We get a lot of reports of possible problems with eBay and PayPal (and other sites) and it can be difficult to decipher exactly what’s wrong or, indeed, whether there’s a glitch at all.
But this one is worth investigating, not least because it could be costing eBay sellers sales.
Here is the problem in a nutshell, as far as we can see: It would seem that buyers are being added to sellers’ Buyer Requirements list and are unable to buy from the sellers in question.
In particular it seems that buyers in the UK are being prevented from buying from UK sellers and are being erroneously informed that the seller doesn’t ship to that location.
One eBay forum contributor summarises the problem thus:
“If a buyer attempts to use Add To Basket they get the following message:
The address specified in your basket is in a location that doesn’t meet the seller’s postage requirements. You can change the delivery address in your basket and try adding this item again, or contact the seller to request an exemption.
If you check your Buyer Requirements Activity Log you MAY* be able to see users who have been blocked and the following reason is given:
Buyers in countries to which I don’t deliver
This, despite the fact they are UK buyers.”
If you check the “activity log” you’ll see a list of buyers who have been blocked from purchasing from you. It’s really worth checking yours to see if buyers are being incorrectly blocked from buying from you. Let us know if you’re seeing this problem too. (Here’s the relevant eBay help page if you need guidance: Viewing the list of blocked buyers.)
How long has this been going on for? Some sellers report it’s been happening for about a week (others suggest it could be longer).
Here are a few threads on eBay’s community forums that highlight the problem:
Lost Sales – Defect with buyer requirements – Business seller board
Rather Worrying – Anyone else got this error message? – Business seller board
What is of concern is that this is the sort of thing that a seller might not notice on a day-to-day basis. You might not check this list or even notice that sales are being declined.
We’ve asked eBay to clarify the situation and will report back if/when we hear anything. But in the meantime, do let us know: are you seeing a similar problem on your sales? How have you been impacted?
Amended at 16:21 on 18th June to add this statement from an eBay spokesperson:
“There has been an issue with adding items to Basket on the UK site, which is now resolved. A small number of buyers were affected, when trying to add some items to Basket. Buy-it-Now activity was unaffected. The issue is now resolved and importantly,there is no need for sellers to do anything.”
85 Responses
ooh… I have just checked this and looks like we have quite a few that were stopped (UK customers), for no reason on UK listings – I have just had to manually remove them from the list and send them a message (and keep my fingers crossed they have not bought elsewhere)
thanks for highlighting this
Checked the list as you suggested and found 8 UK buyers blocked since 11 Jun, all because they were supposedly in a country we don’t ship to.
I don’t think I can take this any more.
This is worrying. I have 3 UK buyers blocked for reason of country dating from 4th June until 17th, yesterday.
Thanks ebay.
Thanks for the information Tamebay. Sad that ebay don’t deem it important enough to contact us sellers. I experienced this around 2 weeks ago. Only one buyer who I contacted asking if there was a problem as she was in the UK. I never heard back from her so assumed she was trying to set a delivery address to a country I block. I now see there are numerous UK buyers attempting to purchase and being blocked.
Just a word of warning, don’t just select ALL the people in the list. Some may actually be from countries you don’t want to deliver too.
Just also got a kick in the teeth as I started messaging customers to TRY AGAIN. Got this response from ebay.
“You’ve exceeded the maximum number of messages you can send in a day. Please wait until tomorrow to send more messages.”
Thanks eBay, can you make it a little more difficult B-)
We’ve had this problem since the end of May [Buyers in countries to which I don’t deliver] & eBay CS do not have a clue as to what the problem is.
Yes, impacted. My report has only space for limited entries, and since buyers try more than once and all get rejected you don’t get a full picture about how bad this problem is.
However, I can say since June 10th I have lost 7 sales as a result of this fault.
Once again, many thanks Tamebay
Just checked my 2 accounts and there have been 6 sales blocked this year from UK buyers because I don’t ship to the UK !
Deep joy
Same here. Read this and checked and found 5 buyers from UK who were blocked for no reason. One buyer tried 20 times to buy an item. Earliest date showing is 2nd June. What is wrong with eBay? So many problems happening. They must be spending all their time fire fighting! Thanks Tamebay!
Yes – found dozens this morning, would not have spotted this without Tamebay. Interesting to see if eBay fess-up and how long to fix?
We checked on this today and we have 9 pages worth of blocked buyers. This is extremely worrying!
First occurrence for us was May then 5 on the 16th June, rep just told me they are aware of it and it’s effecting a lot of sellers.
The work around from eBay is ” exempt them from buyer requirements then send them a message, they will then be able to buy from from you, meantime we are working to ‘TRY’ and fix this”
This quite frankly is *ucking pathetic. If I’d got told to bugger off 3 days ago when I tried to buy something then I would have *ucked off to another seller and bought it off them.
Thanks for this, just found over 30 buyers blocked since the start of May, the first was on the 5th May.
Working out on my average sales order that’s £600 of sales gone!
Just tried to purchase a Daily Deal to see if I could see what the buyer see’s.
