topic ebay Seller Survey in Selling

ebay Seller Survey

stephystarfish — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 03:45:01 GMT

Just got an e-mail to complete their seller survey. It's mainly about how they're thinking of introducing ebay branded packaging (boxes, tape etc) but the last question is "Aside from reducing Selling fees, how could eBay improve your selling experience?"

This is what I have:

1. Don't charge fees on reasonable postage cost.
2. Only charge final value fee when buyer has paid.
3. Fix: after listing an item, the 'auto relist' button becomes unchecked or disappears.

4. Fix: for clothes, the size entered in 'item specifics' shows up as a different size when the listing is saved.

5. Allow sellers to see bidder's bidding history (currently only a third party can see the bidder's bidding history).

6. Provide option to set 'auto decline' offer for best offer listings when creating a listing using the website.

7. Add 'free local pick up' as an option when selecting 'charge actual cost' postage option.

8. Allow 'remove auto relist' in bulk rather than doing it individually for each listing.

9. Allow reserve prices for auctions.

10. Allow sellers to state that payment for pick up is cash.

11. Add 'calculate' button when preparing an invoice which calculates the total including postage/discounts etc

12. When preparing an invoice, change name of 'recalculate' button to 'restart'.
13. Close a return case in the seller's favour once the due date for return has passed and the buyer has not returned the item or provided tracking number/post details of return.

14. If a seller has specified no returns, don't allow buyer to request return for "wrong size" (clothes).

15. Get rid of insertion fees. Allow unlimited free listings (or at least 1,000 per month).

What other suggestions do you guys have?

They might not do anything but if enough of us share the same feedback in the survey, at least we tried.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

lyndal1838 — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 04:53:11 GMT

I am not a seller but I can see things wrong with several of your suggestions.............

How does ebay know that the buyer has paid if they use bank deposit? How will they know to charge the FVFs?

What is a "reasonable postage cost" to allow before they start charging fees? Reasonable postage depends on what the seller is posting....the larger the item the more the postage is going to cost. Why should a seller of heavy items be charged a fee when the seller of light items does not have to pay.

You can set auto accept and auto decline amounts in Best Offer listings (unless it has changed very recently)

You can stated that cash is preferred for local pick up....most buyers are happy with that especially when it is explained that they have no paypal protection anyway.

I would suggest that you pick your battles....not point in complaining about things that you can already do. My eyes glazed over before I got half way down your list.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

k1ooo-slr-sales — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 05:50:49 GMT

as a buyer, I am not in favour of sellers being able to set a reserve price for auctions . . . . . . they can already set a pseudo-reserve by starting the auction at their "reserve amount". After all, that is the point of a reserve . . . . . to not sell below the amount you are prepared to sell for. I think the days of bidding wars among buyers that lead to a bidding frenzy are long gone for most items/categories. As a seller, I stopped running auctions when the decline in bidding started and I now only run Buy-Now listings . . . . . and I include best-offer when I am prepared to consider offers.

One thing I would like to see is that the bidding block for buyers that have two or more UnPaid Item Strikes in 12 months becomes a default setting when a listing is prepared. Sellers would have the option to remove or modify the block, but having it as the default will put a stop to a lot of habitual non-payers. It would also encourage sellers to do UnPaid Item cases against first-time or low level non-payers. Buyers would also still be able to contact sellers about putting them on the Blocked Bidder Exemption list as the default setting should not include blocking contact from blocked bidders, leaving sellers to initiate that setting.

Additionally, you could look at this thread from some time back. Some of the suggestions would no longer be relevant to eBay in 2016 because of policy changes and eBay already introducing some of the suggestions, but many are still resonating with sellers on the boards. I also would caution members from adding to that thread and suggest that they add new ideas to this thread.

http://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Selling/How-to-improve-eBay-au-for-sellers/td-p/1364849

Re: ebay Seller Survey

*tippy*toes* — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 06:03:40 GMT

I put that I'd like to be able to send invoices via the device app and that buyers should be able to pay for a combined invoice via the app because a lot more buyers are shopping that way. I suggested that buyers should be made more accountable for their actions, e.g serial neg leavers, serial non payers, and to stop them from being able to create new accounts to bypass blocks. I said it wasn't fair that the instant either party asks eBay to step in and help the dispute is closed in the buyers favour without the need for the buyer to return the item, even if the buyer is at fault. I said it is not eBay's item, so they have no right to tell buyers they can keep the item.

