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We heard from the lovely Jane, eBay Anorak and Demon Bead Lady, of an issue with eBay’s Unpaid Item Assistant. Jane quite sensibly had turned this off, preferring to handle her unpaid items on a case by case basis rather than potentially annoying buyers with automated emails about non-payment. Then eBay turned it back on again. Jane told us: “I turned off my eBay UPI assistant, it’s now turned itself back on giving 23 days to NPBs”. It seems that Jane isn’t the only one: some sellers on Seller Central were reporting a similar problem last month, so if yours is supposed to be turned off too, it’s worth checking it still is.

eBay seem to be doing their level best right now to encourage disputes. Auctionbytes covers an issue a couple of US sellers have had, where refunding buyers also results in a “dispute” being recorded against the seller. This seller, for example, refunded a buyer who had underpaid postage, requesting the correct amount be paid, which resulted in a message on her PayPal transaction page that “eBay decided in favor of the buyer in a dispute filed with the eBay Resolution Center and authorized PayPal to debit your account for this refund.”

Another seller refunded part of a buyer’s shipping payment, and is now being given that same message by PayPal. Both sellers say that no dispute has been opened by any party.

It would be bad enough if this was just a mistaken message on PayPal’s part, but of course, it’s not. From this week (on eBay UK), opened buyer protection cases will count against sellers’ performance. And though I have little doubt that the PayPal messaging is “just” a glitch, it’s a glitch that’s going to put fear into some sellers’ hearts, AND it’s going to put people off treating buyers correctly and refunding over-paid postage.

Richard writes:

As a real life example on this ID if I run a report for 25/08/2010 – 17/09/2010 it’s showing 36 international transactions, when in fact I’ve done 18. Instead of the 3 dinged DSR’s I was half expecting from one international buyer I’m showing a figure of 6, so I’m pretty sure that’s doubled too.

It seems that this isn’t necessarily quite as simple as just “doubled” either: on a PSB thread other sellers report “nearly but not quite” double figures.

So does it matter? This is almost certainly a glitch and eBay will almost certainly fix it. The question is whether it will impact seller accounts. The good news is that it seems (at the moment) to only affect non-domestic transactions, so for the vast majority of sellers, won’t affect the TRS score they’re bothered about.

But if your main market is overseas from your residence, and eBay choose to go by the figures they’re displaying on the dashboard rather than the correct ones, then this could affect TRS status quite badly. Whether it actually does so will depend on your number of sales:

• if that’s more than 400, then both numbers are doubled, it won’t make a difference: the percentage rate stays the same. In Richard’s example, 3/18 is the same as 6/36 (16.6%).
• if the actual number of low DSR scores is being incorrectly reported, and you have fewer than 400 transactions, then both TRS and PS status could be affected.

On the other hand, this might actually work in sellers’ favour: other sellers are reporting that the number of transactions has been doubled, but the low DSR count has not: in which case, the percentage represented by low DSRs falls dramatically and could save TRS status for some sellers!

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s gone wrong here, not least because the DSRs themselves are obscured so completely and sellers really have no way to tell what their score should be. If your numbers appear to be wrong, leave us a comment about where exactly the discrepancy is for you.

A number of people are reporting problems with vouchers they’ve received for use on eBay UK. Vouchers have been sent out specifically for use with certain sellers (Zavvi for at least one) or use in specific categories: these appear to all be offering 10% off. The voucher box telling buyers they can use their voucher with this listing, however, is appearing on ALL the listings the buyer looks at, leading several buyers to purchase and then attempt to use their voucher, only to find that it’s ineligible for the item they’ve just bought.

eBay UK’s community manager has said he will pass on reports of problems but in the meantime, sellers should be aware that disgruntled buyers might just be trying to claim 10% off their purchases.

photo credit: jenny downing

Hopefully both will be back soon as apparently the elves are working hard to iron out the gremlins and restore normal service. In the mean time if you sell in Motors don’t be surprised if sales are a little slack!

Updated to add: As of 4pm it all appears to be fixed and back to normal.

photo credit: 1Happysnapper (photography)

eBay has rolled out its automated unpaid item dispute process – and for experienced sellers it will probably come as no shock to hear that it doesn’t work properly. Sellers are reporting various problems, but most consistently that buyers are getting a UID reminder immediately after purchase.

Fortunately this is one feature that sellers do still have the facility to turn off, so if you haven’t yet, I suggest you do so immediately. Where sellers have contacted CS, they’ve been told that a fix is coming, though there has been no official announcement of any problem.

