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Hello everyone,
Lots to talk about this week, it seems 🙂
Please go ahead and post your questions and comments. I won't ask you to restrict on the topics, although if you think what you want to ask about the retirement of USD selling or the 2016 Spring Seller Update could benefit others who may not see this thread, please consider posting in those respective threads as well.
Open issues:
- Odd missing gallery picture in search results
- Errors when uploading more than one tracking number at a time (repeated, erroneous numbers saved)
Updates:
- Wrong tax rates applied to PayPal labels - I have asked PayPal and Pitney Bowes for an update
- Missing Tracked Packet destinations -I have asked PayPal and Pitney Bowes for an update
- Sold items going into Unsold container - Team is investigating
- Combined shipping offers not shown to international buyers - under investigation with shipping team
raphael@ebay.com wrote:Hello everyone,
Lots to talk about this week, it seems 🙂
Please go ahead and post your questions and comments. I won't ask you to restrict on the topics, although if you think what you want to ask about the retirement of USD selling or the 2016 Spring Seller Update could benefit others who may not see this thread, please consider posting in those respective threads as well.
Open issues:
- Odd missing gallery picture in search results
- Errors when uploading more than one tracking number at a time (repeated, erroneous numbers saved)
Updates:
- Wrong tax rates applied to PayPal labels - I have asked PayPal and Pitney Bowes for an update
- Missing Tracked Packet destinations -I have asked PayPal and Pitney Bowes for an update
- Sold items going into Unsold container - Team is investigating
- Combined shipping offers not shown to international buyers - under investigation with shipping team
Hello, Raphael. How are you this morning?
Alex
Good morning.
For the last four days, I have an issue with my eBay store where email to be sent to eBay members on my mailing list are not sent.
Your system first state that 233 emails have been sent to subscribers, then, six to twelve hours later, shows FAILED and no email sent. I have used the duplicate options several times with the same result.
Am I the only Canadian seller with an eBay store with this problem or is it widespread?
@x..e wrote:
raphael@ebay.com wrote:
Hello everyone,
Lots to talk about this week, it seems 🙂
Please go ahead and post your questions and comments. I won't ask you to restrict on the topics, although if you think what you want to ask about the retirement of USD selling or the 2016 Spring Seller Update could benefit others who may not see this thread, please consider posting in those respective threads as well.
Open issues:
- Odd missing gallery picture in search results
- Errors when uploading more than one tracking number at a time (repeated, erroneous numbers saved)
Updates:
- Wrong tax rates applied to PayPal labels - I have asked PayPal and Pitney Bowes for an update
- Missing Tracked Packet destinations -I have asked PayPal and Pitney Bowes for an update
- Sold items going into Unsold container - Team is investigating
- Combined shipping offers not shown to international buyers - under investigation with shipping team
Hello, Raphael. How are you this morning?
Alex
Hello Alex, I'm well today, thanks! How are you?
Hi pocomo,
@pocomocomputing wrote:
eBay Business Policies system, how to convert a listing in USD with Business Policies to a CAD listing with Business Policies.
Someone has posted issue with converting listings in this topic and they seem to be using Business Policies.
I asked the OP if they are so not sure. But it does raise the question of how to convert listings for Sellers using Business Policies.
I am using Business Policies on my eBay ids. I like the concept and for the most part Business Policies are easy to use once done. I think very few sellers are using Business Policies since the implementation for converting is a real confusing mess.
I was looking into this and it seems the Currency Selection is in two places when using Business Policies. It is in the Sell Your Item form at the top when creating a listing and it is in the Shipping Policy also.
To me the safe procedure to convert a listing to CAD with Business Polices would be as follows. I only list in CAD on eBay.ca so I have no experience doing this.
1) Create a new Shipping policy from scratch with the currency in CAD.
Do not copy a Shipping Policy in USD and change it to CAD and save as a new Shipping Policy since I think this will confuse the system.
Do not try to change the existing live Shipping policy in USD to CAD since active listings in USD will be running. I do not know if this is even possible to change currency in a Shipping Policy on the fly like this. Past experience with changing a policy while active listings are using it sometimes results in a copy being made, one for the changed policy while keeping the original unchanged in active listings.
