2015 Fall Seller Update

[raphael@ebay.com]

Welcome to the 2015 Fall Seller Update discussion thread. Myself and other eBay staff will read all your comments and do our best to respond as our schedules permit.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

---

@pierrelebel wrote:

How will eBay confirm on-time shipping if there's no tracking?

If you don't upload tracking or there's no tracking available, we'll ask your buyer to confirm if the item arrived by the estimated delivery date. Buyers will see the question when they leave feedback and will be presented with a simple yes/no option to confirm whether the item arrived by the estimated delivery date. You'll be recognized for on-time shipping if the buyer confirms that the item arrived by the estimated delivery date.

Let's think about this for a minute.

Why would eBay even ask the question to the buyer when feedback is posted within the "estimated (by eBay) delivery date"?

If the seller ships on the 1st (for example) and the "estimated (by eBay) delivery date" is the 9th, why would eBay even ask a buyer posting positive feedback on the 9th or earlier if the item was received by the "estimated (by eBay) delivery date"?

Is there a logic here?  eBay already knows the answer.  Why ask?

---

Surprising, but sometimes buyers leave feedback before their item arrives. I'm guessing that's why this is not automated. But will ask.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

The "lack-of-tracking-services that Canada Post offers" issue aside,  how does ~eBays estimated delivery date~ (that they decide) stack up against Canada Post's disclaimer that "delivery timelines are just guidelines and not guarantees due to possible hold-ups at custom checkpoints" at countries' borders.  Which by the way happens more often than one would think (tighened up after 9/11 and again more during current terrorist times).

I just fear for unfounded defects for delivery time issues beyond my control.  I ship out daily by the way, sometimes 2xce as I like to stay on top of things - still late packages happen due to customs pitstops.  

---

We don't rely on carrier marketing information for our delivery estimates.

If you ship daily that really helps. If you do find that your non-tracked shipments aren't arriving by the delivery data, consider increasing your handling time or selecting a different service.

[Anonymous]

---

@roadrattler3000 wrote:

most of us have lost faith in this company and moved to the other auction outlets, as well this NEW "On-time shipping: A new metric will be used to measure whether you shipped or delivered your item on time based on tracking information when available." is no good to us cross border Canadian shippers as many of us use a courier to bring the packages to the USA they are then shipped via UPS USPS etc the couriers do not give us any sort of tracking numbers so we do not have a actually tracking number until the courier brings us the second shippers number

---

Hi

You have lost faith yet are still on our community boards?

This is a good question though, so I'm glad you came. From your question I will assume you are listing on .com and showing USPS on your listings.

For your business model, you have two choices that will work:

1. Show that you ship USPS, but add enough handling time to allow you to upload tracking and show induction was within your handling time.

2. Instead of adding the branded USPS service on your listing, select a generic "from outside USA" service. Or list on eBay.ca and use a generic service. I'm sure you already have details of how you ship in your listing.

Now instead of uploading the USPS scan, upload your courier scan. If you took it to the courier inside your handling time, you're good.

Hope that helps. It's an unusual shipping arrangement, but I'm sure there are others with similar approaches.

[cwr47theatre]

A question or maybe a concern is more the case;  I ship almost all of my goods by Canada Post, cheapest rate.  It has not been a problem to date for shipments in Canada and most shipments to the USA.  International is a very different story.  It can take 6 weeks to have a parcel delivered to say Italy or Brazil and inevitably the buyer wants to know where his goods are, regardless of the caveats in my terms of sale.  My concern is the the new Metric for shipping performance might measure the postal system's performance not mine.

I say I will ship within 3 days of receiving payment and, to date, I have met that commitment.  So, will the potential time lag in the postal system be included in the measure?

Just wonderin' since there isn't a reasonably priced alternate to the post office.

Clyde

[cwr47theatre]

Very good points and the same ones I have been chewing upon.

[Anonymous]

---

@mjwl2006 wrote:

Thank you.

