August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

Hello Canadian eBayers,

 

Let's make our new format official and change the name of our weekly chat to "Weekly Chat Session".

 

I'm going to leave this thread open for most of the day today, as I am going in and out of meetings for most of the day. I'll do my best to come in and reply as the day goes, but likely I will only be able to late in the afternoon. If need be, I'll leave the thread open until tomorrow to make sure I can respond to everyone.

 

Here are 3 issues from last week's session which I am still tracking but don't have news for yet:

  • Full shipping FVF charged on combined orders with discounted shipping (dutchman48)
  • SYI form stripping the weight off when switching back to USD on an item that was originally in USD and set up with calculated shipping (block36)
  • SYI preventing relist and Sell Similar if the original listing had a non compliant photo (pierrelebel)

Thanks!

Message 1 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

I like the new Weekly Chat format. There is no pressure for ebay members to be here at the old fixed hour session nor pressure on you to answer in the hour. I also like that you summarized what is outstanding from previous chat sessions. This gives some continuity to the sessions as well as knowing what you are researching.

Message 2 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

Issues with ebay notifications on items bid on, won and paid for.

 

I bid on a few auctions and won some in the past few days and paid for them. I received a few in the mail and left feedback.

 

My problem is eBay notifications icon (bell symbol) on the top right. I turn off notifications messages for items bid or outbid, won, messages and thank yous for your purchase. Some keep reappearing repeatedly after I turned them off several times. It seems each morning some reappear. This morning I had 3 or 4 notifications that I won an item which I had already turned off.

 

This is extremely annoying when I get an outbid notification or you won an item message. I click on it and see that the message is for an item already won and paid for. This is driving me crazy because I wonder what I have bid or won when all have been completed when I thought I turned it off already.

 

I do not know why this is happening. I do not have experience in winning auctions or buying much on eBay. In the past years on eBay I always sold and I never bought anything on eBay at auction. Just a couple of items at fixed price over the years and that was 4-5 years ago. My recent buying experiences are new too me as to how the eBay system works.

 

I have to say these annoying repeated notifications are a terrible buying experience. I should be able to turn off a message once seen in the list under the icon at the top right and not have the repeated same message show questioning what I have done already. Very confusing.

Message 3 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

The BIGGEST kudo I ever left!

 

Very annoying and useless feature.

A few days ago they asked my opinion about their "bell" and I gave them my negatives.  

Message 4 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

I sold an item to a Canadian buyer over the weekend.  She had purchased from me previously so I sent a friendly little note.

 

She said that, whenever possible, she buys from Canadian sellers.  However, she is very annoyed that when she purchases items listed in CAD, the currency changes to USD in her shopping cart at the time of payment and she ends up paying more than she had planned.  She ensured me that she had shopped on .ca.  I didn't know what to make of this; the currency doesn't change when I've made purchases, but I don't use the shopping cart ..... I usually just buy one item at a time.

 

Do you have an explanation for this, or could it simply be a glitch (however, she says it happens all the time).

 

Thanks.

 

 

Message 5 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

Agreed on the repeated notifications comment. I really don't need to see item notifications that I've turned off coming up again. 

 

Two other things that have been particularly annoying lately. 

 

While I expect most people know the difference between "small", "medium" and "large" it seems the eBay programmers don't. 

When I try and customize the size of the thumbnails in my item listings to "small", I get anything but. Usually "large" but sometimes "medium" and sometimes all three on the same page. I've tried different browsers on different computers and get the same thing. Deleting cookies and clearing cache files doesn't change anything. "small" worked fine until recently. 

 

I HATE FREE LISTING PROMOS. I cannot state that loudly enough or often enough. At least not as often as I see the same unsellable trash being repeatedly listed (sometimes more than once) during every promo. If the intention of these promos is to get some new variety in the items being listed then it ain't working. At least not in the category that I'm interested in. Browsing on eBay is becoming like going to my local fleamarket once a month. You hope to see something new but it's just the same old junk that has been sitting there forever. 

 

And while I'm ranting, I'll mention a couple of things with searches.

1) Why can't I give a search a meaningful name of my own rather than it just defaulting to some combination of the search parameters being used? 

2) Could the maximum number of saved searches be increased? I'm at the max now and given the amount of junk being listed and relisted more searches might help me filter out some of the trash. I already have a lot of searches that combine various things I'm looking for and they're complicated enough. And if I do try and change them, the system gives them some useless name - see point #1 above. I don't need 50 searches all named "Worldwide". 

 

I won't even start with eBay's shopping cart system or I'll be here all week. 

 

Message 6 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

Does combined shipping with the cart work on mobile phones?

Message 7 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

I totally ignore the notification bell. I get all mine by email which can be set up under preferences or I look at items won, items lost, etc under summary. I find it much easier than using the useless bell, and it is useless.

