eBay

momcqueen · ‎07-11-2015

The first time this happened this morning, I assumed it was little more than my imagination but now I can see that it is not. Sellers, be aware that your default 'additional ship-to locations' at the bottom of the long sell form may be automatically selecting Russia as well as China.

The Russia selection-by-default is many months old for me. CHINA is brand new.

Unless your settings specifically block these two locations elsewhere in your profile, you may find yourself unpleasantly surprised.

rose-dee · ‎07-11-2015

Hi 'mjwl',

As you note, this irritating glitch with the Russian Federation has been going on for some time now. I think I noticed it first about 4 months ago. Who knows what eBay did in the background to suddenly make China appear too?

I do have all my "ship-to" preferences set up, my exclusion list has been checked and double-checked, but to no avail. If I recall, this issue was happening with "Sell Similar", but may have also cropped up with relists. This is obviously a big problem if you suddenly find yourself with a customer in a country you don't want to ship to, especially if the customer has actually paid -- refund=defect, over and over?

Checking and revising all listings to weed out the problem has been a bit of a hopeless task for me. I found Russia just kept bobbing up the next time around, like a jack-in-the-box.

One thing I found that seemed to eliminate it, at least for now, was to use "Worldwide" as the international shipping choice (rather than selecting custom international destinations), along with my exclusion list.

Just another defect-risking, time-wasting, SNAFU from the lovely folks at eBay.

momcqueen · ‎07-11-2015

The China ship-to default is a peculiarity. I am revising my listings to include the Product Identifiers, one by one, as I have to gain access to the back of my packages which are more handily depicted in my photographs than they are located in my inventory so it is taking me a LONG time to get this done. On the bright side, it also affords me the opportunity to tweak the content of my Item Descriptions and shipping details et cetera.

I began to change my 'additional ship-to locations' to worldwide awhile ago after I realized it's the only way to identify New Zealand as a potential destination (my first sale ever went to Australia so why not New Zealand too?) so what I am finding as I revise my listings to include UPC and MPN is that roughly one in ten that are not yet Worldwide show China selected by default as well as Russia. Always Russia. Ten per cent Russia and China.

It leads me to think someone somewhere is tinkering. I am not directly affected because both destinations are already blocked elsewhere but this little glitch will take new and casual sellers unawares and will absolutely lead to trouble down the line. Either it will be a very disappointed buyer or a very alarmed seller. Or both.

I understand that both China and Russia have long been identified as under-utilized areas of potential growth by ebay but I'll let someone else assume the risk, thanks. If this is being done on the sly on purpose, it's a dirty trick to say the least. And one that I do not appreciate. If they want us to start running amok with items to Russia and China, run a formal campaign educating sellers about the pros and cons and maybe try supporting and/or subsidizing trackable services et cetera. To do anything else is throwing a few sellers into the fire to pave the way and troubleshoot for others.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-11-2015

I don't think that it affects anyone. I've seen the same or similar things when I've gone to revise or relist an item. When I checked the listing page that a buyer sees, those shipping locations were not specified as places that I shipped to.

momcqueen · ‎07-11-2015

Interesting. Is that without having them previously excluded?

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-12-2015

To be honest I don't remember and I rarely use custom locations so haven't run into it lately. If you see it when you are relisting an item you should just leave it there and take out your exclusions. Then list the item and check to see what it says. You can fix it right away if it does show shipping to those two countries but then you would know for sure if it is affecting your listings. Maybe I'm wrong about how it works.

momcqueen · ‎07-12-2015

I did as you suggested this morning and discovered that when the boxes for Russia and China are automatically selected the locations will show as ship-to 'contact seller for costs' in the item after it is listed. That is, unless a seller has already specifically blocked Russia and China elsewhere. (Both are found under Asia. I must be dense with my geography because I always thought Russia more Europe than Asia but whatever.) So, neither are a benign default selection. Unfortunately.

