Yet another EBay problem.

[greenie]

If you’re an eBay seller you have a lot to gripe about. Here’s one more :

 

On several of my listings, eBay changed the shipping from buyer pays a calculated amount- to FREE shipping for the buyer. They just didn’t tell me they were doing it. I caught the first couple in time, the last one was a large item that got purchased and I had to cancel the sale and apologize to the buyer.

I called eBay (always a trip) and at first  “Shaun” tells me he hadn’t heard of this; but at my insistence he double checks- and sure enough, many others have made the same complaint. ( Mr. Google sure heard about it)

Of course Shaun was apologetic, and offered a $10 coupon- but I am left with a parts buyer who is less than thrilled. Watch your listings for this newest wrinkle.

[auburnseeker]

I wonder if the issue was an accidental box being checked.  I've had it happen with other features when listing.  

If your cursor is just below the item title box when you click it to edit it, it will automatically highlight the 2.00 additional fee for bold ,  even if your cursor is all the way to the other end of that line and no where near the box. 

I bet down in the shipping area,  it's the same case,  anywhere on that line of text that has the free shipping box will activate it. 

 

I just actually tried it and if you accidentally click any part of the word Free shipping,  even the end of the G it will highlight the box.  It should be set up so that it only activates if you click the box. 

 

 

Don't feel bad.  I had a customer last night who was top bidder on 11 items all ending tonight (so less than 24 hours) retract all his bids.  They have been in place for atelast 3 days and the items were almost all $15-$20.  Everyone of them went down to $3-$4.  I contacted him as he had successfully won the bid on another item.  He said he didn't think they would go so high and he didn't have that kind of money to spend.  He sells nothing (or atleast has no items for sale now)  but has 7,600 feedback.   That's one of the many flaws.  But no one cares about sellers getting the shaft.  Now all those items which bidders saw higher than they wanted to spend probably didn't put any of them on their watch and I'll be lucky to get what they were bid to much less more.  I told him doing so poisoned the bidding pool.  Also makes customers think something funny is going on.  Really sucks as these were alot of 30's Ford pieces which I have never had before.

I've always said ebay shouldn't allow retracting bids days after they are placed.  I say give a 1 hour window max and that's it.  After that it stands.

[greenie]

I’ve actually tired of reading gripes about eBay. I posted this so that others could be vigilant.

 

Gone are the days when you list 8 old car parts and 3 have bids before you get done. Buyers and sellers have abandoned eBay for a myriad of reasons. Now you list stuff for free and wait weeks for that one guy or gal to ride along. And the price better be low.

 

So I’ve taken a different tactic. When live gives you lemons. So I look for bargains on the parts I regularly sell at swap meets (remember those?) and to return customers- and try to buy stuff low on eBay and resell elsewhere. I’ll have some things in my spaces at Fall Carlisle that came to me via eBay.

[1937hd45]

Ever notice the one thing that is never cleared from your previous listing is the "Free Shipping" option. Got burnt on one item were I stated in the text that shipping & handling would add $3.00, forgot to double check that shipping box.  Buyer complained, send a corrected invoice, still waiting for my .99 payment. Here is another new feature, a buyer can post feedback before paying, then decide they want you to cancel the order.

[DB26]

Yeah. eBay’s automated formatting of listings is terrible. I sold a few things that ended up going through their Global Shipping Program. I only found out when I got suspicious of the buyers address and Googled it. It was some sort of airport terminal halfway across the USA. The item got there okay, but I’ve heard bad things about it. I proofread very carefully my listings now. 

[greenie]

The terminal is in Kentucky. It’s real easy to participate in the eBay international shipping program. But when your item winds up in some country that ends in ....Stan, you might find out unscrupulous buyers have you  over a barrel.

And the poor folks in Canada get worked over by the eBay shipping costs and the currency conversion.

So I stopped international sales.

[Harold]

eBay tried to sneak in 'or best offer' on an auction listing I placed a couple of nights ago.   Got in there and fixed that listing real fast!

[29tons]

The same thing happened to me and ebay said I had to send the item with free shipping Im ready to start using facebook

[padgett]

Just out of curiosity when an item has pictures that do not match the text, which takes precedence ? Have asked questions before when it happens and sometimes receive a non-answer.

[auburnseeker]

1 hour ago, padgett said:

Just out of curiosity when an item has pictures that do not match the text, which takes precedence ? Have asked questions before when it happens and sometimes receive a non-answer.

I would say picture first,  title second, and then description third.  If I wasn't sure though I would ask a question to clarify what I'm bidding on.  Usually someone catches the mistake or I do when reviewing listings later on,  but they do once in a great while sneak through. I have had it happen maybe once or twice a year.  Half listing too late at night when I'm overtired and on item 10-20 of 30 for the night.  Especially when you are listing brochures with very similar covers,  or when you stop one listing and try it on another page because photos aren't loading right.  But we all know there are no glitches in the system,  so one really never has to do that. 

[hidden_hunter]

On 9/4/2020 at 11:26 AM, greenie said:

The terminal is in Kentucky. It’s real easy to participate in the eBay international shipping program. But when your item winds up in some country that ends in ....Stan, you might find out unscrupulous buyers have you  over a barrel.

And the poor folks in Canada get worked over by the eBay shipping costs and the currency conversion.

So I stopped international sales.

I haven’t had a problem using GSP other than the cost, there’s plenty of other places that provide a similar service. Biggest problem I have found with International shipping is that things are packed really inefficiently and what is cheap for domestic shipping isn’t cheap internationally.

[60FlatTop]

When the text does not match the picture the general rule of assumption would be the appropriate action.