Message 8 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session


@pocomocomputing wrote:

Issues with ebay notifications on items bid on, won and paid for.

 

I bid on a few auctions and won some in the past few days and paid for them. I received a few in the mail and left feedback.

 

My problem is eBay notifications icon (bell symbol) on the top right. I turn off notifications messages for items bid or outbid, won, messages and thank yous for your purchase. Some keep reappearing repeatedly after I turned them off several times. It seems each morning some reappear. This morning I had 3 or 4 notifications that I won an item which I had already turned off.

 

This is extremely annoying when I get an outbid notification or you won an item message. I click on it and see that the message is for an item already won and paid for. This is driving me crazy because I wonder what I have bid or won when all have been completed when I thought I turned it off already.

 

I do not know why this is happening. I do not have experience in winning auctions or buying much on eBay. In the past years on eBay I always sold and I never bought anything on eBay at auction. Just a couple of items at fixed price over the years and that was 4-5 years ago. My recent buying experiences are new too me as to how the eBay system works.

 

I have to say these annoying repeated notifications are a terrible buying experience. I should be able to turn off a message once seen in the list under the icon at the top right and not have the repeated same message show questioning what I have done already. Very confusing.


Hey pocomocomputing,

 

Thanks for flagging this. I alerted a colleague from Buyer Experience and we will run some tests to see if we can observe the issue. I'll add this to my list of bugs to track.

Message 9 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session


@jt-libra wrote:

I sold an item to a Canadian buyer over the weekend.  She had purchased from me previously so I sent a friendly little note.

 

She said that, whenever possible, she buys from Canadian sellers.  However, she is very annoyed that when she purchases items listed in CAD, the currency changes to USD in her shopping cart at the time of payment and she ends up paying more than she had planned.  She ensured me that she had shopped on .ca.  I didn't know what to make of this; the currency doesn't change when I've made purchases, but I don't use the shopping cart ..... I usually just buy one item at a time.

 

Do you have an explanation for this, or could it simply be a glitch (however, she says it happens all the time).

 

Thanks.

 

 


Hi jt-libra,

 

I have never heard about this issue. Do you know if your buyer was on eBay.com when this happened? In any case I will need more info to look into this. To keep your buyer's information private, would you mind sending me an email with all the details you have? Also if you are still in contact with the buyer, could you ask her to write to me with her details?

 

Thanks!

Message 10 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session


@jt-libra wrote:

I sold an item to a Canadian buyer over the weekend.  She had purchased from me previously so I sent a friendly little note.

 

She said that, whenever possible, she buys from Canadian sellers.  However, she is very annoyed that when she purchases items listed in CAD, the currency changes to USD in her shopping cart at the time of payment and she ends up paying more than she had planned.  She ensured me that she had shopped on .ca.  I didn't know what to make of this; the currency doesn't change when I've made purchases, but I don't use the shopping cart ..... I usually just buy one item at a time.

 

Do you have an explanation for this, or could it simply be a glitch (however, she says it happens all the time).

 

Thanks.

 

 


 

Is it possible that she assumed the listing was in Cdn$ because that's what it shows in search on .ca and she didn't notice when she clicked on the listing that it was in U.S. $?

Message 11 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

Hi bozonet,


@bozonet wrote:
While I expect most people know the difference between "small", "medium" and "large" it seems the eBay programmers don't. 

When I try and customize the size of the thumbnails in my item listings to "small", I get anything but. Usually "large" but sometimes "medium" and sometimes all three on the same page. I've tried different browsers on different computers and get the same thing. Deleting cookies and clearing cache files doesn't change anything. "small" worked fine until recently. 


Could you give me an item number to look at and see the issue at play? Thanks!


@bozonet wrote:
I HATE FREE LISTING PROMOS. I cannot state that loudly enough or often enough. At least not as often as I see the same unsellable trash being repeatedly listed (sometimes more than once) during every promo. If the intention of these promos is to get some new variety in the items being listed then it ain't working. At least not in the category that I'm interested in. Browsing on eBay is becoming like going to my local fleamarket once a month. You hope to see something new but it's just the same old junk that has been sitting there forever. 

Thanks for your input on promos. We have dedicated teams who work full time at showing buyers the items they really want to see, so your comments are much appreciated.


@bozonet wrote:
And while I'm ranting, I'll mention a couple of things with searches.

1) Why can't I give a search a meaningful name of my own rather than it just defaulting to some combination of the search parameters being used? 


You can actually nickname your saved searches. From the Homepage, click the number of Interests you are following:

 

Electronics__Cars__Fashion__Collectibles__Coupons_and_More___eBay.jpg

 

Then click the search you want to nickname. It'll take you to this page, from there click the Refine button:

 

Electronics__Cars__Fashion__Collectibles__Coupons_and_More___eBay 2.jpg

 

You'll then be able to give your search a nickname.

