July 29th 2015 Weekly Board Hour

[raphael@ebay.com]

Hello Canadian eBayers,

The weekly chat is back! Please start posting at your convenience, I'll be with you at 1 PM Eastern as usual.

[pocomocomputing]

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raphael@ebay.com wrote:

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@pierrelebel wrote:

Hi Raphael.

"We're not forcing anyone to use CAD or USD on their listings."

I understand that.

However, since eBay.ca has now concluded that listing in Cdn$ may yield better results for Canadian sellers, is eBay.ca planning - at a future date - to have all listings on eBay.ca in a single currency - the Canadian dollar - as eBay has on all other international sites.

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No firm decisions have been made towards that at this time.

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Does your response "No firm decisions have been made towards that at this time." mean that listing in C$ only is being considered by eBay.ca?

[pjcdn2005]

I realize that Paypal and ebay are separate but perhaps there is some way you could look into this.

If we wanted to print a shipping label for a transaction that was not printed through paypal, we could do so at paypal.com/shipnow.

That link is now removed for Canadian users. However, U.S. users can sell access their paypal.com shipnow link so was the Canadian one removed by mistake or is it a permanent change. If it is a permanent change..why is that?

We're getting conflicting answers from Paypal cs reps.

[dutchman48]

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@dutchman48 wrote:

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raphael@ebay.com wrote:

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@pierrelebel wrote:

Hi Raphael.

"We're not forcing anyone to use CAD or USD on their listings."

I understand that.

However, since eBay.ca has now concluded that listing in Cdn$ may yield better results for Canadian sellers, is eBay.ca planning - at a future date - to have all listings on eBay.ca in a single currency - the Canadian dollar - as eBay has on all other international sites.

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No firm decisions have been made towards that at this time.

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By your response, it sounds like it is being considered seriously?

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Would this give Paypal more currency conversion fees from US buyers and if we pay our Ebay fees in US dollars??

[block36]

I am on advanced tool but Cdn $ appears as first option and it is very easy to overlook it.

[pjcdn2005]

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raphael@ebay.com wrote:

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:
I don't think that the answer is that simple...it seems to be a glitch.  Normally if a seller clicks on sell similar and that listing was done on the advanced form, the new listing will also be on the advanced form. Normally if sell similar is used, the currency will be the same as the original listing currency.  But some posters have reported that when they have an active listing and they click on sell similar, the currency is in Cdn $ even though the original listing was in U.S. $.    I'm not sure if the same things happens when sell similar is used on an unsold item.

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Hi pjcdn2005,

Sell Similar works like a new listing. For sellers who are on the quick listing tool, since we've made the currency change, items listed via Sell Similar will be in CAD. They can still switch to the advanced tool if they wish to change to USD. 

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When I use sell similar the listing that comes up will still have the original listing's title, description, quantity, item specifics shipping costs, upc code. So are you saying that it will keep all of that unless I change it but  that it will change the currency and revert from the advanced form to the quick form?

[dutchman48]

To clarify some previous posts, would this US/Can $ issue give Paypal more currency conversion fees from US buyers and from Canadians who pay their Ebay fees in US dollars?

[pierrelebel]

"No firm decisions have been made towards that at this time."

  That is a very good answer!

As you know we have a federal election around the corner.  Have you considered running?

[dutchman48]

Has Raphael disappeared as the same question has been asked by 3 different people now and has not been answered yet

[dutchman48]

Raphael, where are you?

[pjcdn2005]

On June 24th you replied to a post of mine and I wanted to comment on your reply.

Here is the original post:

Re: June 24th 2015 Weekly Board Hour

in reply to pjcdn2005

‎06-24-2015 11:58 AM

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

I think that I mentioned this before but the quick listing form is very misleading for new sellers because they are only allowed to give one shipping cost to both the U.S. and the rest of the world.  Shipping costs seem to be what most new sellers have the most problems with and the form is only compounding the problem. A new seller may see that it costs $15 with delivery confirmation to send a package to the U.S. with Tracked Packet and assume that is the international price to send it to anywhere. Then when they go to send the package to their UK buyer they would find out that tracked packet is going to cost them $40+. Either they pay that money themselves or ask the buyer to pay the extra amount. In both cases, someone is going to be unhappy (and perhaps never come back to ebay) and in my opinion, the problem happened because of the way that form was set up.

Sellers who use the calculated shipping option are going to be just as confused or even  more so because the Canada Post services for the U.S. are totally different than for other countries. They may enter that the package is 100 grams 20x20x 5cm and they will be using small packet international to send the package. Because that service is not available in the U.S. their listings will only show buyers a shipping cost for the other 'international' countries and not the U.S.  That could result in lost sales for the seller because there is no U.S. shipping price in the search results.