[John348]

11 hours ago, auburnseeker said:

I would say picture first,  title second, and then description third.  If I wasn't sure though I would ask a question to clarify what I'm bidding on.  Usually someone catches the mistake or I do when reviewing listings later on,  but they do once in a great while sneak through. I have had it happen maybe once or twice a year.  Half listing too late at night when I'm overtired and on item 10-20 of 30 for the night.  Especially when you are listing brochures with very similar covers,  or when you stop one listing and try it on another page because photos aren't loading right.  But we all know there are no glitches in the system,  so one really never has to do that. 

 

I have done the same thing, again like you mostly because I am tired 

[Joe in Canada]

On 9/3/2020 at 9:26 PM, greenie said:

And the poor folks in Canada get worked over by the eBay shipping costs

That is why I bailed after eBay started the global shipping program to gouge a few more bucks out of the customer. 

[John348]

43 minutes ago, Joe in Canada said:

That is why I bailed after eBay started the global shipping program to gouge a few more bucks out of the customer. 

 

Well, thay are gouging a lot of bucks off the seller

[auburnseeker]

New ebay problems.

Yes I'm going to complain,  so if it offends an ebay change cheerleader don't read this.

Today saw the roll out of a new labels page.  Now mind you no warning of this,  you just go to work and everything is different.  Think like the boss just changed how you get in the building but didn't tell you how when you go to work.

Went to print my daily media mail shipments of literature, and it won't let me highlight the box that says media mail and customer selected next to it. 

  Well after an hour of chat with ebay and screwing around,  seems their answer is we aren't offering media mail anymore on ebay labels,  yet right there is the box for it.  

Now I need to go get every label printed at the post office or join a third part vendor to buy my labels.  Hopefully with both I won't have to manually upload every tracking number.  Remember on every item sold not just orders.  An order with 50 items require you manually add it to every item.  Boy sure would have been nice to know of this change ahead of time.

 

Some members are also reporting having trouble printing any type of label.

I also went to the community to post of the issue and see if anyone had suggestions ,  but ebay sent me a red flag when I went to type the body of the text of my question that I wasn't authorized to post.  Wait, I have posted in the community (that's what it's for, community help) before with questions and problems to find out how to work around / through problems they created.

I was fortunate enough to beable to reply to a thread on shipping problems today and found a site recommended by an ebay member called pirateship.com Has anyone used them before?  

I'm just a little leery of any site called pirate ship that I buy something from and give personal info to. 

 

 

[TexRiv_63]

42 minutes ago, auburnseeker said:

New ebay problems.

Yes I'm going to complain,  so if it offends an ebay change cheerleader don't read this.

Today saw the roll out of a new labels page.  Now mind you no warning of this,  you just go to work and everything is different.  Think like the boss just changed how you get in the building but didn't tell you how when you go to work.

Went to print my daily media mail shipments of literature, and it won't let me highlight the box that says media mail and customer selected next to it. 

  Well after an hour of chat with ebay and screwing around,  seems their answer is we aren't offering media mail anymore on ebay labels,  yet right there is the box for it.  

Now I need to go get every label printed at the post office or join a third part vendor to buy my labels.  Hopefully with both I won't have to manually upload every tracking number.  Remember on every item sold not just orders.  An order with 50 items require you manually add it to every item.  Boy sure would have been nice to know of this change ahead of time.

 

Some members are also reporting having trouble printing any type of label.

I also went to the community to post of the issue and see if anyone had suggestions ,  but ebay sent me a red flag when I went to type the body of the text of my question that I wasn't authorized to post.  Wait, I have posted in the community (that's what it's for, community help) before with questions and problems to find out how to work around / through problems they created.

I was fortunate enough to beable to reply to a thread on shipping problems today and found a site recommended by an ebay member called pirateship.com Has anyone used them before?  

I'm just a little leery of any site called pirate ship that I buy something from and give personal info to. 

 

 

Not sure if this will solve your problem but I ran into a similar issue with their new page a few weeks ago. After a bunch of fiddling around I noticed they had buttons to choose between "carrier packaging" and "sender packaging" or something like that. The page seems to default to "carrier packaging" which limits the choices to just priority mail, etc. with USPS supplied boxes. When I clicked on the other button suddenly my choice, First Class Parcel, popped up as the customer selected option. I had to select it manually but it did work correctly when I did. Waiting to see if it will come up automatically with my next batch.

[auburnseeker]

Unfortunately I just tried that and it didn't work. 

  Boy would have been an easy fix if it was so. 

I think I was just given a smoke screen in them not offering media. as why would it be on the new page as an option if it wasn't available?  

 

 

 

[John348]

The USPS does not offer media mail to print at home either. I was just sending a friend of mine a book out in California and I had to bring it to the post office. Spoke with supervisor and he told me that too many people have been cheating and sending everything media mail.

 

I ran into this at a self serve 24 hour kiosk at a Post Office in Florida, it would not allow me to purchase a media mail label at their own kiosk..... 

 

 

[auburnseeker]

You can print it on pay pal,  but that creates a whole new problem as no matter how I tried I couldn't get it to format correctly for my 4x6 labels.  I eventually printed it to a regular piece of paper.  I might have to check out the pirate Postage thing. 

 

I don't know why it would be such an issue with the post office.  Check any questionable packages and send them at the full priority rate if it's not media inside.  If it happened to a few items it wouldn't be abused.  I use literature mailers so there aren't too many things you can slip through in a regular book mailer that isn't media  with weight considered without splitting hairs as to the content of the literature.  But a rim obviously isn't a book. pretty easy to determine on alot of stuff.

 

I still suspect the person I got on ebay help doesn't know what they are talking about and hopefully for now a glitch.  I jsut tried again to print an ebay label for media and it still blocks the box off.