I said that sellers are becoming increasingly stressed because buyers can do no wrong, even when it's proved otherwise, and sellers are treated with utter contempt. I suggested that the estimates be removed because it's not a sellers fault if the carrier takes longer to deliver than the estimate eBay gives, yet sellers are being punished for it. I added that buyers don't see the dates as an estimate, they see the dates as gospel and will open a dispute (and win) if the parcel hasn't arrived by the due date. When the parcel does turn up, they aren't forced to repay the seller.

There were quite a few other things that I can't remember now. I do the surveys on 2 accounts and have only done one so far as I want to think about anything else I'd like to add. I'm open to suggestions from others who didn't opt in to the surveys.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

designers*n*more — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 08:12:38 GMT

"You can stated that cash is preferred for local pick up....most buyers are happy with that especially when it is explained that they have no paypal protection anyway."

This is about to change. PayPal are going to allow protection/disputes for pick up items.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

k1ooo-slr-sales — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 08:21:11 GMT

@designers*n*more wrote:
"You can stated that cash is preferred for local pick up....most buyers are happy with that especially when it is explained that they have no paypal protection anyway."

This is about to change. PayPal are going to allow protection/disputes for pick up items.

July 15th is the change of policy date. Hopefully we will receive some more detailed info about this change before that date i.e. the circumstances where P/U items are covered.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

*tippy*toes* — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 08:37:42 GMT

I can see it now, buyer claiming not received for a pick up item. Pffft.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

lyndal1838 — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 08:45:34 GMT

@*tippy*toes* wrote:
I can see it now, buyer claiming not received for a pick up item. Pffft.

And what is the betting that the poor old seller will lose their money.....the scammers will be out in force for this one.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

bsal6160 — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 09:36:28 GMT

i can only see one reason why paypal would rule in favour of the buyer for that situation. When buyer has paid via paypal and gone to pick up item and its not there.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

bsal6160 — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 09:41:08 GMT

set your start price accordingly. Get rid of reserve price across the board.

Charge an insertion fee for every listing but remove fee on postage.

NO unlimited listings. Just what buyers dont need, more unrelated items flooding every catergory

Re: ebay Seller Survey

davidc4430 — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 09:55:27 GMT

@*tippy*toes* wrote:
I can see it now, buyer claiming not received for a pick up item. Pffft.

then there will be the item not as described claims months after they have picked up the item and used it, broken it and want a refund.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

digital*ghost — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 10:46:26 GMT

@*tippy*toes* wrote:
I can see it now, buyer claiming not received for a pick up item. Pffft.

Buyer Protection on pick-up items will only be for SNAD (according to the policy updates last time I read them), so they will not be able to open INRs.

That still leaves a bunch of (possible) circumstances that are unique to pick-up scenarios and would require some very different handling than posted items, so it will be interesting to see if any unique policies are brought in specifically for pick-ups.

eBay have changed their MBG policy to exclude pick-up items where the item wasn't picked up, so I suspect PayPal's changes may mirror that (meaning, if you go to pick something up and see at a glance it's SNAD but have already paid, unless you can get the seller to process a refund on the spot, you'd be obliged to take possession of the item so that you can claim for SNAD).

Re: ebay Seller Survey

digital*ghost — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 11:02:55 GMT

@stephystarfish wrote:

14. If a seller has specified no returns, don't allow buyer to request return for "wrong size" (clothes).

Buyers are shown a warning when they request a change of mind return from a seller who has stated they don't accept returns (it basically just confirms they can ask, but the seller doesn't have to say yes), and the seller should be provided the option to decline, so the option is mostly there so sellers can consider it on a case-by-case basis (they always could anyway, but if they officialise it then the buyer can qualify for the MBG if they follow through but the seller doesn't).

Agree with #13, for sure, I have an open (COM) request right now - I facilitated an exchange for the buyer instead of refunding and asked them to close the case, they agreed but it's still sitting open after a couple of weeks... and in the past the buyer never returned the item, but eBay would have allowed them to return at any time until the case timed out, despite the fact that my return window is set to 7 days (after receipt) - once that time is up, the buyer is no longer (officially) eligible to return. On that note - I want an offical option to facilitate exchanges through the request system.

