sellers who are concerned about this issue to be accurate in reporting what the eBay staff's responses have been.  This was actually over a month ago, and the eBay staffers were obviously of a completely different mind about the cart problem then.  I'm going to quote here what Raphael actually said on Feb. 18th: 

 

"The shopping cart on eBay.com already can't take any items that were listed on eBay.ca, so adding immediate payment on these items would change nothing." 

 

And you replied (quite correctly, and which we later demonstrated was the case): 

 

Actually, one Canadian item can be added to the .com cart if the buyer first clicks on buy it now, then they can add it to the cart (if immediate payment isn't required). But when a buyer tries to purchase it, it shows as not available. Or, if another item is added, the second one will show as unavailable. Either way, the cart can't be used for items on .ca which we already knew, however, the fact that they can first be put in the cart confuses the issue as it then looks like the item is on auction so it can't be sold. It's unlikely the buyer is then going to contact the seller about it or try to purchase it another way since it looks like the item isn't available.

 

 

And below was his response when I posted screen shots on March 18th, demonstrating that .ca items were not only going into a non-functional .com "Cart", but that US buyers were actually being deliberately directed to that Cart.  Once there, as we know, they are "stuck".  

 

This was the whole point of my posting those tests -- based on his earlier response, this was information they appeared not to have known, and which really made the situation much worse than we (or clearly they) imagined.  He was saying on Feb. 18th that this could not happen, i.e. that a buyer on .com would not end up being routed to a Cart if buying .ca items.  Clearly he was wrong or misinformed. 

 

I think this was embarrassing -- and probably surprising -- news for these guys (BTW, if you were there that day, you may have noticed it took him an exceptionally long time to respond to my post -- I expect those guys were conferring in the background on how to spin this in order to save face). 

 

"We have observed this as well recently. We've already engaged with the cart team to see what can be done here. My colleague who is leading this is away from the office today unfortunately, I can only ask about it tomorrow. Please come back in a couple of days to see what he's told me."

 

I'm afraid this is a classic CYA response; "recently" could mean anything or nothing.  He is trying not to admit that what he said earlier was incorrect (or incomplete).  Saving face and spin-doctoring seem to now be more important than actually exchanging information up front with sellers.  They are learning how not to answer questions directly.  

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Not a small or isolated problem

To his credit, Raphael took the time to respond in a personal way to the letter I sent him last week.

Unfortunately, his response just reinforces what Rose-Dee is saying, that he is not understanding the scope of the problem.

 

He didn't acknowledge anything written about the effect on U-S buyers, choosing to focus on the impact to little ol' Canadian seller me.

And he actually did so incorrectly.

I list my stuff roughly 50/50 between .com and .ca

Raphael surveyed some of my listings, plucked screen-shots from two cards listed on .com and suggested that based on my listings this problem shouldn't affect me at all.

 

Of course I followed up to set that straight, and also reiterated my suggestion that this issue goes far beyond the small piece of eBay pie residing north of the 49th.

 

In my last message to Raphael I wrote, "Also, I would like to not lose sight of the notion that this isn't just about Canadian sellers, but also American buyers.

That is my central point and the reason I believe eBay needs to be far more responsive than it has been."
 
He never responded.
 
 
 
And I have to say, Mr. Elmwood, I'm a tiny bit disappointed. You seem like an intelligent guy, and I doubt you're the type of guy who puts up with stuff in real life.
Yet, in eBay you seem content to?
Which is a shame, because as a long-time seller I feel you have waaaaaay more clout and credibility than I.
 
I have a major issue with paying my $179 store fee 12 times a year and having eBay deliberately sabotaging my business.
Perhaps the original issue wasn't deliberate (ignorant, definitely). But Raphael is telling me eBay isn't interested in fixing it.
Their apathy in addressing the issue makes it deliberate.
They're still taking my money. I'm still their customer.
I feel like I'm at the drive thru and haven't gotten my fries, but they're telling me to take off because someone inside hasn't gotten their five Big Macs.
Should I not expect some level of responsiveness when I'm spending $2148 a year to have my items visible AND sellable on this venue?
Why would any of us be willing to roll over and say this is OK?
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Not a small or isolated problem


@rose-dee wrote:

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

 

He was aware that all or most of that was happening as myself and at least one other person had shown him screenshots a couple of weeks ago. If they can fix that so that .com shoppers can't add .ca items to the cart, then I can't see them placing a high priority on redesigning the cart. 

 


I'm sorry to have to disagree with you, but I think your memory of the exchanges may be a bit selective on this point.  I believe it's important for the sake of other sellers who are concerned about this issue to be accurate in reporting what the eBay staff's responses have been.  This was actually over a month ago, and the eBay staffers were obviously of a completely different mind about the cart problem then.  I'm going to quote here what Raphael actually said on Feb. 18th: 

 

"The shopping cart on eBay.com already can't take any items that were listed on eBay.ca, so adding immediate payment on these items would change nothing." 