Is anyone looking at a solution for these problems?

---

Hi pjcdn2005,

The quick listing tool is a novice seller tool, designed to simplify the listing process as much as possible by showing less options and make the end to end process shorter. Shipping is by far the most complicated part of selling on eBay, especially for Canadians. Simplifying that part obligatorily means leaving some parts out, like extra shipping services for international sales. Sellers who require more complete set of options should move to the advanced listing form, what we know as SYI.

-------------------------------------------

I don't think that it is simplifying shipping. The problem is that they seller may not realize that they need more options and assume that the form will give them what they need. New sellers don't know that different shipping options apply to different locations.  Lately I notice quite a few listings that are using flat rate shipping and they have the same price for the U.S. and international. The sellers sees just one option on the quick form, they figure out a U.S. price and assume it is the same as for other places. Then when an international buyer makes a purchase, they are stuck paying much more for shipping than what the buyer paid.

On the U.S. quick form a seller can use calculated shipping and choose any international option so that they can get the correct shipping cost for anywhere in the world because there is not a separate USPS service for Canada and a USPS service for other countries. But because our Canada Post services to the U.S. are totally different services than to everywhere else, the calculator is less effective and can be inaccurate on the quick form on the .ca site.

[pjcdn2005]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

I think that I mentioned this before but the quick listing form is very misleading for new sellers because they are only allowed to give one shipping cost to both the U.S. and the rest of the world.  Shipping costs seem to be what most new sellers have the most problems with and the form is only compounding the problem. A new seller may see that it costs $15 with delivery confirmation to send a package to the U.S. with Tracked Packet and assume that is the international price to send it to anywhere. Then when they go to send the package to their UK buyer they would find out that tracked packet is going to cost them $40+. Either they pay that money themselves or ask the buyer to pay the extra amount. In both cases, someone is going to be unhappy (and perhaps never come back to ebay) and in my opinion, the problem happened because of the way that form was set up.

Sellers who use the calculated shipping option are going to be just as confused or even  more so because the Canada Post services for the U.S. are totally different than for other countries. They may enter that the package is 100 grams 20x20x 5cm and they will be using small packet international to send the package. Because that service is not available in the U.S. their listings will only show buyers a shipping cost for the other 'international' countries and not the U.S.  That could result in lost sales for the seller because there is no U.S. shipping price in the search results.

Is anyone looking at a solution for these problems?

---

Hi pjcdn2005,

The quick listing tool is a novice seller tool, designed to simplify the listing process as much as possible by showing less options and make the end to end process shorter. Shipping is by far the most complicated part of selling on eBay, especially for Canadians. Simplifying that part obligatorily means leaving some parts out, like extra shipping services for international sales. Sellers who require more complete set of options should move to the advanced listing form, what we know as SYI.

-------------------------------------------

I don't think that it is simplifying shipping. The problem is that they seller may not realize that they need more options and assume that the form will give them what they need. New sellers don't know that different shipping options apply to different locations.  Lately I notice quite a few listings that are using flat rate shipping and they have the same price for the U.S. and international. The sellers sees just one option on the quick form, they figure out a U.S. price and assume it is the same as for other places. Then when an international buyer makes a purchase, they are stuck paying much more for shipping than what the buyer paid.

[pjcdn2005]

On the U.S. quick form a seller can use calculated shipping and choose any international option so that they can get the correct shipping cost for anywhere in the world because there is not a separate USPS service for Canada and a USPS service for other countries. But because our Canada Post services to the U.S. are totally different services than to everywhere else, the calculator is less effective and can be inaccurate on the quick form on the .ca site.

[pjcdn2005]

Regarding the question about paypal.com/shipnow...

The link is also used by sellers when they want to figure out a shipping price for a specific location that includes the paypal discount. The canada post site obviously doesn't give us an accurate price if we use paypal shipping.

[pjcdn2005]

To be fair, Raphael did start posting over an hour before the usual time so perhaps he needs to take a break from posting to do something else.

[rose-dee]

You've made it clear in previous Board Hours that there is virtually no likelihood the ".com cart disconnect" will be resolved anytime soon.  

My question is, will eBay reimburse Canadian sellers for all those extra, individual FVFs they've paid over the past year or so on shipping charges where the seller has reimbursed buyers for excess shipping on multi-item orders? That is, will eBay reimburse sellers for the FVFs that would not have been charged had the .com cart functioned properly? 

