topic Re: Money hold without posting tracking in Selling

Money hold without posting tracking

retrowise — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 03:46:37 GMT

"from 7 February 2022, if sellers upload valid tracking for less than 95% of their trackable orders, their payments will be placed on hold. "

How dare they hold people's own money. But I expected no less from managed payments. What else..... maybe charging fees for late posting or not answering buyer's messages? Why not, lets do that too, it'll be fun

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

sugar249 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 03:50:13 GMT

@retrowise wrote:
"from 7 February 2022, if sellers upload valid tracking for less than 95% of their trackable orders, their payments will be placed on hold. "

How dare they hold people's own money. But I expected no less from managed payments. What else..... maybe charging fees for late posting or not answering buyer's messages? Why not, lets do that too, it'll be fun

Great move by Ebay, weed out those dodgy sellers.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

jellybirddesigns — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 04:18:55 GMT

Why not have a high standard of customer care as a seller? I don't have any issue with it personally and think that everyone should be conscious of buyer satisfaction, especially these days when you want to encourage customers to return your store. And anyway, tracking offers YOU peace of mind, so why not use it? The buyer is paying for the postage so I don't get the reluctance.

Another platform I sell on runs a "Star Seller" rating, which includes 95% tracking, consistent 4 star reviews or higher as well as timely responses to buyer messages.

It's only a matter of time before Ebay instigates message response times as an evaluation target.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

sugar249 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 04:24:22 GMT

@jellybirddesigns wrote:
Why not have a high standard of customer care as a seller? .

I think the reluctance is more coming from sellers who have forgotten the customer.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

gec2002 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 05:39:56 GMT

"Great move by Ebay, weed out those dodgy sellers."

Have you actually read what they are proposing. They expect 95% compliance with tracking so if you're a small seller and only sell 19 tracked items a month and miss putting up tracking on 1 item you will be below 95% and have your payments held. According to you that makes them a dodgy seller, get real. Its not about not posting straight away or in your handling time, its about not putting up tracking, a seller could be posting straight away 100% of the time but miss uploading once in 19 times so they're dodgy. Sorry not every seller is as perfect as you.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

sugar249 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 06:24:54 GMT

@gec2002 wrote:
"Great move by Ebay, weed out those dodgy sellers."
Have you actually read what they are proposing. They expect 95% compliance with tracking so if you're a small seller and only sell 19 tracked items a month and miss putting up tracking on 1 item you will be below 95% and have your payments held. According to you that makes them a dodgy seller, get real. Its not about not posting straight away or in your handling time, its about not putting up tracking, a seller could be posting straight away 100% of the time but miss uploading once in 19 times so they're dodgy. Sorry not every seller is as perfect as you.

I'm glad you can do your math's.

Yes I have read it, and yes I agree with it. I sell many more then 19 a month, so much more effort required, but I agree 100% with it.

The sales process is an end to end process, it doesnt end when you collect the money, if you can't be bothered uploading tracking then you deserve to wait for your money.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

jellybirddesigns — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 07:05:00 GMT

I agree @sugar.

Ebay is moving towards a system where there is more seller accountability along the chain from initial purchase through to delivery and buyer satisfaction as there are so many other platforms for people to choose from these days instead of Ebay. Want clothes? Use Depop or Poshmark. Want unique? Go to Etsy.

Keeping buyers satisfied here is a means of containing them within the Ebay ecosystem. Adding tracking and expecting a high seller standard shouldn't even be an issue. Gosh, if the OP thinks Ebay is hard, try be a seller on Amazon where the benchmarks are much higher.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

gec2002 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 07:23:04 GMT

So you sell more than 19 a month, big deal, so the small seller who accidentally forgets to upload 1 tracking can just suck it up. Its not a case of not being bothered it's a case of just missing 1 tracking item and being penalised. eBay should have limits in place to protect small sellers, the same as they do for maximum number of allowed cases, ie 95% and 2 tracking not uploaded before Holds apply.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

jellybirddesigns — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 07:36:42 GMT

I am not a huge seller by any means, but I do run 2 Ebay stores, 2 Etsy stores and my own website, and I've still never missed putting in the tracking number in 18 years of selling online. I hold myself accountable before Ebay does it for me.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

digital*ghost — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 07:49:43 GMT

If you set your postage to "domestic letter untracked" for everything, you'll bypass this requirement entirely. It's about managing customer expectations, I'd say - if a buyer sees a postage method that should have tracking but it's not supplied, they'll ask questions - if they see a method saying untracked, they won;t expect tracking.

It's only if you have a trackable postage method selected for an item (or the buyer selects it as an upgrade) that holds can apply.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

jellybirddesigns — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 08:33:43 GMT

If you're saying that the seller should select untracked postage, but provide tracking anyway when they post, then they'll have to price their postage accordingly. And buyers are not going to pay $9+ if the item says "untracked". They will most likely assess the listing at a glance, see they're not getting tracked, skip the purchase completely and move on. Maybe some will communicate with the seller, but many won't bother.

Sure, it technically bypasses the tracking requirement but at the potential loss of sales.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

twyngwyn — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:13:19 GMT

what about using standard postage? I haven't used it for years....can't remember whether it requires tracking or not....anyone know?

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

digital*ghost — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:25:23 GMT

@jellybirddesigns wrote:
If you're saying that the seller should select untracked postage, but provide tracking anyway when they post, then they'll have to price their postage accordingly. And buyers are not going to pay $9+ if the item says "untracked".

Maybe, but that's the rub, isn't it?