 

And you replied (quite correctly, and which we later demonstrated was the case): 

 

Actually, one Canadian item can be added to the .com cart if the buyer first clicks on buy it now, then they can add it to the cart (if immediate payment isn't required). But when a buyer tries to purchase it, it shows as not available. Or, if another item is added, the second one will show as unavailable. Either way, the cart can't be used for items on .ca which we already knew, however, the fact that they can first be put in the cart confuses the issue as it then looks like the item is on auction so it can't be sold. It's unlikely the buyer is then going to contact the seller about it or try to purchase it another way since it looks like the item isn't available.

 

 

And below was his response when I posted screen shots on March 18th, demonstrating that .ca items were not only going into a non-functional .com "Cart", but that US buyers were actually being deliberately directed to that Cart.  Once there, as we know, they are "stuck".  

 

This was the whole point of my posting those tests -- based on his earlier response, this was information they appeared not to have known, and which really made the situation much worse than we (or clearly they) imagined.  He was saying on Feb. 18th that this could not happen, i.e. that a buyer on .com would not end up being routed to a Cart if buying .ca items.  Clearly he was wrong or misinformed. 

 

I think this was embarrassing -- and probably surprising -- news for these guys (BTW, if you were there that day, you may have noticed it took him an exceptionally long time to respond to my post -- I expect those guys were conferring in the background on how to spin this in order to save face). 

 

"We have observed this as well recently. We've already engaged with the cart team to see what can be done here. My colleague who is leading this is away from the office today unfortunately, I can only ask about it tomorrow. Please come back in a couple of days to see what he's told me."

 

I'm afraid this is a classic CYA response; "recently" could mean anything or nothing.  He is trying not to admit that what he said earlier was incorrect (or incomplete).  Saving face and spin-doctoring seem to now be more important than actually exchanging information up front with sellers.  They are learning how not to answer questions directly.  


My memory a bit selective? lol My memory does fail at times but in this case you are making assumptions without knowing the facts.

 

Yes, Raphael was not aware that any .ca item could be added to the .com cart until some of the sellers mentioned it to him on Feb 18th. After merritt-motorcycle posted about the problem on the seller's board, I started playing around with the .com cart to see what he meant.  When I realized that Raphael wasn't aware of the problem, I sent him an email on February 19th with screen shots similar to the ones you just posted in the last week or so.  So when he said "We have observed this as well recently. We've already engaged with the cart team to see what can be done here,"  I believe he meant exactly that.....he wasn't trying to save face or spin any facts.

 

Even if I hadn't sent him the email, he had already been told that a .ca listing could be added to the .com cart so for all you knew, he could have left that board session in February and sat down to figure out exactly what we were talking about.

 

You said in your post.... "I believe it's important for the sake of other sellers who are concerned about this issue to be accurate in reporting what the eBay staff's responses have been." and then said that Raphael's response was a typical cya response and that he was spin doctoring.  Being accurate is stating the facts...not reading things into another persons response.

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Not a small or isolated problem


@pjcdn2005 wrote:
You said in your post.... "I believe it's important for the sake of other sellers who are concerned about this issue to be accurate in reporting what the eBay staff's responses have been." and then said that Raphael's response was a typical cya response and that he was spin doctoring.  Being accurate is stating the facts...not reading things into another persons response.

I had asked him specifically to comment on the posts I presented, and I posed a number of specific questions.  He had time to reply (I put up my post nearly an hour before the start of the Board Hour) but he didn't.  Instead, he side-stepped the issue with a careful prevarication and postponement of a real response.  I call this spin-doctoring.  I will indeed be asking him next time to let us know what the mysterious and absent "he" has told Raphael.  

 

There were other issues in those screen shots as well that I had not encountered in my previous tests -- for example, the error message concerning discounts, and the "Up for Auction" message on an item that wasn't. You'll notice no comment at all was made about those. 

 

 

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Not a small or isolated problem

I had asked him specifically to comment on the posts I presented, and I posed a number of specific questions.  He had time to reply (I put up my post nearly an hour before the start of the Board Hour) but he didn't.  Instead, he side-stepped the issue with a careful prevarication and postponement of a real response.  I call this spin-doctoring.

 

You call it spin, I call it replying to your post.  What exactly did you expect him to say?  All of the 'issues' you brought up are caused by the same problem. He said that they are looking into it to see what can be done. If the original problem...the add to cart button is removed then the rest of it won't happen. 

 

 I will indeed be asking him next time to let us know what the mysterious and absent "he" has told Raphael.  

 

Yes you should. He's known about the problem for over a month so they should hopefully know what they are going to do about it.

 

There were other issues in those screen shots as well that I had not encountered in my previous tests -- for example, the error message concerning discounts, and the "Up for Auction" message on an item that wasn't. You'll notice no comment at all was made about those. 