But there’s a bigger issue. Just like last week’s problem with dispatch emails not being sent out until long after goods were delivered, this is a problem of eBay’s making. And it’s a problem that is going to directly impact sellers. Buyers don’t – by and large, unless they’re sellers themselves too – distinguish between eBay and the seller: “I bought it on eBay”, not “I bought it from Biddy’s Bead Shop.” So telling them that these stupid communications are eBay’s doing isn’t going to make a difference – and why should it? It isn’t their problem. All a buyer is going to know is that they were sent stupid email last week, and offensive email this week. eBay lets them score them transaction on communication – and they’re surely not going to give 5/5 for this cock-up.

If eBay is going to score and punish sellers for things like communication, we must all be certain that eBay itself is doing nothing to influence that score. Clearly, that’s not the case: eBay is – well, if I write what eBay is doing to communication DSRs, I’ll have to pinkslap myself for Using Naughty Words. Suffice it to say, the effect of these glitches on communication DSRs can only be downward.

Some people have called for the communication star to be suspended until these glitches are fixed. That’s not a solution. As we’ve seen before, suspending one score has unintended consequences further down the line, and can lead to sanctions being levelled against sellers who would not have had those punishments if the score had never been suspended – just because of the crazy maths involved in this system.

All this mess does, in fact, is to highlight just how ridiculous eBay’s feedback system now is. If you can lose your place in eBay’s marketplace because eBay itself can’t get its programming right, how much of your business do you want to rely on that marketplace?

If you did want to purchase either a Metropole Riva Swivel Chair for £49.99 or a Stylish Multi Compartment Jewellery Box for £6.99 they’re still available to purchase.

And of course it’s worth adding the Daily Deals page to your favourites just in case eBay mess up again and items really are available to buy at 100% off.

Updated to add: eBay corrected all the prices by just after 10am this morning – spoil sports

photo credit: CarbonNYC

We’re hearing from a number of sellers that there are some severe problems with emails being generated by SMP. The main problem appears to be that buyers who bought two or three weeks ago are now receiving dispatch emails saying their goods are being sent today, though payment reminders may also be affected. In no case have these emails been generated by the seller.

What isn’t clear is whether these emails are duplicates, or whether there’s a 2-3 week delay in the eBay system: if anyone’s managed to clarify that with a buyer, please do leave us a comment; my own feeling is that if a buyer’s annoyed or concerned enough to be contacting a seller about a glitchy email, quizzing them about what else they’ve received is likely to make the matter worse.

There’s been no official acknowledgement of the problem from eBay, so all we can really advise is that those affected notify Customer Support and make an executive decision about whether to email buyers manually or not. Cross your fingers for that communication DSR.

Update: seems pretty clear that these are the original emails delayed (not duplicates). So manual emails to buyers saying “your thing’s been sent, and btw if you get another email in three weeks telling you the same thing, ignore it” might be in order, crappy though that does look.

If you’re had recent sales or a boost for being a Top Rated Seller or for offering free shipping then this is not currently being reflected in search results. On the other hand there’s some good news if you’re an under-performing seller and being demoted in search… at the moment your listings are getting the same level of exposure as Top Rated Sellers.

No doubt the issue will be fixed in the not too distant future, but in the mean time if you gain some sales on a fixed price listing which is about to end make sure that you relist it as soon as possible – Once Best Match is mended you could receive an undeserved boost in search which can only be good for future sales.

A recent server update has temporarily disabled the Google Checkout merchant frontend servers. As a result, logging in to your Checkout merchant account now returns a 404 file not found error. Please note that this issue only affects the Google Checkout web interface, all other services are still functioning correctly. This issue does not affect your your user’s experience with Google Checkout or your ability to accept orders and process them via our APIs.

Since yesterday, sellers have been complaining that they were unable to access the admin area for Checkout, which was returning a 404 error. Buyers were still able to place orders and pay using Google Checkout, but merchants could not check order details nor see if the payment had been verified. Most frustrating seems to have been the lack of a quick Google announcement of the reason for the problem, and no phone support for merchants to find information for themselves.

There’s currently no ETA for the fix.

We’d like to advise members of multiple issues with Shop Categories which they may be experiencing. Currently affected are multiple areas of a seller’s shop, including their Shop front Navigation, Promotion Boxes displaying items, Shop Category search, and the Listing Frame on their View Item page. This issue is currently affecting all sites. We will continue to provide updates where possible and thank you for your patience while we work to resolve this.

Personally haven’t experienced any of this – though a few people are complaining about their sales tap being turned off (not unusual in itself). Anybody know what’s going on?

