Been on Holidays, and have come back to disarray. :(

[northern_4x4]

O.k

So I set my store to holiday mode. From the 4th of Jan to the 25th. I leave all my items up there for sale still as I thought it would be best to get some sales rather than none from removing my listings whilst gone.

So I sit down this arvo, go into my account and I have 40 odd mesages, 2 new requests open for items that I haven't shipped while I'm 700k's from the shop and 142 orders to process. I liked the last bit....

 Anyhow. Out of the 40 odd messages nearly half are from buyers asking where they're items are. The two requests that were open I had until the 23rd to respond!? I am away until the 25th.... So how was I supposed to respond if I didn't look at this until the 25th?

The first issue on the messages I have recieved. I think eBay need to make the away notice that comes up on each item the customer see's more noticable. And also keep bringing this message up when they go through checkout WITH a confirmation check box or something. This will stop the blind for sure.

The second issue with the requests. Why don't, or can't, eBay see that the store is set to holiday mode and give us buyers more time to respond?

I really think eBay need to look at these two issues, and seriously. I thought to email eBay but I can't as they dont have a section where I can chose what my issue is if I try to use their system.

So is there a generic email address that I can use to contact them? I think these will just fall on deaf ears but I would like to try at least.

I hope everyone had a great christmas and new year. I did.

Cheers.

[northern_4x4]

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@twyngwyn wrote:

did you have an 'out of office reply' to your messages as below?

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/sell/placing-store-vacation.html

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Yes I did....

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@brerrabbit585 wrote:
Looking at it from a buyer's point of view, while the away message does state that the seller is away and they may not be able to post straight away, some buyers would be confused by this and think it can't be true that the seller actually IS away if the items are still available for sale, so they'd go ahead and buy and still expect normal delivery.

If the handling time hasn't been extended to cover the time away then the expected delivery date that shows when a buyer views a listing would only reinforce their belief that the seller isn't really away at all.

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Well I would have thought the away notice simply states the obvious. We are away. It obvious that some buyers simply can't read or or just miss it all together.

I do see it being a little confusing to a buyer seeing the notice, then seeing the delivery date smack bang in the middle of our break. If it were me as a buyer, I would either contact the seller first for confirmation, or find another buyer. But being a seller we kind of see things differently I suppose. This is we eBay need to make it more obvious of the away notice, and change the delivery dates accordingly.

As for not closing the store right off, I would be losing out on sales doing this. 80% of the sales I had gotten over my break, they haven't questioned the delivery yet. Nor have I got any negs yet. Yet.... Lol.

I will try to call them, but I see I will be better off talking to a brick wall if i talk to them. I'd rather have it written clearly in an email.

Thanks for all the responses.

[lm-entertainment]

if ever you are wanting to email ebay and you can't get that stupid contact form to allow you to email - you can simply email customerhelp_au@ebay.com and you should get a reply :] 

[padi*0409]

It's a waste of time emailing them you'll invariably get a cut and paste reply that's unlikely to address your problem, better to phone them or preferably get them to call you back.

http://ocsnext.ebay.com.au/ocs/cusr?query=1485

[digital*ghost]

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@northern_4x4 wrote:

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Well I would have thought the away notice simply states the obvious. We are away. It obvious that some buyers simply can't read or or just miss it all together.

I do see it being a little confusing to a buyer seeing the notice, then seeing the delivery date smack bang in the middle of our break.

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The issue with eBay's 'away' message is that it's ambiguous. It actually says 'This seller is away until [date]' and then says "There may be a delay in processing your order", so even when buyers do notice it, it can easily give the impression of "my order could be sent tomorrow, or it could be sent next week".

To use a real B&M shop camparison, it can come across as going up to the counter in an open store, but the cashier is engaged with some other task and says they'll be with you as soon as they can... (This is why personally, I would only use this holiday setting if my attentions had to be diverted for a period of time but I could still attend the store on a semi-regular basis, otherwise I'd rather hide my listings all together, as in the long run I'd rather lose a few weeks worth of sales than risk accruing enough defects to end my eBay selling all together - whether they occurred due to buyers not paying attention etc wouldn't matter in the end, only create an additional sense of unfairness about it all from my perspective ). 