First, I would like to offer an opinion and I realize fully it is one that likely won't win me any friends among my peers and that is this: I don't like what ebay has done with defects in this update. I think it now swings too far back in favour of sellers who provide poor service. Like everyone else with something for sale on ebay, I live in continual fear of unwarranted defects but this move to eliminate all apparent consequences for poor seller service with the exception of three things: late deliveries, seller-cancelled transactions, and cases closed without seller resolution....T? That is too little. What consequence is left now to prevent the really lousy giant sellers from continuing their really lousy service to unwitting ebayers? To eliminate negatives and neutrals and lows DSRs from defect consequence renders the feedback process to be totally pointless now for buyers. I didn't agree with an automatic defect for a buyer posing the question 'my item hasn't arrived' and that is the full extent of what I would have liked to see removed but so be it. I accept that my solo opinion here won't make any difference.

My actual question is, again, about product identifiers and the Product Catalogue. From http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/product-details.html it says: "To help buyers find the product they want, items in certain categories must be listed using our product catalogue. 

If you don't follow this policy, your item won't qualify for the value box, which highlights the best deal from a Top-rated seller at the top of product pages. Your listing will also be flagged and reviewed for possible catalogue matches. Make sure your listing follows these guidelines. If it doesn't, it may be removed, and you may be subject to a range of other actions, including restrictions of your buying and selling privileges and suspension of your account..... If the item is not available in the catalogue, select the Continue listing without a product link and list your item as you normally would."

What items in certain categories are those?

And when I try to "If you can't find the correct product in the catalogue, you can add a product to the catalogue yourself." I get taken to a page that says "There is a system problem. Please try again later."

Is this process going to allow me to finally find what I sell in the Product Catalogue? And if I have to add hundreds (if not thousands) of items myself is ebay going to compensate me for my time? Because ultimately, I'll be doing work that is going to allow other competing sellers to waltz in after I've created Product Catalogue entires and 'sell one like this' on something I took the time to make from scratch. No? 

Thank you for your insight. 

---

mjwl2006 - As a temporary workaround, if you start a listing on eBay.com and click the same link, it will work for Canadian as well as US products. The reports all go to the same team, and the North American inventory catalogues are shared.

[cwr47theatre]

Again good points and given the low pricing that ebay auctions have been drawing, there are times when the shipping costs are double or triple the item cost and still no guarrantee of the package arriving on time.

[Anonymous]

---

@esclyons wrote:
and when i ship an item to the usa, that is 2.85$ when it is a certain weight, me receit shows the postal code it is being sent to, with the weight and the date shipped. but ebay doesn't consider that proof of shipment, because it doesn't have tracking,, so what do they think i am mailing air envelopes at 3$ a piece just because.. they really need to step back and actually talk to people in Canada doing business with the US on a daily basis..

---

Hi esclyons

Your selection of shipping service doesn't tell us anything about whether you actually used the service you said you would, or shipped by the time you said you would. That's why we ask the buyer when there is no scan to rely on.

[cwr47theatre]

I can control only when the package goes into the hands of Canada Post. From then on it is out of my control even if there IS tracking. I have no way to expidite a shipment with Canada Post. So why should I be measured on THEIR performance?

[Anonymous]

---

@mjwl2006 wrote:

---

amya4295 wrote:..... Are we protected in anyway from mindless clicking on "no the item did not arrive on time"? 

---

Or are we protected in any way from the Fat Finger Phenomena as it pertains to buyers leaving unintended feedback accidentally on their mobile devices?

---

These things can happen. That's why there is a range of defects permitted even for top rated sellers.

[Anonymous]

---

@rose-dee wrote:

Would a scan of a Post Office stamp (those big round inked stamps confirming time and date of acceptance) on a copy of the applicable Paypal label, be acceptable as proof of time of dispatch?  