 

Just because you weren't aware of them doesn't mean that others weren't already aware. For example, "up for auction" is on merritt's screen shot from January.   I don't know if Raphael was aware of the error message for discounts but again...that is caused by the original problem so what exactly should he have said about it other than that they are looking into it to see what could be done?

 

 

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Not a small or isolated problem

Was a bit bored last night so I looked up some population numbers to see how insignificant Canada is compared to the United States.

 

Obviously these numbers don't translate directly to eBay and its operations, but it does make me wonder why we are so quick to consider ourselves small potatoes.

 

Canada's population is 35.16 million people, with most of our population centralized in our major cities in reasonably close proximity to the border.

 

The only U-S state topping Canada's population is California at 38,802,500.

We have significantly more people than Texas (26,956,958), Florida (19,893,297) and New York (19,746,227) and Illinois (12,880,580) and Pennsylvania (12,787,209) are barely a third our size.

 

What would happen if, through some kind of glitch (or deliberate action), sellers in Florida were no longer able to function effectively on eBay?

Would eBay tell them they were too small to be worth the trouble, and would eBay sellers in Florida accept that?

 

I think there's more of us Canadian sellers/buyers than we realize.

We need to get over our inferiority complex, speak up and let eBay know we do matter, and it's not OK to ignore the problem that they created for us.

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Not a small or isolated problem

It's not a small problem...it is a major issue and eBay should compensate us for our losses! Too bad we don't get to rate eBay like buyers rate us!

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Not a small or isolated problem

Take a look at this article, published by eCommerce Bytes today.  

 

Our group here is making some progress, thanks to an as yet unknown White Knight who contacted Ina Steiner directly after we discussed what options we had to get some attention.  This is a great start -- someone on the US side will have to notice this now. 

 

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m03/i31/s03 

 

 

(If the link doesn't work the first time, go to ECommerce Bytes' home page and click on "News")

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Not a small or isolated problem

my concern is that rather than apply themselves to thoroughly correcting the problem(s) - eBay may decide to just issue some kind of awkwardly worded (what other type is there?) "warning" that would likely serve to discourage US buyers from purchasing from Canadian sellers.

 

US ebayers should be aware that it is highly unlikely that they will encounter any problems purchasing from Canadian sellers.

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Not a small or isolated problem


@art-in-the-making wrote:

my concern is that rather than apply themselves to thoroughly correcting the problem(s) - eBay may decide to just issue some kind of awkwardly worded (what other type is there?) "warning" that would likely serve to discourage US buyers from purchasing from Canadian sellers.

 

US ebayers should be aware that it is highly unlikely that they will encounter any problems purchasing from Canadian sellers.


Actually, the U.S. cart is not the only one with problems.  We've identified the U.K. and possibly others.  

 

Although you may have a point about US buyers being wary if they were warned, the fact is that this "cart disconnect" also affects Canadian buyers (or buyers from anywhere else for that matter) who log onto .com and buy from a Canadian.  This practically makes it a worldwide problem.  I don't believe eBay can ignore it forever. 

 

US buyers are in fact already encountering problems buying from Canadian sellers.  You may not personally think so because we sellers will only hear from buyers who actually bother to contact us about checkout problems.  

 

Take a look at some of the screen shots I posted at the last 2 Wed. board hours, showing what a buyer on .com will see.  Most will not be able to check out or pay once they take eBay's direction to add their items to the (completely non-functional) .com cart.  This will affect a large swath of US buyers attempting to purchase from Canadians, as well as many others.  The point here is that eBay is actually directing these buyers deliberately to a non-functional checkout process.  Whether through sheer incompetence or some specific agenda on the part of eBay remains in question. 

 

The point is that none of us sellers will ever really know how many buyers on .com (including Canadians) have just given up in disgust and found somewhere else to buy.  There is no way to accurately quantify that number, although many of us who usually make multi-item sales may wonder why they've dropped off. 

 

In my view that is precisely why eBay should be worried about fixing this issue.  They used "buyer loyalty" as a means of rationalizing the defect system; they need to take a look at what this issue may be doing to drive buyers away from eBay itself.  Simply warning U.S. buyers not to buy from Canadians won't stop the bleed-off.  It isn't a glitch, it's a completely broken system, in an area of online selling that is fundamental. 

 

One thing that should be understood by sellers is that this is a hydra-like problem, with many different aspects and negative effects (which are mostly hidden from obvious view).  

 

Now that Ina Steiner has made this problem public, other media will pick up on the fact that eBay, one of the world's largest online selling venues, can't manage to design a checkout system properly.  It will not look pretty for eBay as a whole. 

 

Personally I doubt they are going to issue a statement directed at their U.S. buyers when their entire platform of seller performance has been based on keeping buyers coming back to eBay in general.  That would be tantamount to admitting they don't care about buyers coming back, at least within a certain sector of their market.  No, now that the cat's out of the bag, my bet is that eBay will have to put some sort of public spin on this issue but will quietly move the problem up the priority list.  (Let's hope). 

 

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