How to improve eBay.au for sellers

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

I wanted to start a thread where members could suggest things that would improve the selling experience for sellers.  I want this to be a constructive thread and not one that disintegrates into posters having a go at eachother or denigrating suggestions.

We have all seen the multitude of "negs for buyers" threads and I don't want this thread to get into a to-and-fro between those that are for and against negs for buyers and same old arguments repeated all over again.

Most of the suggestions that get posted have probably been posted before, but probably not on a single thread.  If really good proactive suggestions are made then next time eBay send any of us a survey asking "How can we improve?" then we can list the best ideas that are posted here.

I'll kick it off with the next two posts as I would like each post to contain a single concise suggestion without having to be explained too much. After all . . . . . if it has to be explained in detail then it isn't really a simple idea for improving eBay selling.

Readers can give Kudos to those suggestions that they agree with.

[thecatspjs]

Thats sounds good to me DG.

I self reported my other post, apologies for the error of my ways.

[englishrosegardens]

For Buy-It-Now items, an item should remain available to other buyers until a buyer completes checkout, as it is on some other eBay sites.  Thus eliminating change-of-mind non-payers for Buy-Now items as the item is not considered sold until it is paid for.

Nooooooo!!!! 

I sell a lot of multiple/combined items and I like my buyers to be able to take their time if they need to.  I'm trying to encourage people to wait for an invoice so that I don't have the complication of extra fees on overpaid postage, and extra paypal charges (for the 30c surcharge), but this sort of thing would encourage them to pay for one item before they bought the next.  Paypal would love it because they'd get lots of extra 30c fees - all at my expense.  Ebay would get to keep lots of extra fees on the postage amount - all at the buyer's expense (I refund the excess less 10%).

Having it so someone else can buy the item up until it's paid for would eliminate bank deposit as a payment method, but worse still, some of my buyers would end up cancelling a purchase if someone else bought SOME of the items they wanted.  For example, if there was a quantity of 4 and they wanted all of them, but someone else came along and bought 2, the remaining 2 would be no use to my first buyers and I'd end up having to cancel that sale.

[*crikey*mate*]

I agree Digi

but where I think it may come undone is the onus on sellers to upload so much information into the listing etc

ie the weight and dimensions of the items.

and lots of sellers aren't "eBay professionals" they're mum and pop casual sellers offloading a few things here and there

I'm not saying it can't happen - I'm just not sure how?

How does an automated system determine if a combination of items will fit into a certain sized package? Is it able to work out the best and most cost effective product to use? How can it determine the different types of things that a -erson may buy from one seller?

From one seller a while ago, I bought an antique wooden rice carrier, a wooden wine carrier and 6 plates, an antique tibetan scroll holder, an african set of bow and arrows and a bongoi drum, a set of stools, and a couple of other bits and pieces.

we spent a few days negotiating prices etc too (Best offer function) and the price of each I was prepared to offer and how many more things I could negoptiate for depended on the agrreed price of each item iykwim, so it wasn't a case of put BOs in on everything I wanted - I had a budget and worked down the list in order of priority until I had reached my maximum. This wqas interspersed with updates on how I was going at a particular postage rate, and if there was room for me to add something eklse before going into the next bracket.

all in all, we probabkly went back and forth for about 2 weeks?

[cherry*135 · Accepted solution]

First time buyers should have to complete a short online tutorial before they can buy their first item. Covering topics like :Feedback - pos, neut & neg explained. Contact seller first if problem with item received. Also not to buy an item unless they are 100% sure they want it and can pay for it

One for first time sellers as well... Too many sellers still put ' I am not responsible for the parcel once it is posted' or similar, which contravenes eBays rules,.

[digital*ghost]

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@*crikey*mate* wrote:

How does an automated system determine if a combination of items will fit into a certain sized package? Is it able to work out the best and most cost effective product to use? How can it determine the different types of things that a -erson may buy from one seller?

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That is where a seller will need to know the packed weight and volume of their items, as well as the limitations of the services they use. I understand many casual sellers may not be prepared to do that kind of homework, but many other sellers would be, and it wouldn't be as complicated as it first appears, once you have the basic data set up (eg if combined weight or volume falls within X, charge Y, if total combined weight and/or volume exceeds X, charge Z, and so on). Some of this data could be pre-filled by eBay or supplied via the carrier the seller selects, much like calculated postage works, or you may even find a new service spring up (eBay postage templates :D). 

I think it would be a very worthwhile addition to current postage and payment options available to sellers (as so many would benefit), rather than the way every seller would have to operate, as all postage options are currently. 

[englishrosegardens]

This problem could be solved with more sophisticated postage and checkout options (plus all the bugs resolved).

If you think about it, many independent websites operate in exactly this manner, with no option to buy and pay later (though some have a 'submit order' style of system where the order remains valid for X amount of time, allowing for cheques, money orders, bank deposits or even wire transfers), but the biggest issue is postage costs - however, their carts are sophisticated enough to work out totals based on combined weight and/or volume of the items the buyer purchased, so there is never any need for a buyer to query postage, nor wait for an invoice.

