Hello everyone,
Welcome to our weekly session. As usual, I'll be around for most of the day and possibly until tomorrow.
Here are the issues I am currently tracking:
- UPC codes suddenly not recognized on live listings (mjwl2006)
And the issues for which I have had news:
- Notifications reappearing in the header (pocomocomputing) - Fixed
- Full shipping FVF charged on combined orders with discounted shipping (dutchman48) - The billing team is investigating on this.
- Listings allowed to go live without a photo (rose-dee) - This is a known bug that is being worked on.
- SYI stripping the weight off when switching back to USD on an item that was originally in USD and set up with calculated shipping (block36) + stripping Item Specifics when attempting to update Handling price or time - bug has been logged and work has begun.
- SYI preventing relist and Sell Similar if the original listing had a non compliant photo (pierrelebel) - problem has been identified and I am engaging with the relevant team to address.
@mjwl2006 wrote:
@pierrelebel wrote:
A policy question.
Somewhere eBay states: 'Please note that eBay does not permit sellers to accept cash payments sent by mail "
What exactly does it mean? We know we cannot suggest in our listings that cash is welcome. But what happens to the seller who receives cash in the mail because that is the way the buyer decided to pay (whatever the buyer's reasons)?
Is this an infraction? If so, how can it be monitored?
It's on the bottom of each and every ebay.ca invoice that I send, pierrelebel. I promise you that it isn't a detail of my own creation. But I too would appreciate clarification as it has come up as a question for me as well, one posed by my buyers at one time or another.
The thing to tell buyers who ask is that it's super risky to send cash in the mail. It's 100% untraceable and it's unlikely that eBay would be able to cover the buyer in case anything bad happened.
@dutchman48 wrote:
Hi Raphael
Are the new listing quotas posted in announcements this month permanent or just an incentive for the holidays. That is 20 + 20 will now be 50 and store from 150 to 200 listings. The announcement as usual was not very clear.
Also the time frame which is the 15th instead of 1st. Will we get our normal quota until the 15th and then a new quota for the rest of the month and what happens on Nov 1?
As far as I know, it's a permanent change, until the next update. 
EDIT: The free listing cycle isn't moving to the 15th of the month. You are still going to get X free listings per calendar month. The new system starts on Oct 15th, all this means is that if you had 12 free listings used out of 20 on Oct 14th, you'll have 12 used out of 50 on the 15th.
@rose-dee wrote:
raphael@ebay.com wrote:
@mjwl2006 wrote:
Great to hear of your recent good fortune, rose-dee. May I hazard a guess? Theory One is that many casual Canadian buyers are unaware that there is an ebay.ca and pay little or no attention to what site they log into and don't realize when it might be ebay.com or ebay.ca. They will probably go to ebay.com automatically since we are more familiar with the idea of a dotcom address. Or they might bypass ebay.ca altogether for the greater selection perceived to exist (true or otherwise) on ebay.com. Theory Two is that brand, spanking sparkly new listings achieve higher rank in Best Match search results... especially if both the seller and the seeker are identified as from the same geographical region. (Pardon me for butting-in. You may certainly tell me to MYOB, Raphael, and/or correct me if I am incorrect.)
Hi Maureen,
I'd say your hypotheses are pretty good. Both may be true, but I think what rose-dee is seeing is a result of many things, not the least of which is simple luck.
Yes, I agree Raphael that luck may be a good part of the explanation. Yet it's unfortunate -- and rather difficult to take -- that all my hard work has boiled down to nothing but luck! I might as well just throw up my hands and do whatever.
With respect to exposure, I'm not sure I can agree with 'mj's' theory, since it was my understanding that whether a Canadian buyer logged onto .com or .ca, he/she would see the same items, provided shipping was shown to Canada on each (which I do). Am I wrong in that? Will Canadian buyers who log onto .com not see everything listed on .ca even if shipping to Canada is offered?
The "brand new listings" theory doesn't hold water either, since I've frequently posted groups of new listings on eBay.ca for years, with absolutely no effect on my Canadian sales. Ironically, those have been many of the same kinds of listings that sold to my Canadian buyers in this particularly anomaly. Maybe I shouldn't use that word "anomaly", it will jinx the whole thing.
