eBay UK have just published the eBay Autumn 2018 Seller Release and as always there’s a lot to digest and some urgent steps for sellers to take which will directly affect their businesses over the coming months.
eBay UK Autumn 2018 Seller Release fee changes
Sellers who use the subtitle feature will need to reassess whether the feature remains cost effective as the fee is to double to £2. This is still a listing enhancement which many sellers use but from early September, if you use Good til Cancelled listings, you will see a significant increase in your monthly eBay invoice if you choose not to remove subtitle from your listings.
Sellers should also familiarise themselves with eBay’s 4% final value fee surcharges which we now know will apply from the 1st of October for sellers who have the most Significantly Not As Described complaints from buyers, as measured against their competitors performance.
Listing visibility
eBay have announced in the eBay UK Autumn 2018 Seller Release an expansion of categories which will be included in the Shop By Product experience in the near future. At the same time tools are at last to be released to enable sellers to identify listings which should be matched to the eBay catalogue and match them, as well as tools to be able to submit new products and edits to existing products in the catalogue.
In good news, eBay have revealed that if you have a product for which the catalogue entry is incorrect or missing, you’ll still be able to list the item and the catalogue will be updated within 24 hours.
Duplicate listings may be affecting visibility of your listings and with eBay announcing that they are demoting ALL of a seller’s inventory (not just duplicates) in search as a punishment for having duplicate listings, it’s worth checking that none of your current listings on eBay are accidental duplicates. You will also need to check your listings on international sites – for instance if you have an eBay.com listing and your eBay.co.uk listing includes shipping to the US then both could appear on the US site resulting in all your US listings being demoted in search.
eBay are also enhancing Seller Hub Marketing with the introduction of self serve coupons to encourage buyers. These coupons can be shared across social media and your own website as well as being available in a printable format to include in shipments with sales. At the same time eBay will be lowering the visibility of what they consider to be ‘poor’ offers on the site but will still promote ‘good’ offers.
The final change to visibility will be the blocking of listings which contain insecure (HTTP) content from early next year (after the Christmas period). Only HTTPS content will be allowed in listing descriptions so start to prepare if you have images or other content stored on an non-HTTPS server.
Seller customer service
eBay have started to give the ability to sellers to publish their customer support phone number, which will be made visible to buyers through the ‘Ask seller a question’ link. You can opt in to this through your eBay settings.
eBay will start Auto-accepting return requests and provide labels to buyers with no intervention from sellers. You’ll want to double check your returns preferences and decide when it’s worth getting an item returned and when it’s simply more cost effective to write it off. If you use RMA numbers and have multiple return addresses then ensure that your settings are correct.
International eBay Autumn Seller Releases
If you sell internationally, then you will want to check the changes occurring on other eBay sites around the world.
17 Responses
The charge for a subtitle is going up from £1 to £2 per listing. Nothing about this latest business seller update is good
I don’t understand the reason for subtitle fees to increase
Justly another way to rip off it’s members,on top of eBay members doing ALL the work while eBay sit and rip off it’s sellers,which without these sellers eBay would be nothing,so what do they do charge you more for the experience of been ripped off by fees which rise up and up on a quartly basis.
Goto Amazon,Etsy or ebid fees are a lot less and the experience better.Ebay is quickly dieing and it deserves all it’s gets it’s been to GREEDY for to long and forgot it’s beginnings and where it came from,small businesses made eBay and now it cares NOTHING for them,it’s more interested in the BIG cooperate businesses that they attract because again that where their cash comes from,eBay cares nothing for the private small business and individual sellers that it’s foundation’s were built on and what once made it successful.
I hope it’s dies a death it deserves it for the sheer greed of that company.
Yep I’m fed up with eBay, with only 1500 feedback I have been guy for too long even as a small seller.