First one I tried returned:-
The address specified in your basket is in a location that doesn’t meet the seller’s postage requirements. You can change the delivery address in your basket and try adding this item again, or contact the seller to request an exemption.
Slow clap for everyone involved at eBay.
*Update*
I can’t buy anything, from any seller on eBay UK. Tried 10 items from 10 different sellers.
Hi – yes same here. We have 27 pages worth to trawl through and ‘Exempt from Buyer Requirements’. Looks like 95% are from the UK, some are the same buyer (one over 100 times which seems a bit weird).
First blocked buyer on the 29th April and 20 blocked buyers since.
We’ve lost around 500 sales in the past 2 days alone.
Upon checking further we are seeing that this issue actually began in May.
We have easily lost 1000+ sales in total, the value worth 10’s of thousands. eBay are doing very little to help at the moment.
Also, the tick box on the buyer requirements log doesn’t even work, so you have to manually click each buyer.
Just checked and it’s been going on for months (since April) and it’s becoming more and more serious as time goes on, going from a few sales per day lost to several hundred per day being lost. Disgraceful and no communication from ebay about it whatsoever.
Some additional info on my comment above – we have had this problem since 1 May 2015 and up until yesterday so far. Although it looks to be even stranger as a buyer was in the log 5 times on the 13th June trying to buy an item but did finally manage to buy the item on the same day. This is the only buyer so far I have seen that is on our list to have successfully bought the item. But strange that one minute they are blocked and the next they can buy (they hadn’t been exempt either).
Same happening here.
Also of interest, we had a buyer email us yesterday to say this had happened to them, in Kent, yet they don’t even show on eBay’s report! So the accuracy of their report is definitely in question and not to be trusted.
Sort yourselves out eBay.
Just checked ours. 10 UK buyers blocked on Monday, 2 on Tueday and 2 again on Wednesday. Not good.
Where do you check this list ?
I first came across this last night when I tried to add some beads to my ebay shopping basket. In the end it let me buy them when I pressed the Buy it Now button. It happened with another seller. I got round it the second time by selecting a different shipping address on my list of addresses. It was still in the UK but it was accepted over the first one for some daft reason. I have never come across this before.
I am now really worried because I am a business seller myself and my sales so far this month have been rubbish. About two per day. Where as May was quite good. Could this be the reason? No buyers have contacted me though.
Do I just look at my blocked bidder list? How do I know how many new ones have been added and when? I just add the odd person on each week. How will I spot blocked bidders that I have not added like the above posters have done?
Help???
same here. over 90 blocked since May – all of them UK buyers. What a croc !
Is this just happening with ‘add to basket’ or ‘buy it now’?
Last night, I could use ‘buy it now’ ok but NOT ‘Add to Basket’. That was where I was getting the problem with location message….
Just checked our account and found 36 blocked for the same uk to uk shipping reason. This started on the 1st May till yesterday. Called the ‘clueless clan’ in Dublin and was informed this was happening to a tiny minority of members. I replied, ‘Okay, that means you will be able to update me on this matter personally via email?’….At that point she let off a smoke canister of meaningless gobbledygook …..in other words NO!…..oh well, no surprises there then….
Same here – around 20 sales lost this week.
Our sales are easily half of what they were this time last month.
At least this means that eBay’s sales are also dropping like a stone. Probably.
S.
Same for me – I found 8 dating back to 21st May
Hi Chris and Dan,
have you had any comment from eBay?
Could you prod a few of those contacts you have in eBay and see what squealing comes out.
Just checked mine and have had over 400 different UK bidders blocked since the beginning of May! Two buyers have tried to purchase over and over again every day for more than a week.
Checking my sold items a handful managed to eventually buy the items, but very few, think most gave up after the first/second failed attempt.
Earliest I can find is 1st May. Phoned eBay and the rep said they are aware of the bug and have given themselves 20 days to fix it, according to the rep they started trying to fix it on the 10th June
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I have just checked report and yes I have a number of Uk buyers who have been blocked since 10th June. Very concerning …
Great, just checked and 9 orders were blocked from just yesterday for no reason!
three pages of blocked sales, thousands of pounds worth.
ebay know about it and dont bother telling anyone for 2 MONTHS.
cant contact more than 5 people per day to try and claw back some of the losses.
i honestly cannot believe what a complete and utter shambolic disgrace this “organisation” is.
get a grip ebay. seriously, you’re a mess.
Just exempted two more which got added today.
Thanks eBay.
I’ve found items can be purchased if you click “Buy It Now” button, but if I click “add to basket” which is directly underneath the buy it now button I get the “The address specified in your basket” message. Completely disgusted with ebay for this.
212 orders blocked currently. Absolutely unreal how this is not being flagged as a major issue.
We have 911 buyers blocked losing thousands of pounds worth of sales. eBay you should be ashamed of yourselves for not telling seller!
28 for me since the start of May.
Like many, I didn’t even know that the activity log page existed!
Just one of the buyers did actually manage to buy. They were pretty persistent as eBay blocked them 7 times over the course of 2 days.
Apparently I’ve been blocking people without a Paypal account too, even though you can check out as a guest without one these days. Why is that option even still live?
Rubbish eBay….
