eBay

Anonymous · ‎05-09-2017

Hi everyone.

Opening up a thread to discuss the 2017 Summer Seller Update, announced May 9th on eBay.ca.

pinetreecottage · ‎05-09-2017

This is probably not the right place to post this but it is just an aside. If ebay is charging us tax on fees, they have to make public their tax and GST #s. There must be transparency for all. This is going to be a nightmare for the beancounters. If I'm charged even 1 dime, I want to be reassured it actually gets paid to the CRA.

hlmacdon · ‎05-09-2017

@Anonymous wrote:
Hi hlmacdon.

Global seller standards will be based on sales to countries other than the US, UK and Germany. You raise an interesting point re smaller sites that are part of those regional programs. I believe that UK, Austria and Switzerland will all count toward your global standards. But I'll double check on that, and post back here with a correction if I'm wrong about that.

Thanks Rodney. Any clarification would be appreciated as the current landing page is a bit confusing. In the main body it states that Starting August 1, 2017, sales to buyers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany will be excluded from Global seller performance standards. In the FAQ section it mirrors the breakout of the current dashboard with the following text: Going forward, the seller status for each of the four Standards regions (United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Global) will be based exclusively on sales to buyers in those regions. Does this strictly refer to the top rated badging and listing ranking benefits?

The FAQ states Changes to the Global seller performance standards program will not impact Top Rated Seller discount, but in effect, changing the qualifying pool of countries may impact a sellers ability to qualify for Global Top Rated seller if the majority of their sales are shifted to another regional bucket where they would not otherwise qualify as a TRS. In my case my sales are predominantly to the US, then with a portion to various international locales, and very few domestic sales hence the breakout of what counts towards my global seller performance would be helpful so I can evaluate the impact of the change. I currently qualify under the global top rated program and hopefully that would continue moving forward. Hopefully I've managed to explain that clearly.

hlmacdon · ‎05-09-2017

@pinetreecottage wrote:
This is probably not the right place to post this but it is just an aside. If ebay is charging us tax on fees, they have to make public their tax and GST #s. There must be transparency for all. This is going to be a nightmare for the beancounters. If I'm charged even 1 dime, I want to be reassured it actually gets paid to the CRA.

I am sure it will appear on your monthly invoice moving forward. For accountants this is a straightforward change.

retro-photo · ‎05-09-2017

The moment I read "The latest seller update is here-see how you can enhance your selling experience," I knew I'd be making less money on ebay. This has become a tradition.

Anonymous · ‎05-09-2017

@retro-photo wrote:

The moment I read "The latest seller update is here-see how you can enhance your selling experience," I knew I'd be making less money on ebay. This has become a tradition.

In my admittedly biased opinion, this is one of the most positive set of announcements for Canadian sellers in over a decade. But I certainly understand if everyone doesn't see it that way.

momcqueen · ‎05-09-2017

While I think there will be some sticker-shock for Canadian ebay sellers on their monthly bills to ebay -- between the reduced discount for TRS and now sales tax -- I don't mind seeing the Canadian governments getting their fair share of profit generated by Canadian sellers. Money that goes to government is spent in Canada at least.

deeeight · ‎05-10-2017

Ebay will feed you a corportate answer but the reality is Pitney Bowes charges a percentage fee and ebay wanted a better rate which they weren't willing to provide, but this other company Shippo would in order to gain market share for their services. Its no different than the fight between walmart canada and visa/mastercard/amex last year. Well....actually it is different. Walmart was up front with their customers as to why they were no longer going to accept credit cards from one company. Ebay hides their changes behind smoke and mirror reasons.

Last year's change to CA dollar only listings (and indeed almost every other ebay affiliated site in other countries also adopted national currencies only... ebay.uk only accepts uk pounds for listings) was the step they needed to take before this summer's sales tax collection on fees, and ebay canada having to pay its corporate taxes in CAD dollars, and it simplifies their math/procedures to not have to deal with exchange rates between what you're being paid in, and what you're being billed in. As any large volume canadian seller actually already knew... US buyers generally only want to deal in US dollars... and indeed so do most international buyers and sellers....and thus listing in CA was going to cost you sales regardless of how depressed the CAD dollar might be currently.

brettjet38 · ‎05-10-2017

Well, I for one reduced by almost 500 the number of listings I run on this site when they retired the USD listings & have also been working on my own site and doing shipping directly through Canada Post.

