eBay

rose-dee · ‎08-06-2017

Please tell me I'm not alone in noticing this...

Tonight I had a buyer contact me through eBay Messages to ask what sort of offer I'd accept on a "Best Offer" item (I was on .ca, the buyer was in the U.S., so likely on .com). Normally I don't care for the idea of suggesting offers to purchasers, but in this case I decided it might be worth a try (through the "make an offer" button, shown as an option on eBay Messages). So I sent an offer, along with some conditions and explanations in a message, using the said magic button.

I went back to print out my offer and message for reference, thinking a copy would bounce back to my eBay Messages "sent" box, but no such luck. I tried on .com -- nothing. Then I clicked on "Manage Offers" (a tiny little drop-down to the left of the item on the Orders Management list on Seller Hub (on .com), and a screen popped up indicating an offer of $X had been sent to the buyer. That was all, no copy of the actual message I sent. (See Screenshot #1 below). I checked my personal email account (the one linked to eBay/Paypal). Nothing. I looked at the actual listing on both .ca and .com. Nothing (usually the green bar above the listing lights up when an offer is pending).

This was bad enough, but after going back to eBay.ca, I discovered the existence of the offer hadn't registered at all. Using the "Review Offers" drop-down feature next to the item on Selling Manager gave the result in Screenshot #2 below.

Well, I'm unlikely to ever try this feature again. Incidentally, I've noticed other things not being communicated between .ca and .com lately, such as "shipped" status when updated manually on .ca.

I'd say this is not a good result. Has anyone else noticed such gaps lately between the two sites? If I'm around and remember, I think I'll bring this up with @tyler on the Wednesday board hour this week.

Screenshot #1 -- from eBay.com, at least recording the fact of an offer:

Screenshot #2 - The same item, viewed on eBay.ca -- apparently no Activity.

silverpinups · ‎08-07-2017

The only way I know I receive a Best Offer is to log-in to my Selling account on eBay.ca or eBay.com and look at my messages. I don't receive "best offer" notifications to my email address anymore. It's been this way for a few months now.....

I brought this up in detail at the Weekly chat session a few months ago but was left with no answers.... I do receive a "best offer reminder" to my email address but the initial best offer notification isn't showing up anymore and I don't know why... ??

lady.stark · ‎08-07-2017

@silverpinups wrote:
I don't receive "best offer" notifications to my email address anymore. It's been this way for a few months now.....

This is strange... I still receive these messages in my email.

Rose, if you sent an offer using the button when replying to the buyer, did you thick off the "send copy to my email address"? If not, that may explain why you did not receive a copy of the offer.

momcqueen · ‎08-07-2017

Best Offer Responses are available only on ebay.com-created listings and while logged into ebay.com. I don't know if the latter applies to only the seller or buyer and seller both.

momcqueen · ‎08-07-2017

Did you log out and then log in again to check it? Or wait an hour? I find there is often a lag with certain functions.

momcqueen · ‎08-07-2017

@silverpinups wrote:
The only way I know I receive a Best Offer is to log-in to my Selling account on eBay.ca or eBay.com and look at my messages. I don't receive "best offer" notifications to my email address anymore. It's been this way for a few months now.....

I brought this up in detail at the Weekly chat session a few months ago but was left with no answers.... I do receive a "best offer reminder" to my email address but the initial best offer notification isn't showing up anymore and I don't know why... ??

Anytime I receive or respond to my Best Offers on ebay.ca-created listings, I get a Message in ebay Messages as well as emails about it. Plus, i can see Offers in my Selling Manager and on the listing itself.

dutchman48 · ‎08-07-2017

In the not to distant future, everything for .ca will have to be done from the .ca site and everything done on .com will have to be done from the .com site.

Offers, listing, revisions, invoices, etc.

You may also be forced to use Seller Hub once .com gets that far.

If we ever get it, you will have to use seller hub for .ca and seller hub for .com if you list on both.

snoopwiz · ‎08-07-2017

Are eBay.com & eBay.ca not speaking anymore?

Word on the street is that it's all about one of them leaving the top off the tube of toothpaste. Still not able to find out which one but, I am on it.

momcqueen · ‎08-07-2017

I heard it was about leaving the toilet seat up.

ricarmic · ‎08-07-2017

I may have missed something in the discussion, but there are two kinds of offers:

Offers against an item that has best offer

"Reply with offer" which is a response to a question (and only available on .Com).

Emails come for incoming offers against an item that has best offer enabled and counter offers.

I have never ever gotten any form of notification with respect to an offer I've made using "reply with offer", and I've never even been able to see/find the actual replied offer. (You can see the text of the message what was attached to the reply with offer but not the offer amount). I may have seen a screen that says something like manage open offers, immediately after one does reply with offer, but I can't find it after that message goes away....

If I understand Rose's question, she's talking about a "reply with offer" type situation...... and her experience is the same that I've always received since reply with offer was introduced a long time ago - no emails or way to see what the offer made was....so it is not a new issue....

momcqueen · ‎08-07-2017

Yes, that's what Rosedee explained but silverpinups mentioned another problem too.

rose-dee · ‎08-07-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
Best Offer Responses are available only on ebay.com-created listings and while logged into ebay.com. I don't know if the latter applies to only the seller or buyer and seller both.