The part that I find most odd about it is that, yes, we're all accustomed to Russia being selected now by default but this China selection is sporadic. I don't find it on all of the revisions, only a few. But enough that it's no accident.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-12-2015

Thank you for checking that! I'm not sure why I got different results but I must have had something blocked. Russia is under both Asia and Europe but if you block Asia, it will automatically check off Russia under Europe...or vice versa.

dhslk · ‎07-17-2015

This 'glitch' is affecting worse than that. Many of my listings have been compromised. When I found one listing, I thought that I had somehow made a mistake, but now am finding MANY of them. I normally have 4 international shipping options for items over 2kg: Surface mail to EU/Europe (tick off all European countries), Xpresspost to the same European countries, Surface mail to Australia/Japan (and sometimes to other countries, as well, depending on package weight/size). , Xpresspost to Australia/Japan. I leave all other boxes unticked, but specify that I ship worldwide so that customers from other countries will contact me for rates.

I sold a heavy 11kg item to Saudi Arabia the other day, and they paid for Xpresspost. It was late on a Friday, so I quickly got the order out via airmail (there is no such thing as CanadaPost Xpresspost to Saudi---It's called INTERNATIONAL AIR) at a LOSS of about $70. I chalked it up to my being careless in ticking off the box, but later discovered that ASIA was ticked off and that the EU countries were showing INTERNATIONAL AIR which is WRONG.

I checked many other of my lstings and the same thing is happening. ASIA (which seems to include the Middle East, India, etc.), to which I NEVER specify airmail rates are showing as ticked with Xpresspost, and my EU countries are showing International Airmail.

Ebay seems to have replaced CHINA with ASIA and automatically ticked it off and then transposed the EU shipping option with the more exotic country INTERNATIONAL AIR option. If I try to edit the listing, it won't let me get rid of ASIA, AUSTRALIA, or JAPAN (they all have a permanent green tick mark, rather than a tick box). My only work around is to remove the fast shipping option from my listing.

I have not yet had time to go through all of my listings. If I do remove all of the fast shipping options, it will cost me sales. However, I have had 2 questions already today from Middle Eastern buyers, so they must be noticing that my airmail rates are will below cost. And EU/UK buyers must be wondering why I am not offering Xpresspost to them, but rather INTERNATIONAL AIRMAIL.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-17-2015

This 'glitch' is affecting worse than that. Many of my listings have been compromised. When I found one listing, I thought that I had somehow made a mistake, but now am finding MANY of them. I normally have 4 international shipping options for items over 2kg: Surface mail to EU/Europe (tick off all European countries), Xpresspost to the same European countries, Surface mail to Australia/Japan (and sometimes to other countries, as well, depending on package weight/size). , Xpresspost to Australia/Japan. I leave all other boxes unticked, but specify that I ship worldwide so that customers from other countries will contact me for rates.

I sold a heavy 11kg item to Saudi Arabia the other day, and they paid for Xpresspost. It was late on a Friday, so I quickly got the order out via airmail (there is no such thing as CanadaPost Xpresspost to Saudi---It's called INTERNATIONAL AIR) at a LOSS of about $70. I chalked it up to my being careless in ticking off the box, but later discovered that ASIA was ticked off and that the EU countries were showing INTERNATIONAL AIR which is WRONG.

I checked many other of my lstings and the same thing is happening. ASIA (which seems to include the Middle East, India, etc.), to which I NEVER specify airmail rates are showing as ticked with Xpresspost, and my EU countries are showing International Airmail.

The screen that mj is showing in post 1 gives shipping locations but doesn't give costs or shipping services with those locations so I don't think that the problem you are having is related to that.

I couldn't find a listing that showed international air to Europe but I did find some listings that show xpresspost as a shipping service to Saudia Arabia and to other countries that don't have that service. Item 311053982687 is an example of that. But with that listing and the other ones that I noticed, the problem isn't with Canada Post giving the wrong prices and/or shipping service because those listings are using a flat rate for international shipping, not calculated shipping. That means that any information being shown has been entered by whoever did the listing..not Canada Post. Does this make sense to you?

If you do have some listings using calculated shipping for international and they are showing the wrong services, could you please post a couple of item numbers for those listings.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-17-2015

Ebay seems to have replaced CHINA with ASIA and automatically ticked it off and then transposed the EU shipping option with the more exotic country INTERNATIONAL AIR option. If I try to edit the listing, it won't let me get rid of ASIA, AUSTRALIA, or JAPAN (they all have a permanent green tick mark, rather than a tick box). My only work around is to remove the fast shipping option from my listing.