I already have a client base & moving them off ebay is as easy as lower prices on my own site.

I also have boycotted any GSP Sellers for all small $$ items I have no intent on paying inflated shipping costs.

As for the Sales Tax on Fees it is years overdue, and will probably send into retirement many of the "iffy" ebay sellers on the site.

I may also downgrade my ebay store, I will wait a few more months to see how all these "changes" affect the Buyers on the site.

I used to have ebay invoices of over $200-$250 per month with all the extra lisitngs I would run (no more), I have managed to bring that down to about 125-150 per month, and am aiming to bring it in under a $100.00cdn.

I am sick and tired of the endless changes on this site, nothing works correctly, forcing Buyers to pay one item at a time due to a wonky shopping cart.

Good LUCK ebay & "It's about time you got TAXED!

qottie · ‎05-10-2017

@hlmacdon wrote:

Thanks Rodney. Any clarification would be appreciated as the current landing page is a bit confusing. In the main body it states that Starting August 1, 2017, sales to buyers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany will be excluded from Global seller performance standards. In the FAQ section it mirrors the breakout of the current dashboard with the following text: Going forward, the seller status for each of the four Standards regions (United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Global) will be based exclusively on sales to buyers in those regions. Does this strictly refer to the top rated badging and listing ranking benefits?

The FAQ states Changes to the Global seller performance standards program will not impact Top Rated Seller discount, but in effect, changing the qualifying pool of countries may impact a sellers ability to qualify for Global Top Rated seller if the majority of their sales are shifted to another regional bucket where they would not otherwise qualify as a TRS. In my case my sales are predominantly to the US, then with a portion to various international locales, and very few domestic sales hence the breakout of what counts towards my global seller performance would be helpful so I can evaluate the impact of the change. I currently qualify under the global top rated program and hopefully that would continue moving forward. Hopefully I've managed to explain that clearly.

Hi hlmacdon,

Let me try to clarify the situation for you, since you are right that the copy in the main part of the landing page is a bit vague.

The sentence about the updates to the new performance standards program should read "Starting August 1, 2017, sales to buyers in the United States, United Kingdom (including Ireland), and German (including Austria and Switzerland) regions will be excluded from Global seller performance standards." Sales to buyers in any of these countries will now count only to their respective standards programs, and not to the Global program.

The qualification criteria for the Global standards program is the only thing changing with this update. The benefits associated with the Top Rated Seller status (ie. discounts, badges, and listing rankings) are not changing.

We are also adding additional protection for Global Top Rated sellers to help with the transition. Sellers who currently hold Top Rated status in the Global program will continue to retain that status for 6 months, even if their activity does not meet the new criteria. Furthermore, we are keeping in place the special arrangements as Rodney indicated above, which will continue to benefit Canadian sellers who are Top Rated under either the Global or US standards programs.

I will see what we can do to update the landing page to make it more clear - thanks for the feedback!

hlmacdon · ‎05-10-2017

@qottie wrote:
Hi hlmacdon,

Let me try to clarify the situation for you, since you are right that the copy in the main part of the landing page is a bit vague.

The sentence about the updates to the new performance standards program should read "Starting August 1, 2017, sales to buyers in the United States, United Kingdom (including Ireland), and German (including Austria and Switzerland) regions will be excluded from Global seller performance standards." Sales to buyers in any of these countries will now count only to their respective standards programs, and not to the Global program.

The qualification criteria for the Global standards program is the only thing changing with this update. The benefits associated with the Top Rated Seller status (ie. discounts, badges, and listing rankings) are not changing.

We are also adding additional protection for Global Top Rated sellers to help with the transition. Sellers who currently hold Top Rated status in the Global program will continue to retain that status for 6 months, even if their activity does not meet the new criteria. Furthermore, we are keeping in place the special arrangements as Rodney indicated above, which will continue to benefit Canadian sellers who are Top Rated under either the Global or US standards programs.