2) When relisting ended listings (UnSold and Sold), use Sell Similar to create a fresh listing and have the ability to change currency in the SYI. Then select the Shipping Policy that is in CAD to go with the listings. Make other changes to the Item Price from USD amount to CAD amount.
I am posting the above for Sellers using Business Policies to use as it seems to be the safe way to convert a listing. Can you confirm the above would be the way to do it?
Also, is the migration tool going to be able to handle sellers with Business Polices? Without making a mess of duplicate Business Polices with strange names and such as was the case with the initial conversion to Business policies?
Another issue with the OP is that they are using shipping discounts in their USD listings. How is eBay handling shipping discounts for the migration? What should a seller do who uses them? (This question is not just for Business Policies users, for any seller using shipping discounts.)
Converting to CAD when you're on Business Policies is really as simple as creating a shipping policy in CAD that mirrors the one(s) you are currently using on your CAD listings. Contrary to what you're saying, there is little risk in doing this by changing the currency (and converting the shipping and handling prices, if applicable) and saving as a new policy, Just make sure both are named in a way that makes it easy to know what they are. For example, I use a format like this:
- Default Flat Rate (USD)
- Default Flat Rate (CAD)
- etc.
I then select the appropriate one when I list or relist in CAD.
For shipping discounts, like for Business Policies, users will have to create equivalents in CAD and use that on their new CAD listings.
@pierrelebel wrote:
Good morning.
For the last four days, I have an issue with my eBay store where email to be sent to eBay members on my mailing list are not sent.
Your system first state that 233 emails have been sent to subscribers, then, six to twelve hours later, shows FAILED and no email sent. I have used the duplicate options several times with the same result.
Am I the only Canadian seller with an eBay store with this problem or is it widespread?
Hi Pierre,
I can't tell if it is widespread but I haven't seen any reports on it other than yours. I have asked the appropriate team to investigate.
Thanks for reporting!
Hello Gabriel,
Lately, some GSP items are showing no "import charges" to Canada even though they are above our miserable $20 tax-free limit. I took this screen grab as an example:
Is this yet another unannounced experiment by eBay, to try to find a way to make the GSP palatable for Canadian buyers? This kind of tinkering isn't good. How do buyers know that "import charges" aren't going to suddenly jump at them the moment they hit the "Buy" button? I don't buy GSP items on principle but if I did, I wouldn't touch those with a barge pole.
Why can't eBay be transparent with us? Give us the facts that we need to make informed buying decisions. Better yet, since it's obvious that many Canadian buyers hate the GSP and want nothing to do with it, why not give them the GSP filter that they want? Forcing your customers to look at items they do not want to buy is not a very good business practice. Those who do want to see GSP items would simply not use the filter.
I realize that these are decisions that are likely not made in Canada, but I wonder if maybe you could pass them on to the "appropriate team".
Thank you.
Hello rose-dee, long time!
@rose-dee wrote:
I have some real concerns about the details, especially this:
"The new View Item description for mobile features a clean and consistent item description summary. eBay derives a brief, 250-character, text-only description summary from your full item description. This provides relevant listing information that allows shoppers to make fast, informed buying decisions."
For the summary, we determine which content in your full item description is most relevant by identifying keywords that shoppers use to search for your items.
[My emphasis above]. So, if I understand this correctly, eBay will now be "writing" a précis of my item description for me in order to satisfy mobile viewing requirements?
In a nutshell, yes.
@rose-dee wrote:
If so, my questions are this:
(a) Will I, as seller, still be held responsible for the content of my entire listing, including eBay's derived summary?
As a seller, you are always responsible for the entirety of your listing. However you can specify what you want included in the summary. See below.
@rose-dee wrote:
(b) If there is a discrepancy, error, ambiguity, outright misrepresentation (inadvertent of course - how can a "bot" know?) or inconsistency in eBay's summary that causes the buyer to be dissatisfied or file a SNAD claim, how will that complaint or claim be handled by eBay?