 

Electronics__Cars__Fashion__Collectibles__Coupons_and_More___eBay 3.jpg

 


@bozonet wrote:
2) Could the maximum number of saved searches be increased? I'm at the max now and given the amount of junk being listed and relisted more searches might help me filter out some of the trash. I already have a lot of searches that combine various things I'm looking for and they're complicated enough. And if I do try and change them, the system gives them some useless name - see point #1 above. I don't need 50 searches all named "Worldwide". 

So I provided you with the solution to the search naming problem above. For the polluted search results, not sure I can help you. Some of your searches have thousands of hits and some have none. Can you give me an example of a problematic one and explain what items you see on there that you shouldn't? Thanks!

Message 12 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

A post on the board last night mentioned that when their listing ended and then went to relist it (they might have been using sell similar)

the default became Cdn $ and when she went to change it back to U.S. dollars, all of her business policies changed too.

 

Post 22 - http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Listing-Tools/There-is-no-option-on-the-Sell-item-page-to-list-in...

 

Hi everyone. Apparently it is a new practice put into place; not being able to list in US funds (I sell on ebay.ca) without having to change it in the drop-down menu, which is not such a big deal BUT when I do this, my default business policies automatically change (payment, shipping, returns) to policies I have not implemented/use i.e 'local pick-up'. I have removed the "local pick-up" policy from the business policies yet it still continues to automatically fill it in under Shipping. Quite frustrating. Lorraine

 
Message 13 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

Re the Canadian dollar default -- Considering nothing else changes automatically when a seller uses sell similar, it doesn't make sense to me that the Canadian dollar is the default even if the U.S. dollar was already being used in that listing.   When they first introduced the UPC rule that also disappeared with sell similar but they seem to have changed it back to what it was previously so I wonder if it is possible that will happen in this situation?

 

Is there some sort of warning/reminder that lets sellers know that is what is going to happen at the time that they are relisting. I know that some sellers have relisted in Cdn funds by accident and because the Cdn dollar is so low, they U.S. equivalent was quite a bit lower than what they had asked for in the previous listing.

Message 14 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session


@dutchman48 wrote:

Does combined shipping with the cart work on mobile phones?


Hi dutchman48,

 

The cart works the same on mobile as it does on the site. So if you're on eBay.com, items listed on eBay.ca cannot be put in the cart, but if you're on eBay.ca, they can.

Message 15 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session


@pjcdn2005 wrote:

A post on the board last night mentioned that when their listing ended and then went to relist it (they might have been using sell similar)

the default became Cdn $ and when she went to change it back to U.S. dollars, all of her business policies changed too.

 

Post 22 - http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Listing-Tools/There-is-no-option-on-the-Sell-item-page-to-list-in...

 

Hi everyone. Apparently it is a new practice put into place; not being able to list in US funds (I sell on ebay.ca) without having to change it in the drop-down menu, which is not such a big deal BUT when I do this, my default business policies automatically change (payment, shipping, returns) to policies I have not implemented/use i.e 'local pick-up'. I have removed the "local pick-up" policy from the business policies yet it still continues to automatically fill it in under Shipping. Quite frustrating. Lorraine

 

Hi pjcdn2005,

 

This looks like it's the same problem as my #2 tracked issue in my original post from today. Thanks, I'll add this to the use case.

Message 16 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session


raphael@ebay.com wrote:

@dutchman48 wrote:

Does combined shipping with the cart work on mobile phones?


Hi dutchman48,

 

The cart works the same on mobile as it does on the site. So if you're on eBay.com, items listed on eBay.ca cannot be put in the cart, but if you're on eBay.ca, they can.


Quite a few sellers on .com have said that the mobile platform doesn't work well with the cart and/or combined shipping. I haven't tried to use it, just repeating what I've read.

 

Message 17 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session


@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Re the Canadian dollar default -- Considering nothing else changes automatically when a seller uses sell similar, it doesn't make sense to me that the Canadian dollar is the default even if the U.S. dollar was already being used in that listing.   When they first introduced the UPC rule that also disappeared with sell similar but they seem to have changed it back to what it was previously so I wonder if it is possible that will happen in this situation?


Changing currency should not change anything else on the form. I'm treating this as a bug.


@pjcdn2005 wrote:
Is there some sort of warning/reminder that lets sellers know that is what is going to happen at the time that they are relisting. I know that some sellers have relisted in Cdn funds by accident and because the Cdn dollar is so low, they U.S. equivalent was quite a bit lower than what they had asked for in the previous listing.

Watch out for prominent communications on this very soon. 

Message 18 of 19
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August 26, 2015 Weekly Chat Session

This concludes the chat for this week. Thanks for participating!

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