Because I am "old-school", I print out an extra copy of every Paypal label and have it stamped like this when I put the parcel on the counter at the Post Office.  This could easily be scanned and submitted by a Canadian seller as proof in lieu of a Canada Post online scan.  Could this not be incorporated into eBay's new policy? 

By the way, occasionally even tracked parcels do not get scanned immediately when they are left at the Post Office.  I've had this occur, and now stand there at the counter to check that the clerk actually does their job.  What happens if the acceptance scan is missed? 

Like other sellers here, another big concern is that buyers already pay little enough attention to details, and are just as likely to say the item didn't arrive within the delivery estimate as to say it did, especially if FB is left weeks after the delivery. 

---

Hi Rose-dee.

Only upload of valid tracking number will work for these purposes.

[mikronauts]

Rodney,

This latest update is very unfair re/ shipping, which is totally outside of our control.

Canada Post - not to put it too finely - sucks.

Their cheapest tracked shipping to US is about $18cdn for a small light package.

It is about $7 for a non-tracked package.

Don't even get me started about shipping rates to EU, UK or elsewhere.

This of course means that low priced items don't sell well, as the shipping often costs more than the item!

Recently I switched to shipping to the US with a freight forwarder, that mails with USPS after the package gets into the states.

I do get a USPS priority or other tracking number when I drop the package off at the forwarder and they print the USPS label, however that is still not an acceptance scan - for example, I dropped two packages of Wednesday afternoon, and it still only shows the label printed message.

I can not control:

- when the freight forwarder takes the packages across the border

- how long their truck is in customs

- how long before the US post office scans the packages

- USPS transit times

I also cannot control:

- how long Canada post takes to process the package

- how long customs takes

- how long Canada post takes to deliver the package

How the heck can the buyers, who usually don't even bother to leave feedback, be used as an "accurate metric" of how long it took to ship the package?

This is absolutely ludicrous.

[momcqueen]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@mjwl2006 wrote:

Thank you.

First, I would like to offer an opinion and I realize fully it is one that likely won't win me any friends among my peers and that is this: I don't like what ebay has done with defects in this update. I think it now swings too far back in favour of sellers who provide poor service. Like everyone else with something for sale on ebay, I live in continual fear of unwarranted defects but this move to eliminate all apparent consequences for poor seller service with the exception of three things: late deliveries, seller-cancelled transactions, and cases closed without seller resolution....T? That is too little. What consequence is left now to prevent the really lousy giant sellers from continuing their really lousy service to unwitting ebayers? To eliminate negatives and neutrals and lows DSRs from defect consequence renders the feedback process to be totally pointless now for buyers. I didn't agree with an automatic defect for a buyer posing the question 'my item hasn't arrived' and that is the full extent of what I would have liked to see removed but so be it. I accept that my solo opinion here won't make any difference.

My actual question is, again, about product identifiers and the Product Catalogue. From http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/product-details.html it says: "To help buyers find the product they want, items in certain categories must be listed using our product catalogue. 

If you don't follow this policy, your item won't qualify for the value box, which highlights the best deal from a Top-rated seller at the top of product pages. Your listing will also be flagged and reviewed for possible catalogue matches. Make sure your listing follows these guidelines. If it doesn't, it may be removed, and you may be subject to a range of other actions, including restrictions of your buying and selling privileges and suspension of your account..... If the item is not available in the catalogue, select the Continue listing without a product link and list your item as you normally would."

What items in certain categories are those?

And when I try to "If you can't find the correct product in the catalogue, you can add a product to the catalogue yourself." I get taken to a page that says "There is a system problem. Please try again later."

Is this process going to allow me to finally find what I sell in the Product Catalogue? And if I have to add hundreds (if not thousands) of items myself is ebay going to compensate me for my time? Because ultimately, I'll be doing work that is going to allow other competing sellers to waltz in after I've created Product Catalogue entires and 'sell one like this' on something I took the time to make from scratch. No? 

Thank you for your insight. 

---

mjwl2006 - As a temporary workaround, if you start a listing on eBay.com and click the same link, it will work for Canadian as well as US products. The reports all go to the same team, and the North American inventory catalogues are shared.

