eBay

avionsunantiques · ‎05-30-2018

Tyler@ebay.ca

How long does it take for ebay to get the following problems fixed one bay.ca (its been months, without change)

I created 292582741926 a couple of days ago (ebay.ca auction on avionsunantiques to see if any of the ebay.ca problems have been fixed - no they're are still there)

The most simple one (and must be simple to fix), is the RED LETTER WARNING that a US buyer gets when they look at my ebay.ca listing, which says SHIPPING COST CANNOT BE CALCULATED. PLEASE ENTER A VALID POSTAL CODE. (the correct shipping cost is actually provided, provided the potential bidder gets past that big RED LETTER warning.

ALL the non US international lookers, get their own special "get lost" message from ebay which reads

This item will ship to COUNTRY NAME HERE, but the seller has not specified shipping options. Contact the seller- opens in a new window or tab and request a shipping method to your location. (again the actual mail cost is provided elsewhere if the potential buyer gets past that warning message).

femmefan1946 · ‎05-30-2018

tyler@ebayThis has been reported over and over.

@avionsunantiques

Just in case, do your dimensions and weights match with the applicable ones for the service you specify?

happy_pigeon · ‎05-30-2018

Hello @avionsunantiques,

I find that this error happens most often when shipping to the US is offered, but a shipping service isn't specified during the shipping flow.

For example, in the screenshot below, you have probably checked off the box for United States under Ship To, but haven't chosen a shipping service from the drop-down menu under Services

Can you revise your listing and give that a try?

avionsunantiques · ‎05-30-2018

Hi Femmefan1946

Yes my package dimensions and weight match the services I specify. Everything is perfect at my end. I'm even using metric measurements, and a brand new listing (ie can't be blamed on a "sell similar" template)

avionsunantiques · ‎05-30-2018

Hi Happy_pigeon, thanks for your thoughts.

Thanks for your suggestion, however it does not apply in my case.

There is nothing missing from my listing.

In this case, US is checked, and canadapost expedited is the delivery method selected.

For international, the selected methods are Canadapost Air Parcel and Canadapost Xpresspost

The dimensions for the package are provided together with its weight. All of which are well within the limits of the selected delivery methods.

This is not a user problem, this is a software problem at ebay that has been reported over and over and over again for months.

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-30-2018

@happy_pigeon

If you check that listing that the op mentioned in his first post you'll see that the shipping cost is showing so there is not a problem with the dimensions or the choice of service but if the buyer clicks on the shipping tab they see a message that shipping costs cannot be calculated. It isn't a matter of the buyer not being able to buy but it can be confusing for the buyer as well as very unprofessional.

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-30-2018

@avionsunantiques

You had posted something similar on the promo thread on the seller's board and I replied to it there before I saw your post here. If interested, you might want to check for replies/comments on that thread.

avionsunantiques · ‎05-30-2018

Thank you pjcdn2005

Very unprofessional is the key word here.

It is deeply disturbing that ebay.ca chooses not to fix what must be a very small error.

It suggests that ebay.ca has little idea of what is actually occurring on their site.

Either that, or the people on the front line are ignored when they make a request to fix obvious errors.

Ultimately it translates into an ebay, that is not nearly as good as it once was as a selling platform.

To give you an example. I buy unwanted items at local auctions, without internet exposure - with the theory being that an item can be purchased in an unwanted market, and then reoffered and sold for more, in a larger (global) internet market.

I can buy an item for $100 locally, which I see selling recently on ebay for $200-300. I put that item on ebay in a 10 day unreserved auction starting at $9.99 and it will get no watchers, and no bids. Or worse yet, someone (usually a repeat buyer), will buy it will a single bid of $9.99. There is only one way that can happen, and thats if my item is getting even less exposure on ebay, than it did at the local (non internet) auction in which I bought it. The only people seeing my items are those people following my site! I'm a top rated ebay seller with 100% positive feedback, zero defects, and thousands of feedbacks (ie if my items are not getting visibility, then what kind of visibility are those getting with weak performance records). There is something wrong with ebay

kawartha-ephemera · ‎05-30-2018

There is a workaround you could try to prevent that unprofessional error message from appearing. The problem with the fix is that shipping is limited to the US. and a very short list of other countries.