I will see what we can do to update the landing page to make it more clear - thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for the additional clarification. Essentially the pool of eligible sales that count for the Global TRS has been dramatically reduced for many sellers. There are of course many unique seller types on ebay, but there are many smaller sellers who sell very little domestically due to their low ASPs and the high cost of parcel postage and restrictions on methods like lettermail, hence the majority of their sales are international. Is there a rough date of when seller dashboards will be updated to reflect these changes? I imagine that will be helpful for many of the smaller sellers or those with an uneven mix.

If I could make a suggestion, the landing page really needs to make clear the implications of the potential loss of top rated seller discounts that could effect many sellers, including ways they will be able to evaluate the impact of the changes to the global region's eligible sales pool, especially since this is a double whammy right after the FVF discounts was reduced. In particular the statement in the FAQ section that reads the below while factually correct in that the discount % is not changing could use an additional qualifier, better linking it with the fourth FAQ point, along with suggestions on how sellers can evaluate the potential impact, That would give sellers a better understanding on the potential impact of the program changes.

Will my Top Rated Seller discount be affected by this change?

Changes to the Global seller performance standards program will not impact Top Rated Seller discounts.

It is good to hear there is a grace period, but hopefully sellers will be given better tools to evaluate where they stand during the grace period.

Anonymous · ‎05-10-2017

@deeeight wrote:

Ebay will feed you a corportate answer but the reality is Pitney Bowes charges a percentage fee and ebay wanted a better rate which they weren't willing to provide, but this other company Shippo would in order to gain market share for their services. Its no different than the fight between walmart canada and visa/mastercard/amex last year. Well....actually it is different. Walmart was up front with their customers as to why they were no longer going to accept credit cards from one company. Ebay hides their changes behind smoke and mirror reasons.

Last year's change to CA dollar only listings (and indeed almost every other ebay affiliated site in other countries also adopted national currencies only... ebay.uk only accepts uk pounds for listings) was the step they needed to take before this summer's sales tax collection on fees, and ebay canada having to pay its corporate taxes in CAD dollars, and it simplifies their math/procedures to not have to deal with exchange rates between what you're being paid in, and what you're being billed in. As any large volume canadian seller actually already knew... US buyers generally only want to deal in US dollars... and indeed so do most international buyers and sellers....and thus listing in CA was going to cost you sales regardless of how depressed the CAD dollar might be currently.

Almost none of that is correct. (Do I sound like I'm giving corporate answers?)

There is no relationship between our decision to retire USD and align with every other eBay site ever in having one and only one listing currency, the corporate restructuring we announced yesterday that has tax implications for Canadians, and the Shippo announcement.

I already explained on this thread why we are retiring the PayPal label experience and moving to Shippo. You are correct that the experience on PayPal is partly powered by Pitney Bowes. But our decision has literally nothing to do with Pitney Bowes.

Anonymous · ‎05-10-2017

@brettjet38 wrote:

Well, I for one reduced by almost 500 the number of listings I run on this site when they retired the USD listings & have also been working on my own site and doing shipping directly through Canada Post.

I already have a client base & moving them off ebay is as easy as lower prices on my own site.

I also have boycotted any GSP Sellers for all small $$ items I have no intent on paying inflated shipping costs.

As for the Sales Tax on Fees it is years overdue, and will probably send into retirement many of the "iffy" ebay sellers on the site.

I may also downgrade my ebay store, I will wait a few more months to see how all these "changes" affect the Buyers on the site.

I used to have ebay invoices of over $200-$250 per month with all the extra lisitngs I would run (no more), I have managed to bring that down to about 125-150 per month, and am aiming to bring it in under a $100.00cdn.

I am sick and tired of the endless changes on this site, nothing works correctly, forcing Buyers to pay one item at a time due to a wonky shopping cart.

Good LUCK ebay & "It's about time you got TAXED!

The shopping cart was fixed some time ago.

I don't really understand why folks spend their valuable time with us on eBay discussion boards just to say they plan to leave.

But regardless, I hope you stay. And if you decide to leave, you'll be welcome if you decide to come back down the road.

