eBay is building a new messaging platform and will launch it in the Spring, it announced on Thursday. But in the meantime, users have been reporting a problem with the existing member messaging system that makes it more difficult for sellers to identify which listing a buyer is referring to in their inquiry.
“eBay messaging system has been broken for 2 weeks at least and eBay rep is saying the possible fix date is the month of MAY,” a reader told EcommerceBytes. The problem: “There is no longer a link in the message to access the listing that the message is about.” The problem is occurring on both the mobile app and on the desktop, according to the seller.
The reader said it’s crucial for eBay to include a link to the listing in the buyer’s message.
Sellers also reported the problem on the eBay Technical Issues board. A seller wrote on Sunday, “I’m noticing that suddenly whenever someone sends me a message with a question about an item I can no longer visit the listing from the message. It used to be that the item they were sending a question about would be linked under the message. Now it just says the item title and then I have to navigate over to the selling page, search for the item, go into the listing, gather the information and go back to the messages to respond.” They called it a “horrible” change.
Another user also reported the issue on another eBay discussion board in a thread titled, “eBay, why did you remove the Item Hot Links in eBay Messages?” Another user who responded suggested a workaround: “if you click “reply” it stills has a link on that page.”
At eBay Investor Day on Thursday, Chief Product Officer Pete Thompson said eBay will roll out a new messaging platform in the spring.
“We’ll phase out our decades-old email-based platform, and in its place, we’ll introduce a modern chat experience with integrated functionality.”
Thompson said sellers would be easily able to “track multiple message threads from buyers; they’ll see links to the specific item in question; and over time, they can streamline activities, such as offers, refunds, or shipping information straight from the messaging platform.”
The following slide from Thursday’s presentation displays an example of a seller responding to a buyer through the new messaging platform. It’s clear from the exchange that the seller knows which item the buyer is inquiring about and was able to identify the buyer as someone who has made a previous purchase. The exchange also highlights eBay’s seller-initiated offer feature:
“Hi, great to see you shopping with me again. Yes, I can give you a 10% discount on this. Just a sec, I’ll send you an offer with the updated total.”
Source: eBay Investor Day slide
it just wouldn’t be eBay without glitches. Hilarious! Enjoy.
ebay glitch…what a surprise said nobody