The error seems to be triggered whenever "Worldwide" or one of the continental zones are used such as "Europe" or Asia".

When I select only specific countries one at a time and attach a service for just one country no error appears.

With this method I was able to set up shipping to the U.S., U.K. Germany and Australia without that ugly error. The only other available choices would be Japan and China unless I've forgotten a location.

Hardly optimal, but better than the error message.

kawartha-ephemera · ‎05-30-2018

EDIT my post above.

OK that workaround has now failed... at the time of listing there were no errors at all but now several weeks later the U.S. Error has reappeared, the International locations are still error free.
FRUSTRATED IN ONTARIO

tyler@ebay · ‎05-31-2018

@avionsunantiques wrote:

Tyler@ebay.ca

How long does it take for ebay to get the following problems fixed one bay.ca (its been months, without change)

I created 292582741926 a couple of days ago (ebay.ca auction on avionsunantiques to see if any of the ebay.ca problems have been fixed - no they're are still there)

The most simple one (and must be simple to fix), is the RED LETTER WARNING that a US buyer gets when they look at my ebay.ca listing, which says SHIPPING COST CANNOT BE CALCULATED. PLEASE ENTER A VALID POSTAL CODE. (the correct shipping cost is actually provided, provided the potential bidder gets past that big RED LETTER warning.

ALL the non US international lookers, get their own special "get lost" message from ebay which reads

This item will ship to COUNTRY NAME HERE, but the seller has not specified shipping options. Contact the seller- opens in a new window or tab and request a shipping method to your location. (again the actual mail cost is provided elsewhere if the potential buyer gets past that warning message).

@avionsunantiques - sorry I missed this (thanks for the tag @femmefan1946!).

This is still an issue with our shipping calculator. We've gotten some facets of the issue corrected over the past few months, but more work is needed.

Because this is a problem that has roots in many different areas of the site it's going to take some time.

I know it's added work and may not be applicable in all situations, but you could consider calculating an approximate shipping cost using your preferred carrier and use that as a starting point for a flat-rate shipping cost instead. While you would have some variability in pricing, depending on the types of items and volume you're working with you may be able to consider folding a nominal cost into your item pricing to cover losses on shipping when using this method.

Just a thought! Thanks for your continued patience.

Tyler,

avionsunantiques · ‎06-06-2018

Thank you for your reply tyler@ebay

Can you shed more light on how much more time ebay will take to fix this problem?

Its been about 6 months now, without being fixed.

How many months does ebay require to fix this little problem? Or are we talking years?

If so, how many years do you expect ebay will need?

momcqueen · ‎06-08-2018

From curiosity, if I may, how many different selling accounts do you maintain?

avionsunantiques · ‎06-08-2018

Two. Westcoastart2 (sells art), and avionsunantiques (sells antiques)

Used to include all my art in avionsunantiques. However one of our main specialities is Chinese antique porcelain. A couple of decades ago, mostly European's were the buyers. About 10 years ago, with the increase in wealth in China, and the introduction of the internet to the Chinese, we started getting Chinese winning bidders. The Chinese, in general, are very difficult to deal with. For example, it is normal practise for them to win an auction, then upon delivery, try to renegotiate a part refund by claiming there is something wrong with the item. If you don't pay them off, they give you negative feedback. It took us a while to learn to play that game, so initially we would end up with negative feedback which cast a negative shadow over all our items. To manage this situation, we put all our art (which is never purchased by Chinese), into a separate account, to protect it from the threat of negative feedback from chinese extortion.

And that is why I have two different accounts. In retrospect it has led to some interesting observations, in that the art site is mostly oriented to Canadians, and the avionsunantiques site is most orientated to international buyers.