I guess I'm a little too subtle sometimes, lol, my subtext is barely implied when it should be actual text. 😅

A seller can do everything possible to avoid eBay's efforts to provide buyers with a consistent consumer experience when they (eBay) have millions of different sellers to try and convince to provide that experience, and potentially make their selling career harder and / or shorter, or they can recognise why eBay is trying to introduce more consistency to the site and decide to work with, or around it, depending on which one has the longest pro list for any given seller.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

gutterpunkz05 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 10:02:38 GMT

Hey retro, I would have thought you would be used to ebay withholding funds. Then again I suppose that might be the reason behind your gripe.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

gec2002 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 10:10:59 GMT

I am not against having a required tracking limit per se, however a heavy handed one size fits all in my opinion is unfair on smaller sellers. Some of the sellers here may be perfect, but many of us mere mortals are capable of errors, and making mistakes and as Digi said the eBay system is less than perfect itself. If there picking up of tracking had a 100% perfect record some of my concerns would lessened but it hasn't.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

davewil1964 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 10:13:24 GMT

I suppose it depends on you uploading tracking for trackable items. Not hard. Is there any particular reason you don't upload tracking for trackable items?

Or are you just having yet another go at eBay T&Cs? Which you don't seem to understand.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

jellybirddesigns — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 10:42:11 GMT

@gec2002 - the tracking requirement has become a universal expectation on all the major platforms.

Amazon - 95% valid tracking requirement - no matter whether small or high volume seller

Etsy - 95% valid tracking requirement - no matter whether small or high volume seller

Ebay - same expectation from Feb '22

As usual, Ebay is one of the last to implement these changes, but some sellers act as though the bottom has fallen out of their world. Why is it unfair on small sellers? Shouldn't everyone be diligent about their selling, regardless of their sales volume?

In fact, if you're a small seller, you're going to be even more aware of all the moving parts of a sale. The quality of the packaging, the method of packing, and providing a tracking number for peace of mind, for example.

Smaller sellers actually have more time to be meticulous compared to a high volume seller who quickly chucks 10 items into a box and hopes for the best.

Also, you mention the pickup of tracking as a concern, but it has never been my experience that tracking does not upload or update. I've had 5000+ transactions and this has never been an issue.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

sugar249 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 19:30:11 GMT

@gec2002 wrote:
so the small seller who accidentally forgets to upload 1 tracking can just suck it up.

I'm sure they never forget to accidently collect the money from the sale.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

gec2002 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 21:37:47 GMT

@sugar249 wrote:
@gec2002 wrote:
so the small seller who accidentally forgets to upload 1 tracking can just suck it up.

I'm sure they never forget to accidently collect the money from the sale.

I'm surprised that a seller such as yourself with such detailed knowledge of eBay's seller procedures doesn't know that payment of funds are automatic and require no intervention by the seller in Managed Payments. Just to help have a quick look here

https://www.ebay.com.au/help/selling/getting-paid/getting-paid-items-youve-sold?id=4814

it will explain it all to you. No need to thank me.

Re: Money hold without posting tracking

chameleon54 — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 23:33:41 GMT

@jellybirddesigns wrote:
@gec2002 - the tracking requirement has become a universal expectation on all the major platforms.

Amazon - 95% valid tracking requirement - no matter whether small or high volume seller
Etsy - 95% valid tracking requirement - no matter whether small or high volume seller
Ebay - same expectation from Feb '22

As usual, Ebay is one of the last to implement these changes, but some sellers act as though the bottom has fallen out of their world. Why is it unfair on small sellers? Shouldn't everyone be diligent about their selling, regardless of their sales volume?

In fact, if you're a small seller, you're going to be even more aware of all the moving parts of a sale. The quality of the packaging, the method of packing, and providing a tracking number for peace of mind, for example.
Smaller sellers actually have more time to be meticulous compared to a high volume seller who quickly chucks 10 items into a box and hopes for the best.

Also, you mention the pickup of tracking as a concern, but it has never been my experience that tracking does not upload or update. I've had 5000+ transactions and this has never been an issue.

As with all things on ebay, I suspect the importance of this issue is very much related to what you sell and the demographic of customers you sell too. Ebay being a global internet behemoth cant make one rule for one group of sellers and another rule for others. It simply comes up with generic positions that suit the widest segment of the market.

TRACKING - on three of my selling accounts I dont upload tracking unless asked by the customer. I,m running a micro, single person business that relies on turning over the maximum amount of stock per hour to actually produce a reliable income comparable to a semi professional career. I make around $45 per hour profit for every hour I spend on ebay. This includes the time spent sourcing stock including garage sales, browsing op shops etc thats billed at $45 per hour, time spent browsing the internet to find its value, listing storing, answering questions and pricing.

Everything I do is converted to dollars per hour. I run a super simple system, stripped out of all unnecessary fluff. The time it takes to upload tracking numbers, just the same as it takes time to fill in item specifics and all of the other guff ebay require of us dilutes dollars per hour and pushes sellers closer to subsistance wages, rather than a real income that pays the bills.

My customers are predominantly busy, older, self made men who are not usually worried about stuffing around with useless time consuming fluff. So I dont upload tracking numbers and they dont seem to care. Likewise, they virtually never leave feedback ( more fluff ) and I dont care. My smallest selling account ( specifically targeting busy older men ) is lucky to receive one feedback score for THIRTY transactions.

Some customer demographics who have time on their hands and are buying discretionary items such as homewares and craft supplies want their item as soon as possible and want to see where it is in the transport / postal system. Fair enough, what ever floats your boat. They are probably in the vast majority on ebay, but as with all things one generic rule does not always cover every seller.

Me I,ll be copping the money hold and wont be uploading tracking unless requested by the buyer. Once you get past the first couple of weeks delay, the money will still come in as normal every week.