Another irony is that I decided I could no longer offer free shipping to Canada on most of the items I listed on .com because of the increased shipping FVFs (I used to take advantage of the $0 domestic shipping charge when listing on .ca because I knew I'd have few Canadian buyers, but that no longer works on the .com side, where "domestic" is U.S., and shipping most of my items is more expensive). So the items that sold to Canadians this week did not have free shipping, as they would have had on the .ca side -- and I don't "pad" my prices to absorb the shipping costs either. Bizarre.
It would be so helpful to know what it was that created this little blip, other than mere fate. I just wish there was more method and less madness to the process of listing and selling on eBay.
As I said -- twisted noodle effect. Rather sad that it may have simply come down to plain old good luck.
Just to make sure I express myself correctly: I'm not saying it's sheer luck. I'm saying it's nearly impossible to boil it down to what it actually was. With that said, you have a recipe that seems to be working right now, best is probably to continue using it.
@dutchman48 wrote:
Hi Raphael
I would like your honest opinion as it is getting ridiculous. Ebay took off the main page that combined shipping is offered if more than 1 item is purchased.
I use to have a long explanation of combined shipping terms and conditions but we both know people don't read and on phones it does not show up any way.
I just had another buyer on .com and listed on .com buy 4 items and made 4 payments.
This is getting to be a great deal of extra work, time, and money that should not be happening or necessary if Ebay did what they are supposed to do instead of hiding everything. They are not helping buyers or sellers but I am starting to figure out they could care less.
All Ebay cares about is the big box stores and Chinese mega sellers and the rest of us can keep, paying their constant theft with fees on shipping that is not refunded.
Please give me the items numbers of the 4 items in question. These should have been combinable as we have discussed last week.
@dutchman48 wrote:
raphael@ebay.com wrote:
@dutchman48 wrote:
Hi Raphael
I would like your honest opinion as it is getting ridiculous. Ebay took off the main page that combined shipping is offered if more than 1 item is purchased.
I use to have a long explanation of combined shipping terms and conditions but we both know people don't read and on phones it does not show up any way.
I just had another buyer on .com and listed on .com buy 4 items and made 4 payments.
This is getting to be a great deal of extra work, time, and money that should not be happening or necessary if Ebay did what they are supposed to do instead of hiding everything. They are not helping buyers or sellers but I am starting to figure out they could care less.
All Ebay cares about is the big box stores and Chinese mega sellers and the rest of us can keep, paying their constant theft with fees on shipping that is not refunded.
Please give me the items numbers of the 4 items in question. These should have been combinable as we have discussed last week.
Hi Rapael
He is up to 6 and I emailed him as he has bought before. He says he is not computer literate and of course the combined notices is buried in the shipping details in small print,.. Hence why I asked why Ebay removed the notification from the main page so buyer would see it right away.
I'm really sorry but I can't help if you don't give me something to look at. Also can you be more specific about the combined shipping part that you say we have removed?
Thanks.
@dutchman48 wrote:
raphael@ebay.com wrote:
@dutchman48 wrote:
raphael@ebay.com wrote:
@dutchman48 wrote:
Hi Raphael
I would like your honest opinion as it is getting ridiculous. Ebay took off the main page that combined shipping is offered if more than 1 item is purchased.
I use to have a long explanation of combined shipping terms and conditions but we both know people don't read and on phones it does not show up any way.
I just had another buyer on .com and listed on .com buy 4 items and made 4 payments.
This is getting to be a great deal of extra work, time, and money that should not be happening or necessary if Ebay did what they are supposed to do instead of hiding everything. They are not helping buyers or sellers but I am starting to figure out they could care less.
All Ebay cares about is the big box stores and Chinese mega sellers and the rest of us can keep, paying their constant theft with fees on shipping that is not refunded.
Please give me the items numbers of the 4 items in question. These should have been combinable as we have discussed last week.
Hi Rapael
He is up to 6 and I emailed him as he has bought before. He says he is not computer literate and of course the combined notices is buried in the shipping details in small print,.. Hence why I asked why Ebay removed the notification from the main page so buyer would see it right away.
I'm really sorry but I can't help if you don't give me something to look at. Also can you be more specific about the combined shipping part that you say we have removed?