I haven’t got anyone in that list
Buyer Requirements Activity Log….
“There is no information to display at this time”
Now, even though there is nobody in that list I am wondering if this is the reason why since the middle of May our sales dropped from 50 to 70 a day to all of a sudden 3 or 4.
I have said all along something isn’t right with these selling patterns
Hi Dan,
I know I might come across as a grumpy fool on this forum but Its times like this I’m very grateful to you for helping to keep the community updated on serious issues.
This has really helped our business 🙂
297 blocked in last 60 days (quite a few multiple attempts from the same IDs)
I selected “Block buyers whose primary delivery address is in a location I don’t post to” last year because I was tired of overseas customers complaining that I don’t ship to them. The messages didn’t bother me, but I was annoyed after some got it shipped to a UK address for forwarding to their overseas residence and then left a neutral or a neg because I didn’t offer international delivery.
The loss of sales is far more of an annoyance than a neut/neg. That block option has now been unselected.
This glitch has been going on and off for over a year.I first spotted it when a lot of auctions went really low.Phoned Ebay and they denied there was a problem.Kept and eye on it and it stopped after about two weeks,then came back again a few months later,then went again.This time iv got a few by the look of it.
I’ve only had a few of these so far. I exempted one buyer and sent him a message saying he should be allowed to buy now, and he’s just replied saying that because he couldn’t buy it, he’s bought elsewhere.
And eBay blame sellers for driving buyers away?
According to the eBay UK community manager, ‘this issue is now resolved’
According to our contact at eBay the issue is now fixed. This is coming from a senior manager at eBay UK.
Will update further if we notice anymore blocked sales.
Interesting that they say that they’ve fixed the problem in half a day when its been ongoing for several weeks isn’t it…
No doubt we’ll not be getting any recompense for lost sales.
Miffed.
Here is the statement eBay has sent us:
“There has been an issue with adding items to Basket on the UK site, which is now resolved. A small number of buyers were affected, when trying to add some items to Basket. Buy-it-Now activity was unaffected. The issue is now resolved and importantly, there is no need for sellers to do anything.”
Dan
Tamebay
~
I am pleased to say that the Announcement contains an apology.
https://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/201506181634442.html
Here’s the relevant eBay announcement: https://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/201506181634442.html
An apology from eBay, Dave actually delivering on a policy in the manifesto, this day has shocked me to the core.
Time for gin. It’s too much to take in all in one go.
We’re still seeing the issue, it has not been resolved despite being directly informed earlier that it has been. Keep checking the log.
Sorry, this has still NOT been fixed.
We’ve been trying to get Ebay or anybody to listen to the checkout problems we’ve been reporting for WEEKS
They’ve rushed out this statement “intending” to fix things soon, but stating it’s been fixed, which simply isn’t true
Neither is it a small number – every seller we’ve spoken to has lost sales.
LIEBAY !!!
This has not been fixed.
Within the last 60 mins a buyer has been blocked from buying from us who is based in the UK with 100% feedback.
This is bullshit.
Weird – I just checked my list, there’s a buyer there. Even odder – they purchased the item earlier today? So are they just ending up on ‘the list’ but still able to buy?
And now ebay.uk is HACKED,
ebay pages are taking me anywhere but the place I want to go. I’m getting a big Giff Gaff Banner overlapping the top of the page. tried going to community and just get a url saying welcome to my paradise.com and then it goes to the home page. Search is not working that just takes you to the main site page also. It’s absolutely ridiculous how many problems this company has with the site.
No ‘My eBay’ @12.40am, just getting the front page and the link times out [https://my.uk.paradise.qa.ebay.com ] – something is wrong yet again.
Dan, the web address has been altered.
As Pete says :-
my.uk.paradise.qa.ebay
qa = Qatar
Started at about 23.00, downdetector’s outage chart looks like a nuclear war has started.
I thought it was only the UK that glowed red!!
This is not fixed at all.
We have seen this for a while now, affecting about 1 sale a day, in most instances the customer contacts us and because one of my staff experienced this as a buyer on her account we surmised that this was an issue with the ebay app.
We have been telling customers to log into the web version on their pc or tablet and everything should be ok and as far as i am aware this works.
We have had one today, where they have managed to buy the item but when they go to pay, it tells them that we do not ship to their location, we give them the same advice, but as they have bought it, we can send a paypal invoice to them and then allocate the payment once received.
It seems i have to work harder for less sales on ebay.
Lee
11 pages with reason “Buyers in countries to which I don’t deliver” 11 pages sounds a lot but I can see less than a handful of userid. Looks like a good few buyers were affected and they then tried again multiple times of multiple dates.
What a crying shame to think that sales are affected, whether it is 1 sale or 1000 sales it is very poor.
I also think it is the mobile app.
I have had many problems with the app as a buyer and seller. I deleted the app and do not use it.
I browse on my phone and tablet but actually purchase on my PC.
All I can say is things like this happen. Marketplaces can be unstable at times to to tech issue just like your own website might have a DNS issue or the council are digging up the pavement in front of your shop door. Basically, sometimes sh*t happens and you cannot control it. That’s business, that’s life.