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“Are we paying Final Value Fees on the Sales Tax Collected from the Buyer”
I believe so. Go to the Payments tab, then select any Order line item in Recent transactions. There should be a “Fees based on” dropdown you can click and see what the breakdown is
Just re-reading this thread again. It’s almost 2022 and eBay’s systems for returns and customer support are still straight out of the 90s.
As for the “we can handle this case in X days” stuff: eBay has a case system that emails you when a case is open. If the rep won’t give you an ID for the case, you should have no reason to believe it exists. They’re trying to get you off the phone.
Recently I had to do the math on how much money I was making from international sales vs. what I was losing to tracking failures, nondelivery, and returns. I also took into account time spent trying to work with international buyers and time spent on the phone with eBay trying to resolve issues related to these orders. I highly recommend doing that math yourself. In my case, the best way to prevent issues with international orders was to not sell international at all, although I realize I’m probably in the extreme minority when it comes to that conclusion.
I didn’t mind drop shippers until they started sending me messages saying I needed to ship items same-day/weekends, pack a certain way, no eBay tape, etc etc. For the longest time I made very good money off them, but lots of people jumped on the drop shipping trend and there was very clearly a race to the bottom. I’ve since stopped stocking items that they target.
I could write a novel about this one particular guy. He’d buy things on Friday night and spend all weekend messaging me trying to get me to ship. I’d say, “Hey, this is going out Monday as per handling time” to which he’d reply, “OK thanks.” 15 minutes later he’d message again and go, “Hey please ship this now. just pack it and drive to fedex and drop off. give me tracking ASAP thanks so much.”
Really annoying!
Did this a couple of months ago. I’m absolutely farming points! I settle for cash back since I don’t travel much.
Use a color picker! It can show RGB values. This one is pretty simple (Windows only): https://annystudio.com/software/colorpicker/
I think the only thing you can do that won’t cost you a bunch of time and sanity would be to do as you said (report them), then issue the lowest partial refund possible. Pretty good eff-you to the shameless buyer, and you’ll more than likely be able to relist the outfit.
The other approach would be to wait until it’s marked as delivered, then call eBay and start disputing the return directly with them. Up to you to decide whether the dollar amount is worth it to lose your marbles talking to uncaring CSRs.
I have a certain dollar amount threshold for whether or not I fight eBay over an INAD. I don’t like the idea of someone pulling one over on me, but sometimes the money lost just isn’t worth it.
The downside of this will be an uptick in “hi can you please cancel this” messages that come after buyers realize the offer was binding. I have no issue with canceling orders, but eBay’s handling of canceled orders is completely broken IMO.
What SHOULD happen is a reversal of the buyer’s payment OR a negative credit to the pool of “processing” funds. Instead the refund comes out of available funds (the money you get paid on the next payout.) If the canceled order is large enough, it can zero out your available payout that was due the next day. This effectively delays the payment for 3 to 6 days while funds are bouncing between the buyer’s payment method, eBay’s system, and your bank. This has happened to me multiple times.
Like immediate BIN payments, I hope this is optional just in case the above scenario becomes more frequent. I love the idea in concept, just hope eBay gives us the control we need to keep things in check.
It seems I tend to sell mostly $20 / $30 stuff international. Volume-wise I think I lose out in the long run, as the deals gone bad wipe out the profits from approx. 2 international sales gone right. I do actually have GSP enabled, but it seems the buyer is able to choose at checkout which option they want to go with. Seems I’ll need to dig through my business policies and figure out how to toggle that off.
The impression I’m getting from reading the replies here is that eBay’s handling of international shipments could be better in regards to making both the buyer and seller aware of the fees/risks involved. Even if eBay can’t directly quote the fees the buyer will have to pay, it’d be nice if they put a disclaimer somewhere so it doesn’t fall back on the seller to handle it.
Advanced Promoted Listings. Instead of promoting single items, you promote groups of items based on keywords. Keywords can be individual words or entire search queries. Whereas standard promoted listings boost your items in search when people are looking for that exact item, advanced promoted listings boost your items when someone is doing a vague search like “mens running shoes” or “vintage t-shirts.”
Unlike standard promos. (which charge you when the item sells,) advanced promos. charge you per click. The amount you end up paying is based on the amount you “bid” for whatever search keyword(s) you’re targeting. You’re literally bidding for search rank.
Example: I tell eBay I have a daily budget of $10 for advertising and will pay $0.10/click. Someone else could have a budget of $10 with $0.25/click, so their items would be promoted first at (presumably) some $ amount per click just above my bid until their budget is met, after which my listings would get promoted at some unknown rate <= $0.10/click.
Personally, I’ve been very unsuccessful with them – about $50-something in sales with $28 in fees. I’m still experimenting with it, but I see myself ditching them eventually. FWIW, I think they’re totally useless for the average scavenger selling niche, vintage products.
And to the topic: I also had a very noticeable dip in sales Monday and am still recovering. More time to list.
Could be wrong about this, but: In terms of cases, returns, and feedback, eBay only allows 1 of each. An INR is a case, and INAD is a return. The buyer can up a return (under INAD), but can’t leave feedback since they’ve already left one (not sure how this works if the feedback is removed, but I assume eBay prevents them from leaving another.)
Also mentioned: Promoted Listings are now called “Promoted Listings Standard” in order to make way for “Promoted Listings Advanced” sometime this fall.
Advanced promoted listings work on a pay-per-click model. I won’t pretend I understand anything else mentioned in the update. Apparently you’re promoting via groups of items? Or groups of keywords? It’s the kind of thing I need to see in person before I’ll fully grasp it, I feel.
And was this mentioned in the update? Promoted listings can be automated now, so any new items you add immediately go into a campaign. I had to make a new campaign to get this working.
You two have done an amazing job, and while I’m sad to see it go, I completely understand your reasoning. This has been a nice gathering place for like-minded scavengers and (in my opinion) the best resource for resellers looking to get started on the right foot. Thanks for everything!
I think so, but haven’t checked myself. My understanding is that after the quantity of a listing drops to 0, the listing goes into a kind of “limbo” until the quantity is upped again, in which case the solds will show up in the sold results again. For one-off items (like most of us sell,) the quantity will never get upped, so they’ll never show.
I just learned that you can hide sold listings via an “Out of Stock” option. And yes, every single comment/video I found on it said they were doing it to hide their solds from competition. The items that show up in his solds are quantity listings.
On the mobile (app) version of eBay, you have to scroll all the way through a listing – including going past a number of advertisements – to even see a seller’s feedback percentage. It’s so buried that it’s practically invisible. This is not the case for the desktop version, where it’s visible without scrolling. With smart phones having replaced computers for most general-purpose web browsing, I’d say more people are probably interacting with eBay via their phones.
Remember: eBay has 2 feedback systems. One is the Pos/Neu/Neg ratings, and the other is a 4 category scoring system. Visit your user page to see both (click your name in seller hub.) I like to think the latter carries more weight than the former when it comes to ranking your account, but this is just my opinion.