For example, I have had buyers who managed to purchase more than 1 item by buying them individually, paying the individual shipping as well.  I always, as a matter of honesty, refund my buyers' excess shipping where such items can be combined and shipped at a lower rate, or where (had the cart functioned), my automatic discounts would have applied.  Surely this scenario must happen many times every day, and eBay is quietly and unfairly pocketing the extra fees. 

Will eBay.ca set up some kind of automated function to deal with refunding sellers' excess FVFs on shipping in these situations?  Or must we continue to do battle with Customer Service for hours on the phone and in many cases get denied?

[rose-dee]

On the SYI currency question, I've found on testing today that if I choose a current listing and click on "Sell Similar", the listing form that comes up no longer brings with it the original listing currency (in my case it's always $US).  

There is now a drop-down box near the top of the 'Sell Similar' form that reads "Canadian $" by default.  Frankly, if I hadn't seen the posts on this issue recently, I might never have known and would end up stuck with listings in a currency I didn't want, and have to delete those listing(s).  

A seller has to now be aware that the $US option is there and manually select it.  Many sellers (especially newer ones) will never notice that that box has another alternative available. 

So it seems to me that eBay is already shepherding sellers into de facto listing in $Cdn.  Can you tell us why?

[raphael@ebay.com]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

I realize that Paypal and ebay are separate but perhaps there is some way you could look into this.

If we wanted to print a shipping label for a transaction that was not printed through paypal, we could do so at paypal.com/shipnow.

That link is now removed for Canadian users. However, U.S. users can sell access their paypal.com shipnow link so was the Canadian one removed by mistake or is it a permanent change. If it is a permanent change..why is that?

We're getting conflicting answers from Paypal cs reps.

---

Originally the current PayPal labels platform was supposed to be only for eBay sellers. The ship now link had to be removed because it provided access to eBay subsidized rates to non eBay sellers.

Today the situation is different, and now that PayPal is on its own, we have no more visibility on what they plan to do with their labels platform, in Canada or in the US. What I can say is that the current offer for CA eBay sellers will remain up for the time being.

[raphael@ebay.com]

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@block36 wrote:

I am on advanced tool but Cdn $ appears as first option and it is very easy to overlook it.

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It's true that the advanced tool, which used to default to USD, now defaults to CAD. The reasoning behind our strategy to default all CA listing flows to CAD will be explained in detail in an upcoming announcement. 

[raphael@ebay.com]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:
When I use sell similar the listing that comes up will still have the original listing's title, description, quantity, item specifics shipping costs, upc code. So are you saying that it will keep all of that unless I change it but  that it will change the currency and revert from the advanced form to the quick form?

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Sell Similar should take you into the listing flow in which the original listing was created.

When you click you Sell Similar, it will keep all parameters the same, except price, which will be stripped off and the currency changed to CAD, keeping you on the listing tool that was originally used.

[raphael@ebay.com]

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@dutchman48 wrote:

Has Raphael disappeared as the same question has been asked by 3 different people now and has not been answered yet

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I'm here I'm here! Sorry I was kept away for a little while.

[jt-libra]

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pjcdn2005 wrote:

I realize that Paypal and ebay are separate but perhaps there is some way you could look into this.

If we wanted to print a shipping label for a transaction that was not printed through paypal, we could do so at paypal.com/shipnow.

That link is now removed for Canadian users. However, U.S. users can sell access their paypal.com shipnow link so was the Canadian one removed by mistake or is it a permanent change. If it is a permanent change..why is that?

We're getting conflicting answers from Paypal cs reps.

_________________________________________________________

This is an important issue for many sellers and a fairly lengthy thread on this subject was started (by me) last night.  There are many reasons why we would want to use a blank label, not least of which is to obtain estimated shipping costs for our listings.  It's my understanding that U.S. sellers are still able to avail themselves of this option, but Canadian sellers cannot.

Do you know anything about this?

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[raphael@ebay.com]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

On June 24th you replied to a post of mine and I wanted to comment on your reply.

Here is the original post:

Re: June 24th 2015 Weekly Board Hour

in reply to pjcdn2005

‎06-24-2015 11:58 AM

---

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

I think that I mentioned this before but the quick listing form is very misleading for new sellers because they are only allowed to give one shipping cost to both the U.S. and the rest of the world.  Shipping costs seem to be what most new sellers have the most problems with and the form is only compounding the problem. A new seller may see that it costs $15 with delivery confirmation to send a package to the U.S. with Tracked Packet and assume that is the international price to send it to anywhere. Then when they go to send the package to their UK buyer they would find out that tracked packet is going to cost them $40+. Either they pay that money themselves or ask the buyer to pay the extra amount. In both cases, someone is going to be unhappy (and perhaps never come back to ebay) and in my opinion, the problem happened because of the way that form was set up.