The rest of my wish list is the same as it ever was... 😄

Fix the site issues, especially the cart glitches. Uphold their site policies rather than pay lip service to them, and let me get rid of old variations

Re: ebay Seller Survey

stephystarfish — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 01:26:37 GMT

How does ebay know that the buyer has paid if they use bank deposit? How will they know to charge the FVFs?

Fair point.

You can set auto accept and auto decline amounts in Best Offer listings

As a normal seller, when creating a listing on the webite, no you can't. Only once an offer has been made, can you add auto accept/decline amounts through the website.

You can stated that cash is preferred for local pick up

Ah I can see now that they've changed the policy. When I looked late last year, the policy was that you could only tell them via message, not state it in the listing.

I would suggest that you pick your battles....

There's no battle. It's just a survey.

My eyes glazed over before I got half way down your list.

That's nice. Maybe if you were a seller, you'd be more interested.

Thanks for the link to the other thread, k1ooo-slr-sales! I already completed the survey yesterday but I'll have a read later.

Nice suggestions tippy. Wish I had included some of those!

Definitely digital - quite frustrating when ebay keeps extending the deadline for the buyer to return the item.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

lyndal1838 — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 02:09:12 GMT

@stephystarfish wrote:

I would suggest that you pick your battles....
==
There's no battle. It's just a survey.

My eyes glazed over before I got half way down your list.
==
That's nice. Maybe if you were a seller, you'd be more interested.

The expression "pick your battles" was just pointing out that you are asking ebay to implement policies that are already in place....why ask again.

And if I was a seller my eyes would still glaze over.....not through lack of interest but because blocks of text like you have posted is hard to read. Set your points out with a space between them.

If boardies have difficulty reading your post you can bet ebay will lose interest too. If you are passionate enough to take the time to answer the survey you need to make it easy for ebay...they take little enough notice of sellers as it is without giving them a reason to ignore you.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

davewil1964 — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 06:35:00 GMT

You can set auto accept and auto decline amounts in Best Offer listings

As a normal seller, when creating a listing on the webite, no you can't. Only once an offer has been made, can you add auto accept/decline amounts through the website.

I can. Something wrong with your settings, methinks

Re: ebay Seller Survey

*tippy*toes* — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 06:41:00 GMT

Or she's listing using the quick listing tool rather than the advanced that most people use.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

englishrosegardens — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 08:49:49 GMT

@davewil1964 wrote:
You can set auto accept and auto decline amounts in Best Offer listings
==
As a normal seller, when creating a listing on the webite, no you can't. Only once an offer has been made, can you add auto accept/decline amounts through the website.

I can. Something wrong with your settings, methinks

Agreed. I've used it on of my basic accounts (non-store). Buyer made two offers on same item, last one was accepted and the sale went through, without me being aware of any of this until it sold.

If sellers didn't waste ebay's time on arguing over things that are already possible (or can't be done because they're against the rules), ebay might actually have some time to work on some of the more important things! Much better to ask first in the forums whether something can be done or not than waste ebay's time and just confuse the reps even more. Time and time again I've seen where sellers ring ebay to argue over something and accuse reps of being hopeless when the fault was actually with the seller. No, I'm not talking about genuine cases where ebay reps don't have a clue, but cases where sellers don't have a clue.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

englishrosegardens — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 08:52:43 GMT

I think you've got buckley's hope with number 5. The privacy laws are pretty strict these days and it's nobody else's business what any of us buy.

Re: ebay Seller Survey

thecatspjs — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 09:26:14 GMT

Good on you OP for having your say.

I had my say too. It included many 0 or 1 low ratings for the questions asked.

I would like to see eBay focus on their core business by providing a service that is easy to use, reliable and provides quality customer service to their paying customers.

I would also like to see eBay stop disregarding Aust law in relation to their money back guarantee and remove the requirement for sellers to demonstrate proof of delivery - what a crock that policy and its application is.

So many little tweaks needed - things like renaming the recalcuate button (when viewing invoice) to something more appropriate is an example of a nice little site mprovement that is likely to save a quite a few sellers some confusion and/or frustration.