---

Thank you for the suggested workaround except that I have no listings on ebay.com and don't intend to ever change that. I sell exclusively on ebay.ca due to CAD and calculated shipping. Both are pillars to my business model here. 

[pierrelebel]

Good evening Rodney.

I took a quick look at this thread before going to bed and was surprised to find you here.

" So you can influence the delivery estimates through the selection of service."

Let's be realistic.  The system is made for Americans by Americans based on their American experience.  We get that.

Then eBay-Canada tries to adapt policies to the Canadian reality.

The vast majority of Canadian sellers use Canada Post, your partner. Please stop mentioning we have other options as most Canadian sellers do not.

My concern here is very specifically for items shipped without tracking (lettermail, letterpost, light packet...)

According to your new standards eBay expects 99.5% performance from TRS and at least 98% from all other sellers.

From your FAQ: "Since we are removing many of the factors previously counted in the defect rate, we also had to recalculate the maximum allowable defect rate accordingly to ensure that we are continuing to recognize and reward sellers who provide great service and setting the right customer service expectations.

These updates impact how seller standards are calculated, but we expect there will be no significant changes in the number of Top Rated sellers. Our intention is to make eBay a more fair, consistent, and predictable marketplace where sellers are recognized for delivering great service.

99.5% sounds good.  98% sounds good. However, we Canadian sellers use Canada Post, your partner, whose audited performance record is 96%-98% on-time delivery (check that number with your contact at Canada Post).

How can Canadian sellers perform at a higher rate than your own partner (Canada Post) can provide.  It simply does not make sense.

Your new requirements may make sense in the USA but, in Canada, it cannot work as we mostly use your partner.  And you know as well as most readers here that there is no real alternative in most instances.

[jt-libra]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

For anyone who is not using tracking, you can increase the handling time if you believe you can't deliver within the estimates associated with the service you selected. 

---

A couple of years ago, sellers were told that if they reduced their handling time to 1 business day and increased their return time to 14 days, we would receive higher search placement.

I'm presuming then if we increase our handling time to offset uncertain delivery dates, our search placement will be affected?

This speaks to the broader issue of on-time shipping.  Canadian sellers, most of whom do not ship smaller items with tracking, will not survive the defects associated with shipping delays.  There really needs to be some sort of "history of slow handling and shipping time" by a seller before these defects are levied unjustly.

[jt-libra]

---

@jt-libra wrote:

This speaks to the broader issue of on-time shipping.  Canadian sellers, most of whom do not ship smaller items with tracking, will not survive the defects associated with shipping delays.  There really needs to be some sort of "history of slow handling and shipping time" by a seller before these defects are levied unjustly.

---

I wasn't clear when I posted this whether on-time shipping failure results in a defect or a lower performance rating; however, the end result is the same .... Canadian sellers won't survive this.

[Anonymous]

OK, I temporarily just changed my handling time from 1 day to 5 days ..... will see if in the next few days my sales are slower from being placed lower on the best match search (if this indeed does happen, I too, remember eBay mentioning rewarding sellers for choosing the 1 day handling a while back)..

Also, if you have 1 day handling time, there is no message about it posted under the first page shipping iinfo, as soon as you change it to 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, 5 days, 10 days, etc eBay puts a message for all buyers to see - stating the longer handling time which I am thinking could deter sales :(.

It seems like a game to me, one you can't win, I am getting bummed.  Etsy is starting to look mighty appealing.

[momcqueen]

I bend over backwards to deliver my packages (tracked and otherwise) to the postal counter within my stated handling time. Always. If I lose TRS because of a single or even two defects as a result of this new question, I will depart this venue. I mean that. I've never had a defect, I have no issues with unhappy buyers. If I get an absent-minded feedback on an untracked lettermail by a buyer whose finger slipped, I will consider this to have become a hostile environment and take myself elsewhere. Does eBay allow for a feedback revision request on this question? My thinking is 'no, they do not'.