Update: Aha. Slightly more detail from German-language sites: items are not appearing in the correct categories. eBay are working on a fix.

We’ve been asked by a few people over the last day or two whether there was a promotion on for Adcommerce, as invoices for January have been sent out saying there was nothing to pay. Sadly, the Adcommerce Blog has just posted that these were an error, and that revised invoices for actual money will be sent out in the next few days. Automatic payments due to go out on 18th are likely to be delayed slightly.

Bad luck, chaps.

In the meantime, the SYI form is working correctly, so that’s one option for sellers anxious to get on with listing.

Update as of Friday night: Changes have now finally gone live.

photo credit: PhoebeJ

We’ve heard from numerous sellers over the last few days that they’re having problems accessing their own and other sellers’ About Me pages on eBay UK. On the View Item page, the link to the Me page seems to point back to the same page you’re on; the link at the top of the Shop home page doesn’t work (though AFAIK the one in the sidebar normally does); several of the links from within My eBay don’t seem to work… the list goes on, the problem seems to be intermittent, and of course, there are conspiracy theories.

The About Me page is – still – the one page on eBay where a seller is permitted to link an off-eBay commercial website, and lots of sellers – myself included – have speculated in the past that we’d see it disappear. In the US, a revised links policy saw off-site links banned even from About Me for a while in 2008, but that policy was quickly reversed.

But for now, at least, sellers can rest easy: these non-linking links are a glitch, and James the eBay UK Community Manager has confirmed that eBay will be fixing them. How much of a priority that fix will be remains to be seen: if you’re relying on your About Me page to offer your buyers crucial information re. their eBay purchases, you might want to look at other options for that.

It’s one of those things that eBay think is a minor inconvenience – but sellers know can make for unhappy buyers, and can easily turn transactions which are hanging in the balance completely to the bad. Let’s hope they fix this one soon.

Ady from AVMDVDs was the first person to mention this. He had a buyer from outside the UK who said they were posting a cheque: he said, no, it’s PayPal only. And when he received no payment, he opened a UID. So far, fairly standard stuff. But when he came to close the UID, the system wouldn’t let him – because, it said, the buyer had paid. And the payment date was the date the buyer had completed checkout.

Just a glitch, you’d think – but not so. On contacting eBay Support, Ady was told:

your buyer xxxxxxxx have completed our Checkout process and paid for the DVD they have purchased from you using a postal order ot banker’s draft. Our system recognised that the payment has been made by the buyer and this is the reason why you were unable to close the unpaid item case you have filed against the buyer [sic]

He posted the problem in a thread on the PowerSeller board and it seems he’s not the only one with the problem: at least two other sellers have experienced the same thing.

Ady’s case does seem to have a happy ending as the dispute is now closed – apparently all by itself – and the FVFs refunded. Nonetheless, as he says, “surely we can’t be expected to complain to support everytime we get the same thing happening because the system won’t let it go through”.

PS: Ady, I did try and mail you back but My Messages won’t let me.

The guys who work with our Google feeds are aware of the issue and are working on this as a major priority and hope to have a fix in place shortly.

I’ll update this if we have any further news.

eBay are working on a fix for the problem. In the meantime, the advice for sellers is (1) don’t use the bulk listing editor on MVLs, and (2) be aware that any listings you’ve edited might now have errors in the quantities.

You don’t need to hear me rant again at how blithely eBay say “it’s a glitch”, and ignore the hours and hours of work it will take sellers to fix the problem.

By now you may be aware that between 4:45pm GMT on Saturday, 21 November and 8:00am GMT on Sunday, 22 November eBay search was unavailable with searches returning limited or no results.

We know this was a very serious disruption, especially as you look to increase your sales for the Christmas shopping season. Because you had listings ending during or within an hour after the outage, I wanted to let you know, personally, what we’ll be doing to support your business and protect your eBay reputation.

First of all, this outage will not negatively impact your feedback or detailed seller ratings (DSRs) in any way. All Auction-style listings completed during this time will be protected from negative and neutral feedback as well as DSRs below a five star rating.

In addition, we’ll not expect you to fulfill Auction-style orders completed during this time if you feel the search outage prevented you from realising the full expected price from your auction-style listings that closed during the outage or within an hour after the outage. It’s up to you whether you want to fulfill the item in the interest of good relations with your buyer or cancel the transaction.

If you do plan to cancel a transaction, we ask that you contact your buyer by end of day Tuesday, 24 November. For your convenience, we’ve drafted some language below that you can use in your emails to inform the buyer of your intention and let them know this cancellation was due entirely to an eBay issue and not you as a seller.