Anonymous · ‎05-10-2017

@hlmacdon wrote:

@qottie wrote:

Hi hlmacdon,

Let me try to clarify the situation for you, since you are right that the copy in the main part of the landing page is a bit vague.

The sentence about the updates to the new performance standards program should read "Starting August 1, 2017, sales to buyers in the United States, United Kingdom (including Ireland), and German (including Austria and Switzerland) regions will be excluded from Global seller performance standards." Sales to buyers in any of these countries will now count only to their respective standards programs, and not to the Global program.

The qualification criteria for the Global standards program is the only thing changing with this update. The benefits associated with the Top Rated Seller status (ie. discounts, badges, and listing rankings) are not changing.

We are also adding additional protection for Global Top Rated sellers to help with the transition. Sellers who currently hold Top Rated status in the Global program will continue to retain that status for 6 months, even if their activity does not meet the new criteria. Furthermore, we are keeping in place the special arrangements as Rodney indicated above, which will continue to benefit Canadian sellers who are Top Rated under either the Global or US standards programs.

I will see what we can do to update the landing page to make it more clear - thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for the additional clarification. Essentially the pool of eligible sales that count for the Global TRS has been dramatically reduced for many sellers. There are of course many unique seller types on ebay, but there are many smaller sellers who sell very little domestically due to their low ASPs and the high cost of parcel postage and restrictions on methods like lettermail, hence the majority of their sales are international. Is there a rough date of when seller dashboards will be updated to reflect these changes? I imagine that will be helpful for many of the smaller sellers or those with an uneven mix.

If I could make a suggestion, the landing page really needs to make clear the implications of the potential loss of top rated seller discounts that could effect many sellers, including ways they will be able to evaluate the impact of the changes to the global region's eligible sales pool, especially since this is a double whammy right after the FVF discounts was reduced. In particular the statement in the FAQ section that reads the below while factually correct in that the discount % is not changing could use an additional qualifier, better linking it with the fourth FAQ point, along with suggestions on how sellers can evaluate the potential impact, That would give sellers a better understanding on the potential impact of the program changes.

Will my Top Rated Seller discount be affected by this change?

Changes to the Global seller performance standards program will not impact Top Rated Seller discounts.

It is good to hear there is a grace period, but hopefully sellers will be given better tools to evaluate where they stand during the grace period.

I understand your concerns. This is a really complicated change being applied to a fiendishly complicated program. It's difficult to absorb.

From our modelling, partly because of the protections already in place for Canadian sellers, we don't expect many Canadian sellers to be negatively impacted by the standards changes at all. What we do expect is that we will have far fewer Canadian sellers falling below standard under these rules.

The grace period is to make sure that things appear to be working out in the way that the models predicted.

brettjet38 · ‎05-10-2017

A - The shipping cart in not fixed

B - I never said I was going to leave, I said I was going to reduce my footprint on this site and pursue my Amazon store and own website.

C - Time will tell!

pocomocomputing · ‎05-10-2017

@Anonymous wrote:
@hlmacdon wrote:
@qottie wrote:
Hi hlmacdon,

Let me try to clarify the situation for you, since you are right that the copy in the main part of the landing page is a bit vague.

The sentence about the updates to the new performance standards program should read "Starting August 1, 2017, sales to buyers in the United States, United Kingdom (including Ireland), and German (including Austria and Switzerland) regions will be excluded from Global seller performance standards." Sales to buyers in any of these countries will now count only to their respective standards programs, and not to the Global program.

The qualification criteria for the Global standards program is the only thing changing with this update. The benefits associated with the Top Rated Seller status (ie. discounts, badges, and listing rankings) are not changing.

We are also adding additional protection for Global Top Rated sellers to help with the transition. Sellers who currently hold Top Rated status in the Global program will continue to retain that status for 6 months, even if their activity does not meet the new criteria. Furthermore, we are keeping in place the special arrangements as Rodney indicated above, which will continue to benefit Canadian sellers who are Top Rated under either the Global or US standards programs.