I've been a cheerleader for eBay since the day I became a buyer here but I won't tolerate being taken for granted any further as a seller. eBay needs GOOD, HONEST sellers more than those good, honest sellers need eBay. And one size does not fit all when you're putting American service standards on to Canadian postal realities.

[pocomocomputing]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@amya4295 wrote:

So to understand this correctly, if I don't ship with tracking, which 90% of the time I don't because of Canada Posts astronomical rates to the U.S, Ebay will judge me based on the feedback question presented to buyers "did your item arrive by a certain date". The concern is, many of my feedback come weeks after an item has been received. How is that buyer supposed to remember if it arrived by a specific date. Many U.S buyers think that shipping from Canada takes way too long as they are comparing it to U.S shipments.My listings clearly state that I am shipping from Canada and I correspond to each buyer when shipping what the Canada Post standards are. Even stating this, I have customers that contact me after 2 days looking for their goods. When it comes time for them to leave feedback, i'm concerned that will be on their mind. With no tracking to defend ourselves we are basically relying on the whim of buyers to remember if the goods were on time or not. That concerns me especially since many of my buyers are newbies with under 20-50 feedback and don't fully understand cross border purchases and truthfully many are surprised that they even bought an item form a Canadian seller! Because I so rarely ship with tracking and the allowable defect rate % has been significantly reduced, it could impact many Canadian sellers swiftly and remove our TRS status in short order. Am I missing something? Are we protected in anyway from mindless clicking on "no the item did not arrive on time"? 

---

Hi amya4295

We believe this is a much better system than a completely subjective question about rating the shipping cost and shipping time.

For sellers who use tracking, it is fantastic.

For sellers who don't or can't use tracking, this is a much more objective question for us to use. We believe this will work out much better for Canadian sellers, since the delivery estimate is based on real cross border data, and not on the buyer's perception of when they think it should arrive.

---

Just a minute. Real cross border data?  For years eBay Canada said that delivery time estimates were provided by Canada Post for each of their services and eBay Canada had to use those estimates as required by Canada Post. We were told they could not be changed and to use handling time to pad the estimate.

As far as I know, the only eBay.ca shipping services where eBay.ca uses "real cross border data" are the Flat Rate generic shipping services eBay provides - economy, expedited and express.

As for using handling time, years ago eBay 1 day handling time one of the requirements for getting Global TRS. Is that still in effect? If so, the suggestion for padding handling time into delivery estimate will disqualify a seller from TRS.

I always thought the suggestion to use handling time to increase delivery estimates was absurd. Using a workaround to fix a problem should not be done. Fix the estimates and solve the problem correctly.

Last, eBay should provide a table of the delivery times estimates used for each Canad Post service as well as the generic services. I had to create temp listings and change the service and country in the listing to see what delivery estimates eBay has and compile a table of the results.

This new seller rating may work for ebay.com USA sellers using USPS but it does not fit eBay.ca Canada sellers using Canada Post services.

[momcqueen]

Adding insult to injury, receiving the wrong answer to The Question is one of only three fatal offenses left on eBay. Sloppy service? No problem. Wrong item? No problem. Negative feedback? No problem. Send lettermail? Defect. Small packet? Defect. Simply because a buyer may have NO idea when they received it by the time they leave feedback.

Essentially, under these new rules, a seller has blessings from eBay to mail a buyer the wrong item as long as it's tracked and arrives on time but heaven forbid that it has the right item sent via Small or Light Packet but DELIVERED LATE by the post office. In Canada, we have only Canada Post to choose from for internal lettermail; we cannot be held accountable to the postal service standards uses by Americans.

This reeks. It literally stinks. eBay needs sellers like me more than I need eBay. As a company, you have just opened the door wide to a pile of thieves and pirates operating without consequence of punishment by defect for anything except untracked lettermail or parcels. It's ridiculous. I am livid.