If you had Fixed Price listings completed during this time period, you would of course be expected to fulfill sold items as usual.

Second, in keeping with eBay’s Outage Policy and doing what’s right for sellers and buyers, we are taking the following actions for listings that ended during or within an hour after the outage (4:45pm GMT Saturday, 21 November – 9:00am Sunday, 22 November GMT):

We’ll refund all associated fees for Auction-style listings and refund pro-rated fees for all active Fixed Price listings during the outage. This refund should be reflected in your next eBay invoice.
We’ll remove negative/neutral Feedback and detailed seller ratings (DSRs) lower than 5 stars given by buyers for affected Auction-style listings.
We’ll alert the eBay and PayPal resolutions team in the event that a claim of item not received is filed for an affected listing.
We’ll be sending a 10% off coupon to buyers who won Auction-style listings during the outage for any inconvenience, up to a maximum value of £70.
We fully understand the impact of an outage of this scope on you, our valued partners. We sincerely apologise for the disruption to your business. I want you to know that we are continuing to focus our teams and resources to ensure a smooth and rewarding Christmas selling season for you.

Sincerely,

Jody Ford
Senior Director Seller Experience Europe

———————————-

Suggested email for notifying your buyer of cancelled Auction-style transactions:

Dear Buyer:

As you may know, for a period of time from Saturday, 21 November to Sunday, 22 November, eBay search was returning limited or no results. See the official eBay report. Unfortunately, the item you purchased from me on [date] was offered through an Auction-style listing affected by this technical disruption.

I wanted you to know that as a result of this issue, I will not fulfill this transaction and any payment you made will be fully refunded. In addition, eBay will be sending you a 10%-off coupon for your next purchase up to a maximum of £70 for the inconvenience. Now that eBay search is fully restored, I will be relisting this auction [today]. I sincerely hope you will bid again – and win!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact eBay via the “Contact us” link at the top of the eBay homepage. Thank you for your understanding. I look forward to your future business.

Sincerely,
XXX

The Brews News has the text of the similar email sent out to US sellers.

A number of issues, particularly with regards to just how feedback will be removed, are not clear from the above; no doubt further clarification will be forthcoming at some point.

Update: There’s also an AB post about this.

We were unable to run the search you entered. Please try again in a few minutes.

eBay.com’s announcement has a few more details together with a workaround:

if you use the Advanced Search option at the top of the page, and type in your search query and click the title and description box and then run the search, the results for the title and description search will be returned. Likewise, if you receive a 0 results page for title search and choose the title and description box and re-run the search, you’ll see the appropriate results.

There were also problems accessing eBay Shops for a short time this morning; it seems from an announcement on eBay.com that these may be ongoing too.

Update: According to this thread on the US PS board (you’ll need a PS sign-in), eBay “is admitting on its customer service line that it will need to give refunds to sellers” for invisibility due to this outage.

I’ll keep this updated as and when more info comes in.

Update Sunday 14.00
Post on eBay Ink, including statement from Lorrie Norrington:

Our immediate priority is to resolve this issue. Once that is achieved, rest assured that we will assess the economic impact of this issue and will be compensating sellers appropriately. In the meantime, we will be issuing full fee credits for affected listings.

As for the actual fix, everything seems okay here now lots of things are back but item specifics drill-down in search has disappeared over many categories. How about where you are?

Update Sunday night
eBay UK announcement says

we will assess the economic impact of the problem and will compensate sellers appropriately. The mechanism and process for issuing full fee credits for affected listings will be announced over the course of the next few days.

The developer blog reports that eBay have recently identified a means by which someone could have (not necessarily has or hasn’t!) gained access to eBay Developers Program account information. Details such as credit card details will not have been compromised and eBay say they’ve detected no fraudulent activity on developer accounts.

The new passwords must be 8 characters or longer, and contain at least 1 upper case letter (A-Z), 1 lower case letter (a-z), 1 number (0-9), and 1 special character (!@#$%*+-_.?). Quite frankly I’m surprised they don’t simply insist developers use the PayPal Security Key as that would wipe out any password security issues instantly.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that some will think they’ve paid – I’ve one buyer who’s managed to send a note with their payment and yet they’ve not actually paid! It might be worth sending reminder eBay invoices or emailing any customers who haven’t yet paid as they could be expecting their purchases to ship.

Going through eBay.com, however, does work, so sellers should log in on the other side of the pond and pay there. This tip brought to you by The Jewellery Shoppe.