The Rah Rah posted on the US boards for what it is worth

[dutchman48]

http://community.ebay.com/t5/eBay-for-Business/Bob-s-Blog-Bringing-More-Buyers-and-Sales-to-You-in-2...

Absolutely nothing about getting rid of scam buyers or protecting sellers as usual

[momcqueen]

Spit my coffee. "Robust negotiations in Best Offer: We’re testing an increase in the number of communications in Best Offer to improve sales conversion."

I've said it once and I'll say it ten more times if I have to. TEN BEST OFFERS IS TOO MANY. Five would be more than sufficient. 

[dutchman48]

What about the one for immediate payment on buy it now. Kills a lot of combined shipping for sellers and buyers

[momcqueen]

It doesn't affect me whatsoever since I spent three+ years fine-tuning my calculated shipping rules to use the Shopping Cart to its fullest potential. Once eBay fixed the glitch that disallowed CAD listings in the DOTCOM and UK Carts/Baskets, all my problems were solved.

[dutchman48]

According to Ebay.com, it will over ride any combined shipping for BIN.

If they buy it and leave it without paying, it will be able to be purchased by someone else.

If a buyer wants to add to cart for a week, any of those items can be purchased by others until paid for.

It will be a real pain for sellers that have multiple purchases over 2 to 3 weeks and then invoice.

[momcqueen]

I don't understand what you're telling me. What will override combined shipping? A buyer adds to cart or they don't. IPR leaves everything live until it's paid. And a buyer could have 20 things in their Cart for 20 days, that's fine. It's not bought until it's paid, that's no different.

[momcqueen]

Only Auctions sit unpaid for days. BINs never should. If a buyer has that big of a Master Plan, they should be working on a Custom Lot with their seller.

[dutchman48]

Some people like card and stamp sellers won't agree with you.

Some people want a break in shipping for smaller items and buy a bunch over time. If some of their items start disappearing, they may get upset and cancel the whole order.

[dutchman48]

And if you start to do that, bots will pick both parties up for trying to buy and sell outside of Ebay.

[momcqueen]

Huh? I work with buyers to set up Custom lots all the time. And have done so for five years. None of it is taken off-site, and there's been no suggestion that it would be. 

[ricarmic]

I as well set up bulk lots, however I am forever getting bot warnings while trying to communicate with buyers for ON EBAY transactions (I don't do off transactions either), and this even includes regular transactions when the buyer asks a simple question, for example, you can't use the word "invoice" at all in your wordings and other words get picked up too by the bots.

It has me worried that the bots, despite my best efforts not to offend them have flagged me as a problem. One would think that one would get some sort of notification somewhere but one never knows.

It is hard to know what "Also starting this month for the small group of sellers who repeatedly violate important eBay policies like completing transactions outside of eBay checkout, their active listings will be suppressed from search and browse results in line with selling restrictions."

Really given that wording one would think that someone/something would have talked to the repeated violators.....but then again.....

[momcqueen]

This might be worth asking for clarification at Weekly Chat. 

[dutchman48]

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@ricarmic wrote:

I as well set up bulk lots, however I am forever getting bot warnings while trying to communicate with buyers for ON EBAY transactions (I don't do off transactions either), and this even includes regular transactions when the buyer asks a simple question, for example, you can't use the word "invoice" at all in your wordings and other words get picked up too by the bots.

It has me worried that the bots, despite my best efforts not to offend them have flagged me as a problem. One would think that one would get some sort of notification somewhere but one never knows.

It is hard to know what "Also starting this month for the small group of sellers who repeatedly violate important eBay policies like completing transactions outside of eBay checkout, their active listings will be suppressed from search and browse results in line with selling restrictions."

Really given that wording one would think that someone/something would have talked to the repeated violators.....but then again.....

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From reading the US boards, Ebay is taking this very seriously and some have been suspended for what the bots think is happening. Just another way for Ebay to get rid of more sellers.

People using local pick up are being flagged by the bots which is sheer idiocy.

[momcqueen]

I've never been flagged or admonished and I've been offering Customs lots and Local Pickup for five years. 

[dutchman48]

What was will not be what is in the near future.

Not sure if it is in Canada yet, but certainly it is in the US.

If you go to the blog and read the comments at the end, you will get a better picture.

[hlmacdon]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:
Only Auctions sit unpaid for days. BINs never should. If a buyer has that big of a Master Plan, they should be working on a Custom Lot with their seller.

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dutchman48 has a valid concern here. This is not just something that effects auctions. There are many European customers that will use a commit to buy then add additional items and request an invoice several days later. I would like details on how these changes are actually being implemented to get an idea of what, if any impact it might have. As it stands it is still just as easy for a buyer to request an invoice and not pay it in a timely fashion so I'm not sure what the point is really.

[pjcdn2005]

The crack down on supposed 'off ebay transactions' just started recently. The only problem I remember reading about with local pick up lately is that a seller had problems giving their phone number to the buyer so that a third party company could phone before they picked up the item. When a seller tries to give their phone number in a message, I believe that they get a warning about selling outside of eBay. 

I do think that it is ridiculous to accuse sellers of selling outside of eBay based on specifics that they have programmed a bot to watch out for.  It's even more ridiculous if they are giving suspensions based on a bot's report. Something like that should always be reviewed by a person before any action is taken. But based on what I've read about suspensions for other situations, it can be based just on a bot's report.

[pjcdn2005]

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@hlmacdon wrote:

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dutchman48 has a valid concern here. This is not just something that effects auctions. There are many European customers that will use a commit to buy then add additional items and request an invoice several days later. I would like details on how these changes are actually being implemented to get an idea of what, if any impact it might have. As it stands it is still just as easy for a buyer to request an invoice and not pay it in a timely fashion so I'm not sure what the point is really.

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I'm not sure what the point is either. It's easy enough for a seller to require immediate payment if that's what they want. I don't understand why ebay forces that on sellers. I'm paraphrasing here but  one of the blues on .com said that they are doing it to give a better buying experience for buyers as buyers don't like getting paid unpaid items strikes.  Umm....it's easy to prevent getting a strike...

I haven't had a problem with people buying something then wanting me to hold it while they shop but as you said, this is a problem for a lot of people. 

I'm not sure what you mean by details about how it is being implemented....the commit to buy option when a buyer uses buy it now on ebay.com is no longer available for all sellers. It hasn't been available for Canadians on .com for a while but now it seems to include everyone.  But as you mentioned, a buyer can commit to buy by putting items in their cart and then requesting an invoice....when that function is available.  As far as I know that isn't changing.

[snoopwiz]

 I'm paraphrasing here but  one of the blues on .com said that they are doing it  (mandatory IPR's) to give a better buying experience for buyers as buyers don't like getting paid unpaid items strikes.

One really can not make this stuff up, could they? Let's leave that as it is and call it the chuckle o' the day.

[momcqueen]

To play the devil's advocate we do see new buyers on the Board who seem perplexed to learn they Commit to Buy something they never intended to purchase. (Perhaps they are illiterate?) And I'm CONSTANTLY getting purchases made by children shopping without permission on their parent's mobile device. $169 in toys two days ago. Unless the parent actually NOTICES and asks for a Cancel Order, that goes to Unpaid action. Worse would be (for the parent, not me) the auto log-into PayPal. Can't wait for THAT to become the requirement. I'll be doing refunds and cancellations instead of merely cancellations.