eBay announced on Thursday it is delaying the implementation of some policy changes it had announced in this year’s Spring Seller Update.
The policies were scheduled to take effect on June 1, but eBay announced they would take effect on July 20th instead.
It’s unclear why eBay waited three weeks after the scheduled date to announce the delay, nor did it provide a reason for the delay.
The announcement applies to the following three policies:
- Changes to handling “Item not as described” return requests for all sellers: Sellers will be required to respond within 3 business days when buyers request to return items that don’t match listing descriptions through eBay Money Back Guarantee. “When you do not respond within that time period, we may refund the buyer and seek reimbursement from you without requiring the buyer to ship the item back.”
- eBay-integrated shipping carrier requirement: Sellers will be required to use eBay-integrated shipping carriers that provide regular shipment scans in order to protect them from “Item not received” claims filed through eBay Money Back Guarantee. “Starting July 20, 2020, you’ll be required to use eBay-integrated shipping carriers that offer tracked services when you ship to protect yourself from “Item not received” claims filed through eBay Money Back Guarantee.”
- Item Not Received Claims and tracking: Sellers must provide tracking with scans within 3 business days after an “Item not received” case was opened or risk automatically losing the case. “If you are not currently uploading any tracking information within 3 business days after an “Item not received” case was opened, we may already decide the case in the buyer’s favor.”
You can find the full announcement on the eBay Announcement Board.
Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.
All these garbage changes are designed to let bots handle most if not all of them, so that eBay can save even more money! The savings of course, won’t be passed on to sellers, just eBay’s stock holders. Investors are only happy any time a company finds ways to lay off current employees.
To all you sellers out there still dependent on eBay, good luck dealing with its bots! Better respond quick to your whiny, petulant Amazon-trained buyers before they get auto-refunds AND keep your items too!
“eBay-integrated shipping carrier requirement: Sellers will be required to use eBay-integrated shipping carriers that provide regular shipment scans in order to protect them from “Item not received” claims filed through eBay Money Back Guarantee. ”
You know who this leaves out? Amazon in house shipping. The vast majority of my Amazon purchases come to me in an Amazon van, using their in house tracking number. But last week I bought a common household item on eBay. It came to me from Amazon, with an Amazon packing slip, in the Amazon van. The eBay seller was using Amazon as a drop shipper. There are a lot on giant sellers who use Amazon as a drop shipper. Looks like their tracking numbers will be invalid going forward. Good.
Ebay has begun “cheating” sellers by refunding buyers who run scams. I recently lost a “case” to a buyer who returned the wrong item. My item cost $70.00 and the item she returned was worth $3.00. Ebay refunded the buyer without the return of my $70.00 item. So now I am out $140.00.
I appealed this ruling since the buyer’s emails clearly stated that she made a mistake. In fact she states that she sent my item to another seller.
Ebay refuses to make this right by me! I am concerned about being on Managed Payments when Ebay can literately “steal” from my account.
This week I will open a personal dedicated account for Managed Payments and keep $30.00 as balance for future “stealing” by Ebay.
Also I see that some Ebay Directors are being indicted for bullying people who make public how Ebay is cheating its sellers.
I make a good living on Ebay so I am not dropping out, just hedging my bets a bit. Ebay has gone steadily down hill. They have rolling rotations of my items so some weeks I have lots and lots of sales and some weeks I have no sales.