I will see what we can do to update the landing page to make it more clear - thanks for the feedback!
Thanks for the additional clarification. Essentially the pool of eligible sales that count for the Global TRS has been dramatically reduced for many sellers. There are of course many unique seller types on ebay, but there are many smaller sellers who sell very little domestically due to their low ASPs and the high cost of parcel postage and restrictions on methods like lettermail, hence the majority of their sales are international. Is there a rough date of when seller dashboards will be updated to reflect these changes? I imagine that will be helpful for many of the smaller sellers or those with an uneven mix.

If I could make a suggestion, the landing page really needs to make clear the implications of the potential loss of top rated seller discounts that could effect many sellers, including ways they will be able to evaluate the impact of the changes to the global region's eligible sales pool, especially since this is a double whammy right after the FVF discounts was reduced. In particular the statement in the FAQ section that reads the below while factually correct in that the discount % is not changing could use an additional qualifier, better linking it with the fourth FAQ point, along with suggestions on how sellers can evaluate the potential impact, That would give sellers a better understanding on the potential impact of the program changes.

Will my Top Rated Seller discount be affected by this change?
Changes to the Global seller performance standards program will not impact Top Rated Seller discounts.

It is good to hear there is a grace period, but hopefully sellers will be given better tools to evaluate where they stand during the grace period.

I understand your concerns. This is a really complicated change being applied to a fiendishly complicated program. It's difficult to absorb.

From our modelling, partly because of the protections already in place for Canadian sellers, we don't expect many Canadian sellers to be negatively impacted by the standards changes at all. What we do expect is that we will have far fewer Canadian sellers falling below standard under these rules.

The grace period is to make sure that things appear to be working out in the way that the models predicted.

I am rolling my eyes in disbelief in these statements. eBay.ca Canada has absolutely no credibility for me and others here.

These statements sounds just like the study eBay.ca Canada gave gave last year when listing in USD was removed from the eBay.ca site. Sales would stay the same or increase for most sellers if they switched to CDN $ in their listings. Many sellers in these forums reported a huge drop in sales when they switched to CDN on eBay.ca Canada. Some were able to recover their sales by listing on eBay.com USA in USD.

Has eBay done a study recently on the change to CDN $ only? Did most sellers stay the same or increase their sales as stated in the study below?

http://pages.ebay.ca/sellerinformation/news/springupdate2015/list-in-cad.html

momcqueen · ‎05-10-2017

I've always listed in CAD and my sales dropped dramatically last summer and fall. To the tune of 40 percent lower than usual over the 12-month period that ended in December. I deduce that 2016 was not a stellar year for many Canadian eBay sellers but that's not something I'd necessarily pin on the switch to CAD only for the site.

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-10-2017

@brettjet38 wrote:
A - The shipping cart in not fixed

B - I never said I was going to leave, I said I was going to reduce my footprint on this site and pursue my Amazon store and own website.

C - Time will tell!

What problem are you having with the cart?

Anonymous · ‎05-10-2017

@pocomocomputing wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

@hlmacdon wrote:

@qottie wrote:

Hi hlmacdon,

Let me try to clarify the situation for you, since you are right that the copy in the main part of the landing page is a bit vague.

The sentence about the updates to the new performance standards program should read "Starting August 1, 2017, sales to buyers in the United States, United Kingdom (including Ireland), and German (including Austria and Switzerland) regions will be excluded from Global seller performance standards." Sales to buyers in any of these countries will now count only to their respective standards programs, and not to the Global program.

The qualification criteria for the Global standards program is the only thing changing with this update. The benefits associated with the Top Rated Seller status (ie. discounts, badges, and listing rankings) are not changing.

We are also adding additional protection for Global Top Rated sellers to help with the transition. Sellers who currently hold Top Rated status in the Global program will continue to retain that status for 6 months, even if their activity does not meet the new criteria. Furthermore, we are keeping in place the special arrangements as Rodney indicated above, which will continue to benefit Canadian sellers who are Top Rated under either the Global or US standards programs.

