When holiday settings turned on, should postage overdue appear on sales

[needsome12vbasics]

When you have holiday settings turned on with a return date displayed, should sales made in between before you get back, show postage overdue notice from eBay?  If it shows overdue at my end, the customer would also see overdue?  I always wonder how many customers buy without reading the holiday away banner, and if they didn't see it, seeing the postage maked by eBay as overdue could make it worse.

[needsome12vbasics]

Sorry if you think I am twisting your words, it was not my intention.  You appear to be content to accept eBay as it is, faults and all, and not let them know of any issues.

The only way eBay will improve is if enough of us (buyers and sellers) make them aware of things that don't work.  Surely you can see that the postage times issue is major, and causes confusion for buyers, and if buyers aren't happy, then they don't buy.  NOT just from that buyer, but from ALL buyers on eBay, so in effect your sales are affected because of other sellers not being responsible as you are.

It would take eBay much more resourses to educate ALL sellers to keep changing their postage time, then remember to change them back again (never going to happen), than it would to simply fix this issue, to keep buyers correctly informed, therefore happy.

[lyndal1838]

You are living in LaLa Land if you think buyers and sellers are just accepting what ebay is doing without a fight.

If you spend a bit of time on the boards you will see that it is just not true.....there are times when you just have to give up the fight and find ways around the problem that works for you but is still within ebay's policies.

[needsome12vbasics]

---

@lyndal1838wrote:

You are living in LaLa Land if you think buyers and sellers are just accepting what ebay is doing without a fight.

If you spend a bit of time on the boards you will see that it is just not true.....there are times when you just have to give up the fight and find ways around the problem that works for you but is still within ebay's policies.

  

---

But that is my point - once you give up, you become accepting.

Some of the members commenting above are arguing that we should be accepting, that is what I don't understand.   Why give up??

eBay may get sick of those complaining enough, and actually do something.

[imastawka]

Let's look at it another way.

Their bandwidth is insufficient to accommodate everything, so something's gotta give.

They're not going to be able to fix everything, so it's a bit of give and take.

You want to sell on here, then use workarounds.  Simple.

Sellers and buyers have been complaining en masse for years about a lot of things.

Not much has been fixed.  Nor is it likely to be.

[needsome12vbasics]

From Wikipedia - 'Today, eBay is a multi-billion-dollar business with operations in about 30 countries.'

They have the resources, they can fix things. 

[imastawka]

They also have shareholders that they are responsible to.

The government is a multi-billion business as well. 

Lots needs to be fixed there, but it won't be

[digital*ghost]

---

@needsome12vbasicswrote:

The only way eBay will improve is if enough of us (buyers and sellers) make them aware of things that don't work.  Surely you can see that the postage times issue is major, and causes confusion for buyers, and if buyers aren't happy, then they don't buy.  NOT just from that buyer, but from ALL buyers on eBay, so in effect your sales are affected because of other sellers not being responsible as you are.

It would take eBay much more resourses to educate ALL sellers to keep changing their postage time, then remember to change them back again (never going to happen), than it would to simply fix this issue, to keep buyers correctly informed, therefore happy.

---

If you want eBay to be aware of this issue, the forums aren't really the place to do it - you need to contact them directly via the options they provide for feedback, or post on social media (I prefer to post on eBay.au's Facebook page, as it means Aus team members see it). 

To be honest, though, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for eBay to make it a priority - sellers have been raising concerns about these kinds of issues for years, and to be even more honest, I'd be a little miffed if it was prioritised over some other site improvements that are very sorely needed. Primarily because there are tools provided to counteract the problems going on holiday can cause, and just IMO, not being willing to use the tools and wanting better ones instead is not the same as having no options at all - having no options at all happens to apply to a great many other site issues that cause problems daily. Maybe those issues don't affect you, so they're not a priority for you, but the sellers they do affect would probably see the whole holiday settings  / ETA adjustment as a non-issue, since you can already do something about it. 

Also, I don't think it would take many resources at all for eBay to educate sellers. I've suggested this before (maybe in this thread, maybe in a different one on the same issue, can't remember  ), eBay could actually just have a little pop-up warning sellers when holiday settings are switched on, alerting them to the fact that ETAs will still be based on current handling times, and to consider adjusting them while in holiday mode. Something like that advises sellers pretty clearly of the potential problems, the solution, and would be significantly easier to implement than a whole new feature. 

