Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Jay,
Agree. I am on the wait and see fence before I’ll lose any sleep on if EB is going to try to recapture or use any of my prepaids. I have so many other issues with eBay that keep me going.However, this is not a “lets run it the flagpole and see what happens” type of announcement. This is a definitive change in TOS. And there is always merit to be proactive if change in TOS would affect you as seller and to question the details of such changes.
Never paid attention to the details of my last violation. It was for trademark violation. A used shirt with a Porsche logo and an embroidered outline of a 911. Even though the message directed me to the general VeRO page, Porsche doesn’t even have VeRO page on EB. But the message did have an email address of a person at Porsche if I wanted to discuss it further.
Turns out only approved dealers and sellers can sell Porsche apparel. Both new and used. Whaz up with that?
GTC has nothing to do with it.
You’ll have to read the chat yourself. There’s a lot smarter people than I that chimed in had some very persuasive arguments and questions. And even EB staff at the time couldn’t clarify as to how this was going to be tracked, flagged or implemented.
My first reaction reaction as to why EB would do this is to an intrusive attempt to force the hand of the seller in relisting items if they had unused listing credits. But it just seems like a logistical nightmare.
I’ve had my than my share of hand-slaps for selling unapproved items and VeRO violation, two in 1 month. And 2 so far this year. All for different reasons and none purposely. Some questionable and unclear as to why, but I pick my battles and prefer to accept the decision.
And although there no set number, if this is second in over 1.5 years, I wouldn’t worry about it. Individuals that I have talked to that have been suspended or kicked off have all been repeat offenders. Trying to skirt the system by attempting relist the same items they were in violation to begin with. Some creative… listing in different categories, misspelling the product name and so forth. Makings of their own decisions.
As sellers, EB tells us that we need to visit the VeRO page before listing any item. Yeah, right. If there weren’t hundreds or even thousands of them. It would be nice that if a brand name is required, we get a warning message as to a possible violation before an item is listed. But that makes too much sense.
If you are still doing bulk edits to change your handling times, you may have business policies disabled. To enable them, go into account settings, upper left corner, select business policies. It should tell you that they are disabled and if you wish to enable them.
You really shouldn’t have that many shipping policies.
I mostly use calculated shipping so the policies I have created up are:
First Class Shipping. (for <=16 oz)
FedEx SP/USPS Priority Mail (for >1 lbs)
FedEx SP (when I only want to offer this option)
Media Mail
Free Shipping
I have a couple additional variations of FedEx and USPS PM that have a $1 and $2 SH changing. These are for items that are heavier and may need additional packing material.
I also label the policies, (custom) SHIP Calc:USPS FC or (custom) SHIP Calc:USPS PM/FedEx SP $1SH
As for return policy I start with (custom) RETURN…
Payment Policy starts with (custom) PAYMENT…
Beginning with the parentheses assures my custom policies will display first in the list. And I can ignore all the other policies that EB has created on it own.
http://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2017summer/listing-policy-updates.html
Paragraph 2 under Adopt listing best practices.
…Details about payment, shipping, or returns should be included in the structured data fields available for Business Policies…
Not sure what you mean by free style policies.
If you have Business Policy enabled, EB creates a business policy (payment, shipping, return) for each and every listing you create and attempts to consolidate them by removing duplicates. If you look at your business polices, you will find you may have hundreds of them already. Every time you make a change to a listing for these policies, it creates another.
The idea is to create a custom one that can be reused over and over without having to edit each listing.
Lets take for example changing handling time. I think your process today is that you bulk edit your listings. And you’re limited in the number of listing you can do at one time. With business shipping policy, all you have to do is edit the policy. If you only use one policy, one edit to the policy covers all of your listings.
Also note, I believe bulk edits are only for active listings. Business policy covers all listings. Active, ended and archived.
Lastly, all EB has to do is deny the listing if business policies are not set. For over a year, EB has been going back and forth with its requirements for business policies. First it would allow 1 of 3, then 2 of 3 then eventually now you need all 3 to be set.
Anyway, they have made it clear that this will eventually have to be done in their “Structured Data” sometime this year.
The advantages are obvious. If you’re selling clothes, you can create a return policy that is very specific for that category and when you do your listing, you just select that policy. Need to make a change your return policy for the category, just edit the business policy. No need to redo each and every listing.
That would be a mistake. At the very least, sellers should start using business polices and edit out and reference to those from the description. Better to to it going forward than have your operations potentially stopped in it tracks when you’re forced into it.
For me it took some time and little trial and error in building mine to a point that worked for me.
http://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2017summer/listing-policy-updates.html
If you read into the listing policy updates where they are going to discourage putting payment, shipping and return policies within the description and instead using business policies.
Based on what I’m reading on the EB community forum, EB has is looking at resolving disputes based on what is in the return, payment and shipping sections of the listing and not what is described in the text.
For example, if seller puts no returns in the description, but the item, by accident or in error, has a return policy accepted. Seller will be held to the return policy.
Business policies will clean-up and standardize these issues.
Look at it from the seller standpoint. Seller has a lot of things going on everyday and automating anything to saves you time you take advantage of. The buyer has only one thing on their mind. Buying that item. My view is the first offer is always a low ball offer and when automatically declined, reinforces this to the buyer. Kind of a proverbial slap on the hand. The second offer is a more serous offer and if automatically declined, still is not what the seller is willing to let it go at. The third offer should be the maximum the buyer is willing pay. As a buyer, if you missed it by $1. That is $1 too short and just let it go.
I’m comfortable with my method because it is unemotional (as best as it can be). I don’t worry about payment because I have UIA set to kick in after 4 days. Either they pay or they don’t. No sense in worrying about it until the 4th day.
A few weeks ago, had I used auto accept on BO, I would have been out $225. I had a minimum to accept offers set at $175. The item was listed at $675 (no clue as to its value) Within 24 hours I had 4 offers. From $200 to $400. Within 36 hours I had 2 more still under the $400 mark. For the next 24 hours I worked with counters getting the other 5 offers above the $400 mark. They all declined. In the end, and within 6 hours expiration, I accepted the $400 offer.
Correct. In a sense, the minimum $ that I would consider a BO is what I would sell it for. Everything below would be considered low offers and I wouldn’t even be notified of them. Every offer and counter has a minimum of 48 hours to respond. If the item doesn’t have many views, I generally won’t wait the full 48 hours waiting for another offer.
I use BO on new items that I’m unsure of it’s price or order listings that consistently have high views month-over month. In the later, it’s the final step before I reduce the actual price.