I'm not sure what is going on there as I've never seen any type of permanent green tick mark...at least not that I remember. If you are still having that problem after reading my other post, please post a screen shot and perhaps someone can figure out a solution. It's always good to have extra eyes look at a problem.

momcqueen · ‎07-20-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Ebay seems to have replaced CHINA with ASIA and automatically ticked it off and then transposed the EU shipping option with the more exotic country INTERNATIONAL AIR option. If I try to edit the listing, it won't let me get rid of ASIA, AUSTRALIA, or JAPAN (they all have a permanent green tick mark, rather than a tick box). My only work around is to remove the fast shipping option from my listing.

I'm not sure what is going on there as I've never seen any type of permanent green tick mark...at least not that I remember. If you are still having that problem after reading my other post, please post a screen shot and perhaps someone can figure out a solution. It's always good to have extra eyes look at a problem.

It might be that the seller has a multiple-quantity listing from which previous items have sold. That is the circumstance that comes to mind to me as a general match to what he/she is describing with this. If I had a listing, for example, of a quantity of three of the same item and one sold, all the shipping destinations then become permanently checked until the listing is ended. But the checkmarks are grey and replace the boxes and are not green as described. It doesn't, however, explain the transposition of postage services.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-20-2015

It might be that the seller has a multiple-quantity listing from which previous items have sold. That is the circumstance that comes to mind to me as a general match to what he/she is describing with this. If I had a listing, for example, of a quantity of three of the same item and one sold, all the shipping destinations then become permanently checked until the listing is ended. But the checkmarks are grey and replace the boxes and are not green as described.

I remember when the shipping cost boxes would gray out if you sold one item on a multi quantity listing but that changed a long time ago so that almost anything on a multi quantity listing could be changed. But I did just check one of my gtc with multiple sales and I do have a blue check mark on the one custom country (U.S.) that I ship to. I can't figure out a way to take that country off or add another custom country. That's the first time I've noticed that.

I don't see the same problem for a mq listings that were done on .com.

It doesn't, however, explain the transposition of postage services.

Any of the listings that I looked at had flat rate shipping, not calculated so those shipping services and costs would have had to be entered by whoever listed the item. Even if the shipping service somehow got changed, the cost wouldn't change on flat rate shipping,

momcqueen · ‎07-20-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote: "....I remember when the shipping cost boxes would gray out if you sold one item on a multi quantity listing but that changed a long time ago so that almost anything on a multi quantity listing could be changed. But I did just check one of my gtc with multiple sales and I do have a blue check mark on the one custom country (U.S.) that I ship to. I can't figure out a way to take that country off or add another custom country. That's the first time I've noticed that. I don't see the same problem for a mq listings that were done on .com."

Interesting. It appeared first for me the very first time I ever had an item sold from a multiple-quantity item listing which would have been about a year ago. (Prior to that, I would reshoot and relist any new item to replace an identical one sold.) I don't use GTC for many of my items so when the item reaches its 30-day conclusion, I can change whatever shipping options are required. And I have no .com listings, they are all created on ebay.ca, so no manner in which I can compare. Is it perhaps a subtle difference between a multi-quantity lising and a multi-variation one? I have no multiple-varaition listings against which to check either.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-20-2015

The ones I looked at are multi quantity. I don't have any variation listings on .ca.

I haven't had a reason to change the countries that I ship to on those listings so I don't know how long the blue check mark has been there. But you're saying that your custom countries are grayed out on multi listings that have an item sold? It doesn't have to be a GTC...I checked those because I know I have sales on those listings.

momcqueen · ‎07-20-2015

Yes. As a matter of fact, I had one readily available to examine. It's set up (like 90 per cent of my listings) as Calculated postage and if I attempt to 'remove' a service/destination, the next one I 'add' will have that exact country automatically checked again with no way to de-select it. (The blue checkmark. Had I said grey before?) I don't really ever need to alter the ship-to locations because I have that figured out but if I had accidentally let the listing slip with a ship-to of Russia and China and one of ten items sold and I wanted to fix the listing so that it didn't happen again, I wouldn't be able to do so this way. I'd have to end it or block the countries in the list of exclusions.

It seems kind of misleading to say that I offer 'worldwide' shipping when I really exclude about 65 countries in the world but it's the only way to avoid this Russia (and sometimes China) auto-select problem.

Oh, and it says "Certain aspects of your listing - such as title, price and duration - are not editable" right at the top of the listing but that statement is only partially true. I can't change the duration (really, why would I want to do that?) but I can certainly change the price and/or title.