eBay revealed some key information in its first podcast of the New Year. eBay employees Jim "Griff" Griffith and Brian Burke hosted the podcast on January 3, 2023, and in addition to interviewing eBay seller Jessica Oman of Storage Warriors, they discussed some important issues. Here are three takeaways for sellers:
1) Loophole in eBay's Winter Storm Protection for Sellers?
However, during Tuesday's podcast, Brian Burke stated the following:
"If your business was impacted by Winter Storm Elliot, eBay will automatically protect your seller performance, including your late shipment rate and valid tracking upload rate, and any item not received cases due to late delivery as long as you uploaded tracking before the case was opened and have a physical scan from the carrier. eBay will also remove any defects resulting from transactions you canceled and will remove any associated negative and neutral feedback. Finally, these cases will not impact your service metrics rating."
The eBay announcement hadn't stated the requirement of having tracking uploaded in order to receive protection - a problem if sellers couldn't mail their orders because of the storm.
And sure enough, some sellers had been
unable to make it to the Post Office - not only were they snowed in, and not only were Post Offices closed - but there was also a driving ban that prohibited people in some areas from getting to the Post Office.
We're not sure how eBay will handle seller protection if sellers were unable to upload tracking due to the storm - let us know if you have issues - and you can try reaching out to
eBay for Business on Facebook for help.
2) UPS Overtakes USPS in Popularity among eBay Sellers?
Brian Burke and Jim Griffith discussed the annual shipping rate hikes (without mentioning the fact it's a fee increase for eBay every time shipping costs rise, btw).
Griffith, who also sells on eBay, said he had always shipped via USPS, but said UPS has won his business.
"I was a USPS guy for years," he said. "Almost everything I was USPS and now it's mostly UPS ground."
It's certainly worth comparing rates, though it's not an apples to apples comparison given UPS pickup charges and surcharges.
3) The End of eBay's Listing Quality Report Showing Google's Rejects
During a
previous podcast (#221 on December 13, 2022), Burke and Griffith had explained that eBay sends all fixed-price listings to Google Shopping and discussed how sellers could optimize their listings.
After it aired, a seller asked why they hadn't discussed the eBay Listings Quality Report, which includes information about listings rejected by Google Shopping.
Griffith said this week that the report shows which listings Google Shopping rejects and the reason - valuable information for sellers looking for exposure on Google.
But after praising the usefulness of the report, Griffith announced that eBay would no longer make the report available to sellers at the end of February.
Burke said, "My understanding of why it was is being retired is it was a beta so it didn't go out to everyone. We learned a lot from it and they're going to evaluate what pieces of it to include down the road or in the future. But for now the listing quality report will be retired."
(Post updated for clarity.)
eBay New Year's Podcast: Three Takeaways for Sellers
by: toolguy