Sellers who use the calculated shipping option are going to be just as confused or even  more so because the Canada Post services for the U.S. are totally different than for other countries. They may enter that the package is 100 grams 20x20x 5cm and they will be using small packet international to send the package. Because that service is not available in the U.S. their listings will only show buyers a shipping cost for the other 'international' countries and not the U.S.  That could result in lost sales for the seller because there is no U.S. shipping price in the search results.

Is anyone looking at a solution for these problems?

---

Hi pjcdn2005,

The quick listing tool is a novice seller tool, designed to simplify the listing process as much as possible by showing less options and make the end to end process shorter. Shipping is by far the most complicated part of selling on eBay, especially for Canadians. Simplifying that part obligatorily means leaving some parts out, like extra shipping services for international sales. Sellers who require more complete set of options should move to the advanced listing form, what we know as SYI.

-------------------------------------------

I don't think that it is simplifying shipping. The problem is that they seller may not realize that they need more options and assume that the form will give them what they need. New sellers don't know that different shipping options apply to different locations.  Lately I notice quite a few listings that are using flat rate shipping and they have the same price for the U.S. and international. The sellers sees just one option on the quick form, they figure out a U.S. price and assume it is the same as for other places. Then when an international buyer makes a purchase, they are stuck paying much more for shipping than what the buyer paid.

On the U.S. quick form a seller can use calculated shipping and choose any international option so that they can get the correct shipping cost for anywhere in the world because there is not a separate USPS service for Canada and a USPS service for other countries. But because our Canada Post services to the U.S. are totally different services than to everywhere else, the calculator is less effective and can be inaccurate on the quick form on the .ca site.

---

I totally get what you're saying. The seller in your example should then use the SYI instead of the quick listing tool.

The quick listing tool is intended for sellers who list occasionally and don't necessarily offer a completely tailored array of shipping services for worldwide buyers.

[raphael@ebay.com]

---

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

I think that I mentioned this before but the quick listing form is very misleading for new sellers because they are only allowed to give one shipping cost to both the U.S. and the rest of the world.  Shipping costs seem to be what most new sellers have the most problems with and the form is only compounding the problem. A new seller may see that it costs $15 with delivery confirmation to send a package to the U.S. with Tracked Packet and assume that is the international price to send it to anywhere. Then when they go to send the package to their UK buyer they would find out that tracked packet is going to cost them $40+. Either they pay that money themselves or ask the buyer to pay the extra amount. In both cases, someone is going to be unhappy (and perhaps never come back to ebay) and in my opinion, the problem happened because of the way that form was set up.

Sellers who use the calculated shipping option are going to be just as confused or even  more so because the Canada Post services for the U.S. are totally different than for other countries. They may enter that the package is 100 grams 20x20x 5cm and they will be using small packet international to send the package. Because that service is not available in the U.S. their listings will only show buyers a shipping cost for the other 'international' countries and not the U.S.  That could result in lost sales for the seller because there is no U.S. shipping price in the search results.

Is anyone looking at a solution for these problems?

---

Hi pjcdn2005,

The quick listing tool is a novice seller tool, designed to simplify the listing process as much as possible by showing less options and make the end to end process shorter. Shipping is by far the most complicated part of selling on eBay, especially for Canadians. Simplifying that part obligatorily means leaving some parts out, like extra shipping services for international sales. Sellers who require more complete set of options should move to the advanced listing form, what we know as SYI.

-------------------------------------------

I don't think that it is simplifying shipping. The problem is that they seller may not realize that they need more options and assume that the form will give them what they need. New sellers don't know that different shipping options apply to different locations.  Lately I notice quite a few listings that are using flat rate shipping and they have the same price for the U.S. and international. The sellers sees just one option on the quick form, they figure out a U.S. price and assume it is the same as for other places. Then when an international buyer makes a purchase, they are stuck paying much more for shipping than what the buyer paid.

[raphael@ebay.com]

On the U.S. quick form a seller can use calculated shipping and choose any international option so that they can get the correct shipping cost for anywhere in the world because there is not a separate USPS service for Canada and a USPS service for other countries. But because our Canada Post services to the U.S. are totally different services than to everywhere else, the calculator is less effective and can be inaccurate on the quick form on the .ca site.