eBay

bettyboopsadaisy · ‎04-04-2016

I regularly receive 40 free listings a month and am very grateful for them.

Usually, I spread my use of them out over the month but at both the end of Feb and March, my remaining free listings, which are supposed to be available until 11.59pm on the last day of the month disappeared much earlier than that on both the 29th Feb and 31st March. The loss of free listings I might have otherwise used, was unfortunate, but I just shrugged (at the end of Feb) knowing I would have 40 new free listings the following day.

However, on the 31st March, I had checked to make sure I had a couple of free listings left earlier in the day and then a little later, proceeded to list a couple of items. They were listed at 8.40pm and 10.20pm on that night. I then discovered that I had been charged $1.50 for each - the standard insertion fee, without extras.

I tossed up just living with it or contacting ebay about it but decided that my sales and profit margin are soooo meagre these days that I would follow it up.

Surprisingly, I got a very quick response from ebay. They would credit me with both insertion fees and the explanation is that basically ebay pick a time for expiry of the free listings out of their proverbial hats !!

Here is the information I was given by the CS agent:

"I am aware that you saw 2 free listings on your account prior to listing your items for sale, we are not given an exact time on when the free listing will expire. Th only details that was specified is it will expire at the end of the month and the maximum time frame is at 11:59 pm, so any time of the day the free listing will expire."

That's all very well and we can adjust our listing practice to this ONCE WE KNOW - however apparently ebay don't feel the need to let their seller clientele in general know about this. . . .unless of course you end up having an experience like I did and choose to enquire about it !!

chameleon54 · ‎04-04-2016

I,ve never experienced this problem. Last day of March I relisted 30 items at around 11.30 pm. without any problems and regularly leave it until the last 10 or 15 minutes. ( Yes I,m organised )

Different accounts are definately handled in different ways by ebay. This includes options offered, page layouts etc. What some people see, others dont. Some people experience problems that others never see.

My two stores are both the same catagory, but one has the postal code system which can be bulk edited, the other requires postage cost to be entered for each item individually, no postal code option anywhere. The systems for loading photos are different too. I have searched everywhere, but cant see the different systems offered as options. ( yes I know about the basic uploader facility, but that is different again ) Its only when you have several accounts that you realise not every account holder sees the same thing.

bettyboopsadaisy · ‎04-04-2016

Yes, I have only the one account so, no basis for comparison.

I think its on the cards that what I have experienced in the last couple of months, as outlined in my previous post, will not re-occur,even for me.

The inconsistency is staggering. Most ebayers (particularly sellers) will be able to identify with that !!

englishrosegardens · ‎04-04-2016

The section down the bottom of the All Selling page shows when the offers expire and it's a very specific time, not a maximum time as the rep told you. I doubt I'd believe much at all of what the reps say because if you asked ten of them the same question you'd probably get ten different replies!

Have you checked your offer history and clicked on the number you used to see which item numbers are showing and how many of them you used, just in case you used one that you'd forgotten about (eg. it was scheduled to start later in the day) or that one was used when a previous listing auto-relisted?

chameleon, are you talking about not having business policies for postage on one ID? If so, there was a thread about this last year with a link that enabled you to opt in. I can find it for you if you're interested.

chameleon54 · ‎04-04-2016

Thank englishrose garden, yes it is the business postage policies I am reffering too.

They just appeared on one store, but not the other. Thanks for your offer to look for the thread, but I am not majorly fussed. Just interested how some accounts see one thing and other account holders see something completely different. I set my postage costs and just leave them most of the time. If AP increase thier costs, I just accept that the older listings will have cheaper postage and view it as a discount to encourage sales of stock that has sat around for awhile.