I will see what we can do to update the landing page to make it more clear - thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for the additional clarification. Essentially the pool of eligible sales that count for the Global TRS has been dramatically reduced for many sellers. There are of course many unique seller types on ebay, but there are many smaller sellers who sell very little domestically due to their low ASPs and the high cost of parcel postage and restrictions on methods like lettermail, hence the majority of their sales are international. Is there a rough date of when seller dashboards will be updated to reflect these changes? I imagine that will be helpful for many of the smaller sellers or those with an uneven mix.

If I could make a suggestion, the landing page really needs to make clear the implications of the potential loss of top rated seller discounts that could effect many sellers, including ways they will be able to evaluate the impact of the changes to the global region's eligible sales pool, especially since this is a double whammy right after the FVF discounts was reduced. In particular the statement in the FAQ section that reads the below while factually correct in that the discount % is not changing could use an additional qualifier, better linking it with the fourth FAQ point, along with suggestions on how sellers can evaluate the potential impact, That would give sellers a better understanding on the potential impact of the program changes.

Will my Top Rated Seller discount be affected by this change?

Changes to the Global seller performance standards program will not impact Top Rated Seller discounts.

It is good to hear there is a grace period, but hopefully sellers will be given better tools to evaluate where they stand during the grace period.

I understand your concerns. This is a really complicated change being applied to a fiendishly complicated program. It's difficult to absorb.

From our modelling, partly because of the protections already in place for Canadian sellers, we don't expect many Canadian sellers to be negatively impacted by the standards changes at all. What we do expect is that we will have far fewer Canadian sellers falling below standard under these rules.

The grace period is to make sure that things appear to be working out in the way that the models predicted.

I am rolling my eyes in disbelief in these statements. eBay.ca Canada has absolutely no credibility for me and others here.

These statements sounds just like the study eBay.ca Canada gave gave last year when listing in USD was removed from the eBay.ca site. Sales would stay the same or increase for most sellers if they switched to CDN $ in their listings. Many sellers in these forums reported a huge drop in sales when they switched to CDN on eBay.ca Canada. Some were able to recover their sales by listing on eBay.com USA in USD.

Has eBay done a study recently on the change to CDN $ only? Did most sellers stay the same or increase their sales as stated in the study below?

http://pages.ebay.ca/sellerinformation/news/springupdate2015/list-in-cad.html

I understand that sellers whose sales went down might point to the list currency change as the reason. And there's likely nothing I can say to convince folks otherwise that think that way. But honestly, it's not the case. I know there are legions of sellers who will argue with me on that point, but they see only their own data points, But form my seat, I get to see all the data points. 🙂

The truth is, that change has been overall positive, and we're a larger business at this point then we were a year ago. But this is a hyper-competitive marketplace and not all sellers win all the time.

Having said that, there is still another thread on this very discussion board dedicated to USD retirement, even though the project is now 100% complete. So hoping we can stick to the topic of the summer seller release on this particular thread.

I feel truly badly to hear that you don't find me, or eBay, credible pocomo, because you've known me now for quite a while. That being the case, I'm not sure what I can say to help if you don't believe the things that I post.

Anonymous · ‎05-10-2017

@brettjet38 wrote:

A - The shipping cart in not fixed

B - I never said I was going to leave, I said I was going to reduce my footprint on this site and pursue my Amazon store and own website.

C - Time will tell!

Thanks Brettjet38.

Thanks for your clarification re B. Glad we're not losing you, even if you are scaling back.

Would love to hear more about A. I'm not aware of any cart issues as of today.

hlmacdon · ‎05-10-2017

@Anonymous wrote:

I understand your concerns. This is a really complicated change being applied to a fiendishly complicated program. It's difficult to absorb.

From our modelling, partly because of the protections already in place for Canadian sellers, we don't expect many Canadian sellers to be negatively impacted by the standards changes at all. What we do expect is that we will have far fewer Canadian sellers falling below standard under these rules.

The grace period is to make sure that things appear to be working out in the way that the models predicted.

That it is. I would still like to know when and if the seller dashboards will be updated to reflect these changes so that sellers can better evaluate the impact. In my case I can run some data extracts and fiddle about in excel but I'm sure there are many sellers here who would benefit from having a tool that they can use to monitor the (potential) impact on an ongoing basis during the grace period.