For productized items, we are confident that our algorithm is going to produce an accurate summary. For more unique items, we recommend that the seller writes a succinct description or specifies what parts should be included in the summary. In any case, if it is proven that eBay caused a buyer to report a SNAD, we will protect the seller.
@rose-dee wrote:
(c) How can we sellers be certain that eBay's summary will actually better represent our item and encourage a sale sooner than something we write ourselves?
The best way to ensure the summary is to your taste is to either write a succinct enough description that it will be put in the summary in its entirety, or to use HTML tagging to specify which part should be in the summary.
@rose-dee wrote:
(d) I know you will say that if sellers don't like eBay writing our descriptions, we should either write them ourselves (in HTML, which many of us don't know how to use), or keep our descriptions under 800 words. However, this latter option ironically means that those of us who know our buyer base is generally older and uses laptops or PCs will be forced to decide to either have our items described in less detail, or leave eBay to do the writing.
So my question is this: Will these summaries by eBay display only if a buyer is looking at the item on a mobile device, or on all devices?
Summaries will also be shown on the web, above the fold (meaning the part of the item page that is visible without scrolling down at all).
I would like to reassure you though that the HTML coding required to specify your own summary, as scary and complicated as it sounds, is pretty easy to grasp. You don't have to "write in HTML" per se. HTML is a mainly system of coded tags that wraps around the text you want to appear, or behave, a certain way. Here is an example of the how it works:
<html tag>Text affected by the tag</html tag>
In this example, you have the opening tag, which would contain code that specifies what you want to do with the text, followed by the actual text, and finally the closing tag, which is usually the same as the opening tag, preceded by a slash. Another example, if I wanted to have one word in a sentence appear in bold:
The last word in this sentence will appear in <bold>bold</bold>.
The result would be:
The last word in this sentence will appear in bold.
You can practice HTML tagging when posting in the forums BTW, by using the HTML tab when composing your posts.
Here is an example, from our announcement FAQ, of the actual coding that you'll be able to use for specifying which part of your description should be used as a summary. I have highlighted the HTML tags so you can spot them easily:
<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Product"><span property="description">This paragraph contains almost 800 characters of text to be displayed in the mobile item description. And the text in this paragraph through this sentence contains 250 characters, which is the amount we will display without any actions on your part. When you tag this paragraph with these simple HTML breaks, the content will be displayed to shoppers looking at your item. This will allow the shopper to see the key information you want to display, without them having to click through to the complete description. If your complete description is 800 characters or less and uses basic HTML we will display the entire description without any action by you—so the best practice is to keep it within 800 characters. If you have a long description, make it easy for your buyers by using this option. </span></div>
If you save these tags somewhere and just like in the example, put them at the beginning and end of the text you want to use as a summary, you'll be all set.
@ecgt wrote:
I am having a problem today with combined shipping for a Canadian buyer. After combining the invoice, I cannot enter the order details. Instead I am getting this error:
The following critical errors have occurred.
ERROR - UNABLE_TO_GET_DATA_FROM_SERVICE
My client is also unable to pay for the items: The invoice shows up properly at first, but during the steps in checkout all of a sudden four of the five items from the invoice go missing and checkout tries to charge him for one item only (ignoring the other items and combined shipping). Any idea as to what is going on here?
Hi ecgt,
Please provide the item number so we can trouble shoot. Thanks!
Hi vintagenorth,
@vintagenorth wrote:
I'm confused about the 250 characters/800 words too! No smart phone here to see this. Not sure if this looks the same as on my iPad. I really can't figure out how to describe properly (with sizes and measurements which are a must for most of my items) in 250 characters. No one would buy if they didn't have this info.
You can still write a full length description. Measurements and sizes charts aren't great in a summary anyway. Keep in mind that the summary is only meant for give a prospective buyer a more detailed, albeit still only general idea of what they are looking at. Think of it as a written equivalent of the item picture. Buyers should still go to the actual description to know about finer details like measurements.
@vintagenorth wrote:
And is a table considered "active"?
A chart isn't active content. Active content is things like interactive modules, script or code that executes when the page loads. Charts are still just text.