Off to ebid I go
Amazon is 20 percent sellers fees .. Ebid stuff doesent sell as the buyers traffic is too low. And eBay know it . That’s why they’re nipping at fees here and there .. EBay also sucks though all I get is drop your price by 5 3 or 2 pounds …… I’m listing stuff at a 75 percent loss already compared to the price I paid 15 years ago.. Annuals… so anyone hoping to buy for the future .. forget it things are falling and there’s no end to it
@Jamie – your better off going to ecrater – very small final value fee’s, your products are uploaded to Google Shopping and a few months ago they announced new promo features such as creating a sale and creating coupons. They have a lot more traffic than the Ebid graveyard
eBay could really do with sorting out more important issues. last night @ 7pm I had an unauthorized purchase made, although I had a message telling me this, the item is still showing as a purchase and the transaction has not been cancelled.
According to eBay CS they are “working” on it.
Finally, the Service Metrics link has appeared within my Seller Hub. At last, all my questions will now be answered. 😉 No, I didn’t expect them to be.
It shows a single return in June, for a return request raised in July. Yes, I know it’s only one return, but it means my returns rate is 0.72%. It only takes a couple more and we’d be talking “Very high”!
The July return is being reported against June because that is when the sale was. I asked.
And this is compared to my peers who have a returns rate of 0%, apparently! Am I really the only person with a return in July?
The return was raised against “Doesn’t work or defective”, but it is being reported against “Arrived damaged”. Go figure!
The return was closed in my favour (misuse of returns) and, speaking with them today, eBay Customer Support would have me believe that it is being reported, within Service Metrics, in error. And, apparently, it will not count against me, with regards to the new Service Metrics seller surcharge. I queried this twice and was told, “It will not be counted against you as the case is closed in your favour. I am giving the details according to the new service metrics.”
So, on one hand, eBay tell us it’s all “open returns” and then, on the other, it’s only those not closed in our favour. The truth? Who know!
What confidence can I have in this new metric? At the moment, none.
But, I’m not to worry, apparently, “it will get updated on 20th August”. Anyone fancy holding their breath? I won’t be.
Have eBay lost all sense?
“decide when it’s worth getting an item returned and when it’s simply more cost effective to write it off”
If a seller were to simply write items off, buyers of a certain inclination, would identify those items and buy as many as the seller had available. After all, they’ll get every single one for free, once they put a return request in and wait 2 business days.
Completely barmy!!!
I’ve had enough of eBay too. Sick of their pathetic little rules for small sellers which you don’t even get a warning for. I have over 3400 feedback with 100% rating and i have been with them for many years both selling and buying. I posted just 2 sales for mixed dvds in 2 single listings with about 40 dvds in each (seemingly only allowed for clothes etc which I honestly wasn’t aware of) and they’ve just sent me a horribly rude email suspending my account for 3days. My charges per month were always between £150 to £180 so they obviously were making a bit of money out of me but I really can do without the hassle. Today I leave them and look elsewhere. Even if I decide not to start up elsewhere, I will still be happier not having to deal with their increasing charges and blatant disregard for honest private (small) sellers. Many dont know they allow leviathan’s like Musicmagpie to use software to undercut private sellers dvd and Blu-ray listings by a penny so they’ll always be cheapest which truly sucks when you’re making nothing compared to these companies. But here I am making one mistake (hardly criminal), with no warning, and perfect feedback, and I’m shot down instantly. I will laugh when they crash and burn.
I received a doesn’t work or defective return request this afternoon. They didn’t send me a message just went straight to a return request. To cut a long story short the customer just hadn’t pushed the battery into the socket correctly. Even though today is Sunday I still responded straight away and in a short space of time the issue was resolved. The customer is now happy with the item and has told me they will be closing the return shortly.
The thing that has upset me the most is this will now count against me, with the new ebay metrics as we are measured on return requests. Not physical returns.
Due to this I am closing my eBay account at the end of August, I think it is wrong how the metrics don’t exclude items that are never returned.
I wonder if anyone upstairs at eBay reads their own message boards or general discussions about the platform online? The bad feeling towards eBay must be at record levels,,,, though with the constant changes and site bugs it’s no real surprise. These current changes are bad enough,,,, but what will they dream up in say 12 or 18 months time? For me that’s the big concern.