[needsome12vbasics]

I can't do anything about other sellers who won't change delivery dates, or contact buyers advising them, as I do.  These negligent sellers have the ability to affect my sales by default - buyers not using eBay again if annoyed enough - and I have no control over those sellers. 

How is it significantly easier to suggest eBay introduce a new pop up box for sellers reminding them that the dates won't be changed (that most other sellers will just ignore, thereby still badly affecting the reputation of eBay and sellers?).  It would take the same resourses by eBay to put a new pop up box for buyers to notify them that they are buying from a seller who is away, would they like to proceed.  

I know this forum is not the place to complain, I only originally asked an innocent question here, and it has spiralled from that, so others are obviously concerned too.  I have already contacted eBay again via their help pages, and the help person I corresponded with agreed it is a concern, and is forwarding the suggestion to the correct department for consideration.  I am not holding my breath, but I will keep contacting them.  Improvements won't happen until enough feedback is received by them that improvement is needed.

Despite what you all say, I think eBay do listen, they keep making changes constantly, so you just need to get enough people to ask for a change for them to consider it.

Personally, I think keeping buyers happy and informed is important, without buyers we don't sell anything, but I don't know what the other issues are that you refer to. 

If there are other issues that concern you, make eBay aware of them.  Get other sellers to make eBay aware of them too.  You never know when they might listen.

[digital*ghost]

---

@needsome12vbasicswrote:

If there are other issues that concern you, make eBay aware of them.  Get other sellers to make eBay aware of them too.  You never know when they might listen.

---

As I said, I already do, and my biggest concern has already been added to the list of things for eBay AU's tech team to look at implementing. Sometime, anyway. Maybe never. (The other issues that affect sellers right now are related to instant payment required being implemented on listings without the seller activating it, and not being able to turn it off, problems with parcel locker / collect address and the lack of ability to block them like sellers can with PO boxes, cart issues that prevent purchase entirely, for no discernable reason, postage options only applying to one item in the cart when a buyer changes it, instead of all, resulting in the purchases being split into two separate orders with two separate payments, and two separate postage methods and costs, combined postage calculating incorrectly - I've seen things like $5 + $2 = $18, not being able to cancel one item out of a multiple item order, no longer being able to send an invoice to reset checkout when a buyer changes their mind about the payment method they want to use, requests only affecting one item out of a multiple item order and there being no way for buyers to open requests on the remaining items [I mean where they buy multiples of the same item in one purchase, not multiple different items]).

I know there are many others, but that's just off the top of my head.

Editing handling times may be a PITA, but at least the ability to do it is there, and I can't see it being more a PITA to do that than message every buyer who purchases, calling eBay about late shipment defects, or whatever else one has to do to try and deal with the fallout. 

The only other thing I want to say, or ask, rather, is what makes you so sure sellers would ignore it if advised their handling time - if left unchanged - may cause problems?

[lyndal1838]

---

@needsome12vbasicswrote:

I know this forum is not the place to complain, I only originally asked an innocent question here, and it has spiralled from that, so others are obviously concerned too.  I have already contacted eBay again via their help pages, and the help person I corresponded with agreed it is a concern, and is forwarding the suggestion to the correct department for consideration.  I am not holding my breath, but I will keep contacting them.  Improvements won't happen until enough feedback is received by them that improvement is needed.

If you really believe that you are getting a response that will be carried through then you have a lot of reading to do on the boards.  Ebay is famous for agreeing that a change is needed and making promises....and then foregtting all about it.

Do you really believe that buyers and sellers have not been pushing for changes till they are blue in the face??

Despite what you all say, I think eBay do listen, they keep making changes constantly, so you just need to get enough people to ask for a change for them to consider it.

You think ebay listens?   Get real.   If they want to do something they will do it whether members want it or not.  If members ask for a change that is as good a reason as any NOT to listen and not to do it.

Personally, I think keeping buyers happy and informed is important, without buyers we don't sell anything, but I don't know what the other issues are that you refer to. 

If you don't know what issues are being referred to I suggest you read around the boards.....there are issues galore.

If there are other issues that concern you, make eBay aware of them.  Get other sellers to make eBay aware of them too.  You never know when they might listen.

Do you really think the members here have not been making ebay aware of problems?

Actually we do know when they might listen.....this year, next year, sometime, never.....or when the cows come home if you like.

---