I'm not sure you understood my original post. I didn't make a response to a Best Offer, I used the "send offer" feature from eBay Messages while I was logged onto eBay.ca, in order to send an offer to the prospective buyer (in the U.S., so probably logged onto .com). And I did check off "send copy to my email address".

The buyer hadn't made any offer, just sent an eBay message to me that indicated serious interest and asking what I might consider. In the past I would never respond to fishing expeditions, however polite, but times are different now and I thought I'd possibly prompt a sale by taking the first step.

My issue wasn't with the procedure of the offer itself, but eBay's lack of follow-up recording. I expected at the very least that a copy of my eBay message to the buyer with the offer would show up in my eBay Messages "Sent" folder. Now I have no record of what I actually told the buyer, which included some conditions and other information. Not that I can't recall the gist of it, but what is this feature worth without a trail of the discussion, especially if it goes back and forth before the final terms and price are agreed upon? Like trying to make a contract without paper to write on.

As I said, I'm not at all impressed, and unlikely to ever try this again.

momcqueen · ‎08-07-2017

You used Reply with Offer. I understood that. What leads you to think otherwise?

rose-dee · ‎08-07-2017

@ricarmic wrote:

If I understand Rose's question, she's talking about a "reply with offer" type situation...... and her experience is the same that I've always received since reply with offer was introduced a long time ago - no emails or way to see what the offer made was....so it is not a new issue....

Yes, that's precisely what I was referring to, and obviously it isn't new, thank you for confirming. I knew someone must have run into it before.

I'll think thrice before using that feature again.

rose-dee · ‎08-07-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
You used Reply with Offer. I understood that. What leads you to think otherwise?

I was responding to your earlier post, in which you said: "Best Offer Responses are available only on ebay.com-created listings and while logged into ebay.com".

This wasn't a Best Offer Response in the normal procedure of Best Offers. There had been no offer made. It was an initiating offer (by me), via eBay Messages. If I recall, the "blue button" was labelled "Send Offer", not "Reply with Offer" (which I think is what one sees on eBay.com). The feature is clearly available on both ebay.com and ebay.ca (I was logged onto .ca at the time), but as usual on eBay it likely has two different names.

Whatever it was called, I think we're both talking about the same thing now, which 'ricarmic' described above.

dutchman48 · ‎08-07-2017

Are you sure you can send an offer as a seller to a buyer instead of just answering the email and have the buyer send the offer?

rose-dee · ‎08-07-2017

@silverpinups wrote:
The only way I know I receive a Best Offer is to log-in to my Selling account on eBay.ca or eBay.com and look at my messages. I don't receive "best offer" notifications to my email address anymore. It's been this way for a few months now.....

I brought this up in detail at the Weekly chat session a few months ago but was left with no answers.... I do receive a "best offer reminder" to my email address but the initial best offer notification isn't showing up anymore and I don't know why... ??

Yes, I remember your mentioning this on a recent Wed. chat, but this is a different issue from the one I mentioned, although I know your issue has been going on for quite a while. It's annoying not to have notification of offers, and could lead to missing a buyer's offer, depending on what your work schedule is like.

I wonder if they deliberately turned off that notification feature, knowing they'd soon be permitting up to 10 offers? I'll be following this to see whether one of the eBay Canada reps eventually provides an answer.

dutchman48 · ‎08-07-2017

Also, with all the stuff on .com not on .ca, possibly you should have closed out of .ca, relogged into .com, and dealt with it on .com totally.

This stuff for us Canadians who list on .com will become a whole lot more problematic because of things we don't have here that .com has.

rose-dee · ‎08-07-2017

@dutchman48 wrote:
Are you sure you can send an offer as a seller to a buyer instead of just answering the email and have the buyer send the offer?

All I can say is that is what I did. There was a blue button (I believe it said "Send Offer") on the eBay.ca message page, which took me to a screen where I filled in the amount I was offering, including a text box below that I used to add some information/conditions.

As I said, my first impulse was to ask the buyer to actually make an offer (which is what I've always done in such situations). This is the first time I thought I'd try the process the other way around. The buyer seemed very courteous and seriously interested, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.

I know the offer was sent to the buyer, because I received a message from the buyer today thanking me for it and saying that they were considering it. I just don't have a record of my actual offer anywhere, aside from the amount (as in the screenshot I posted above).

Not a great system.

rose-dee · ‎08-07-2017

@dutchman48 wrote:
Also, with all the stuff on .com not on .ca, possibly you should have closed out of .ca, relogged into .com, and dealt with it on .com totally.

I wonder if I'd done that (logged onto .com and dealt with it from there), whether I would have got a copy, either to my own email account, or to my eBay Messages, of my offer - including my text message that went with it? Have you ever tried this from within .com, and if so, what happened?

This being not the only thing I've noticed that hasn't been communicated from one site to the other, you may be right that it's probably better to deal with .com listings exclusively on .com and .ca listings from .ca. A couple of weeks ago I was shocked to see a warning on .com on a couple of my listings saying shipping was nearly 2 weeks overdue. I'd manually marked the items as "shipped" on .ca, but apparently that data didn't get sent to .com.