When you compare eBay's message to "proper" holiday notices on other online websites, nothing is left to interpretation or ambiguity (eg "We're currently closed until 1st of February, you may still place an order, but it will not be processed or dispatched until after the 1st - please expect delays while we work through the log of orders").

I also agree that in any case, a ticked acknowledgement of the 'away' status would help a lot, or, they could even do what they do for all Chinese sellers during their New Year celebrations. Every time that rolls around, because it lasts for a couple of weeks and affects all businesses (retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers), usually if you go to buy something from China during that time, you have to go through two warning notice pages about extended delays before you can finalise the purchase. If such things can be implemented as standard for recognised holidays, I don't understand why it can't be implemented on an individual basis for "self-imposed" holidays. 

[lane-ends]

TBH buyers look at a lot of listings and even if they do see away notices by the time they have flipped through lots of listing and bought a bit of stuff, they are going to forget. Then down the track they see item X not arrived and an ebay estimate of a cerain date, so they just go through the the whole where is my item procedure.

keep everything simple, any listing is just one amongst many. Details get lost

[*tippy*toes*]

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@padi*0409 wrote:

It's a waste of time emailing them you'll invariably get a cut and paste reply that's unlikely to address your problem, better to phone them or preferably get them to call you back.

http://ocsnext.ebay.com.au/ocs/cusr?query=1485

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Not always. I've had quite a few successes via email, including getting a neg removed. I find the first reply is a cut and paste, so I reply that the cut and pasted reply doesn't correspond with my issue and whoever replies, could they please use their own words so I know they have understood. I also find repeating myself over and over helps too. I'll use reporting suspected shill bidding as an example.

Dear eBay,

I was interested in purchasing some items from <seller> and on checking through their listings and sold listings, the same buyer j***t(02) has bid on all of their 600 auctions over the last 3 months, but never won any of them. If you look at the bidding history of j***t(02), you can see that they have made 1200 bids on 600 items in the last 3 month, having 100% of bids with that seller and has retracted 500 bids.

As you would be aware, it's a violation of eBay policy for sellers to bid up their own items using other accounts to increase the end price. It appears that <seller> is using the account j***t(02) to bid up their auctions to increase the final price. It also appears that j***t(02) places a large bid to see what the current highest bid is and then retracts the bid and places a new bid lower than the highest bid. That is evident by <sellers> bid history

I think it is very unfair that sellers like <seller> will use other accounts, namely j***t(02), to blatantly rip off buyers by using other accounts to inflate the final price of their items. I believe if you look into both accounts, you will see that <seller> owns the account j***t(02) that they are using to inflate the final price of their auctions, as is evident by the bid history of j***t(02).

And so on and so on and so on. I've found by doing that it seems to work as they read the same thing over and over and it must stimulate a couple of brain cells. I've only had a handful of issues, but all have been solved via email. I am always prepared to throw my hands in the air and ring them, but so far I've not had to.

[digital*ghost]

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@lane-ends wrote:

TBH buyers look at a lot of listings and even if they do see away notices by the time they have flipped through lots of listing and bought a bit of stuff, they are going to forget. Then down the track they see item X not arrived and an ebay estimate of a cerain date, so they just go through the the whole where is my item procedure.

keep everything simple, any listing is just one amongst many. Details get lost

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Keeping things simple for sellers would be a good start in keeping things simple for buyers, though.

If buyers do need a constant reminder that they were warned (via 'away' message) about delays, then how hard would it be for eBay to A) automatically extend handling time for X days when holiday mode is switched on, and B) put a note in the purchase history for buyers that says 'Seller away until [date] '.

[happylouie08]

hi, i have set my store on holiday mode, but i also make sure a pre written message is sent to the buyer when the item is purchased, i didnt notice the feature at first. but i always make sure the box is ticked. i had a couple of issues with the holiday setting. but with the msgs being sent now, it ha been a lot better