Thanks.
If I remember correctly, did it not show something to the effect Buy more from this seller and save on shipping. Or something to that effect.
I will email you direct with then 6 item numbers
It does say that on the shipping details tab IF there is a combined shipping rule that applies for the item in question.
@pocomocomputing wrote:
That particular seller who asked the questions has a store so categories have different FVF rates so listing in a wrong category can lower FVF charged.
Another question I have is why does the SYI form not show the FVF rate being charged in the summary on the second page. I think it should be shown.
As for policy violations, I think you should send a suggestions to San Jose that they be shown in their new Seller Dashboard.
Ah, thanks for adding that detail. If they have a store then yes, they would be in violation of the miscategorization policy if they use a patently wrong category in order to lower their fees.
The SYI doesn't show the FVF simply because at the time of listing, only in case of a Fixed Price listing with no Best Offer do we actually know what the FVF will be. Usually we want to stay away from statements such as "if x, your final value fee would be y" because these just create more confusion.
Thanks for the recommendation regarding showing policy violations in the Seller Dashboard.
dutchman48 wrote:
I will email you direct with then 6 item numbers
I'm not able to see anything wrong with these items, or with any of your live listings for that matter. All the ones you listed on eBay.com have the Add to Cart button on that same site.
I'm going to propose that your buyer, being unsavvy, might simply have opted to click Buy It Now instead of Add to Cart.
@amya4295 wrote:
Good Afternoon,
Rose-dee brings up some interesting points on why she has suddenly seen an increase in domestic sales which I guess transpires into an increase in visibility of her items.
I am about to flog a very dead horse but wonder why we don't know all of the factors that contribute to "best match" searches. I listed an item a couple of weeks ago, an item that I anticipated would sell fairly quickly as I know the brand and have sold many of mine before, only for it to sit to date, with only a few watchers and hits. When I searched my own item using the default of "best match" it appeared on the bottom of page 3 of 4 pages. The very first item to appear in best match was a seller with 98.6% and 6 negatives in the last 12 months, considerably less feedback than me, not store like me, not a TRS like me, not as many pictures as me and she charged for shipping and I offered free shipping. I understand that there are many factors that come in to play for visibility but why would this seller be rewarded with the first placement on page 1? You explained to Rose-dee that there are many factors and reasons that she is seeing an influx of sales suddenly, is she ranking hiring in best match now because she is in dot com? Can't you share all of those factors with us so that we can become better sellers and have more success? There must be formulas somewhere to explain this.
Maintaining 100% positive feedback, zero defects and happy buyers is hard work. Is that not part of the best match formula.
Thanks for your time.
Hello amya4295,
Internally at eBay, we have a saying about Best Match, that it's so complicated that no one really knows exactly how it works. 
Obviously this is just for giggles, so here is what I can say about how Best Match works.
Best Match ensures that buyers see the best items from the best sellers. To do this, it considers many factors, such as:
- The listing’s Relevance to the buyer's search
- The item’s Popularity with buyers
- The listing’s Value to buyers
- The listing’s Completeness and Quality
- The listing's Terms Of Service (such as return policy and handling time)
- The seller's Track Record or risk profile on eBay
All factors combined together create a score for each listing. When Best Match takes a search and organizes it into results, the scores of each listing are compared and ordered into the results a buyer sees.
In addition to these basic factors, Best Match also monitors listings' performance in terms of impressions (how many times is the listing shown to buyers in search results), clicks (how many times buyers viewed the listing) and for multi-quantity listings, the ratio of impressions to sales as well.
All this to say that a seller's performance overall is but a small part of what Best Match looks at. In rose-dee's case, it's not plausible that she enjoys a better placement in Best Match simply because she is now listing on eBay.com, and because the field of possible things that may have influenced her results is so vast, I can't pinpoint anything specific with any certainty.
@mjwl2006 wrote:
Will ebay Canada be announcing their Entrepreneur award recipients?
http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m10/i06/s05
I would like to offer my congratulations to these three outstanding women in business.
We have!
Everyone,
I will be stepping away for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I'll leave the thread open overnight and come back tomorrow to respond to remaining posts and close the discussion.
Thanks!
