It will not have escaped your notice that the USA has taken a battering recently from two very serious weather events: hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The scenes of devastation there (and elsewhere in the region) have been truly shocking. And, don’t forget, behind those images are real people and also businesses which have been disrupted. In this case, eBay businesses in the path of the storms are the focus.
eBay has already announced a series of measures for businesses affected by Harvey and Irma that seek to ensure that seller performance and defects are not detrimentally affected where sellers can’t fulfil their sales. In particular they say that sellers will not receive “defects for stockouts or unresolved cases with buyers” and sellers in impacted areas will not find their late shipment rate impacted.
It’s interesting to note that eBay has put together an additional package of help for eBay sellers who have been impacted. There is also a dedicated email address available for sellers and also a phone number (published in the post) for sellers with out internet access. As the most recent announcement notes:
“In addition to the automatic seller protection efforts already announced, eBay is implementing some measures to help sellers impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. All of these protections will be applied automatically. You won’t need to call or email in to receive these benefits.
Waive store subscription and insertion fees. eBay will waive insertion fees and Store subscription fees for all store levels for three months for all impacted sellers.
Free Promoted Listings. Once your business is up and running again, we’d like to help you jumpstart your cash flow with a $30 Promoted Listings credit for business sellers.
Free Shipping supplies. To help get your shipping station restocked, we will send you a $30 coupon for eBay branded shipping supplies for business sellers.”
It’s testament to the serious nature of these storms that eBay is taking unprecedented steps to protect sellers from any problems arising from the storms. An whilst the gesture, say of the packing material, is relatively small it is significant and good to see ebay thinking of the impacted sellers.