Something like that may be slightly more problematic for ebay to implement, each shipping service would require different parameters, but I'd be very surprised if it was impossible.

The final improvement to make such a system work would be the removal of the BIN button and only retain 'add to cart'.

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I've bought a lot of stock from websites that don't calculate the postage when I buy.  They over-estimate the postage and charge me that amount if I use paypal, then they manually refund the excess through paypal when they do the order (same as I used to do if someone paid straight away before ebay started charging fees on postage).  If I pay by credit card they put the correct postage amount in when they process the order and charge it to my card. 

Some are able to get the actual cost pretty close but a lot don't.  For a really large order they may change the type of packaging they use, but they won't know this until they actually pack the order.  Sometimes items may be the same general size but take up less space.  As an example, imagine trying to work out how many dresses fit in a certain sized satchel - they may all be the same size generally, but some could be lighter and bulkier than others and less would fit.  Sometimes it just isn't worth a seller's time to try and work out all the different combinations for posting.

[digital*ghost]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

The final improvement to make such a system work would be the removal of the BIN button and only retain 'add to cart'. 

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I actually just wanted to put this up as a standalone request, regardless of any improvements to postage options (on the proviso all bugs and glitches currently affecting the cart system are resolved). 

I recently had a buyer purchase and checkout separately for more than 10 items, consequently paying an excessive amount of postage since I offer free postage on all additional items when one payment is made (not to mention increasing the FVF on P&H by more than 10X). This sort of thing is happening far too often to many sellers, and it can only be because buying all items they are interested in and making one payment is not intuitive for buyers, which is bad for everyone (even ebay, despite the extra revenue that it may generate in the short term). 

[digital*ghost]

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@englishrosegardens wrote:

I've bought a lot of stock from websites that don't calculate the postage when I buy.  They over-estimate the postage and charge me that amount if I use paypal, then they manually refund the excess through paypal when they do the order (same as I used to do if someone paid straight away before ebay started charging fees on postage).  If I pay by credit card they put the correct postage amount in when they process the order and charge it to my card. 

Some are able to get the actual cost pretty close but a lot don't.  For a really large order they may change the type of packaging they use, but they won't know this until they actually pack the order.  Sometimes items may be the same general size but take up less space.  As an example, imagine trying to work out how many dresses fit in a certain sized satchel - they may all be the same size generally, but some could be lighter and bulkier than others and less would fit.  Sometimes it just isn't worth a seller's time to try and work out all the different combinations for posting.

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I do understand all that, but sometimes it's more a case of the limitations of the carts they're using than what they are or are not prepared to do, and once the basic metrics are implemented, every time a seller adds a new product, they would only need to get the packed weight and volume once for each product, so it would be a matter of determining wether doing that and eliminating the after-sale processes of finding what size packages are required, what to charge etc invoicing and/or refunding overages is worth the time spent on assessing the products up front. 

[*crikey*mate*]

OK, so how does an automated system determine how much and what type of packaging is used?

Sometimes it isn't possible to know that before you know what combination of products are being bought and packaged together.

eg - last week, I sold a statue which had to be shipped in a Bx5 box. Easy enough on it's own - however the same customer bought several other items as well, that because of the shape iof the statue, I could pack in around the statue (it did take some creative maneuvering too) and I was even able to use some of those products as "packaging" kind of thing

On its own, the statue required one kind of packaging, especially as there was empty space in the box - but with other items, and depending on their size and shape, I could manipulate the internal packaging - how does a computer determine that? and what if it decides i need to use 1 metre of bubblewrap, but I believe it requires more, or am not able to pack to their recommendations etc?

[*crikey*mate*]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

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@digital*ghost wrote:

The final improvement to make such a system work would be the removal of the BIN button and only retain 'add to cart'. 

---

I actually just wanted to put this up as a standalone request, regardless of any improvements to postage options (on the proviso all bugs and glitches currently affecting the cart system are resolved). 

I recently had a buyer purchase and checkout separately for more than 10 items, consequently paying an excessive amount of postage since I offer free postage on all additional items when one payment is made (not to mention increasing the FVF on P&H by more than 10X). This sort of thing is happening far too often to many sellers, and it can only be because buying all items they are interested in and making one payment is not intuitive for buyers, which is bad for everyone (even ebay, despite the extra revenue that it may generate in the short term). 

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see, I think iot would be very effective for the "free post" option - but to the detriment of buyers and sellers as you have shown it's tricky to combine post etc - but do we want to give ebay incentive to push free post even more?

They'll just say "well, we are now forcing everyone into free post cos you guys asked for a method of instant payment etc - so we are striving to make you happy, ya know? and make your eBay experience everything you dreamed of.

Don't get me wrong - I love the idea - and if it does come in, naturally I will adjust, but....,.

we do already have the choice of automatic BIN payment if we want it, and I use that on some items too - but I do like it as a choice, rather than mandatory iykwim