To ease their call centre pressures during the COVID-19 spread, eBay urge people to check for the latest updates on Coronavirus via the relevant webpage before calling.
How eBay alternative support will help you:
- Give suggestions to help you manage your business on eBay in the case of temporary closure.
- Provide sellers with useful links on the latest Government support in relation to COVID-19.
What you can do:
eBay recommend that if you’re struggling to keep up with demands due to the COVID-19 spread to inform your buyers as soon as you can of any delays. If you’re absent though a temporary closure of your business they recommend you change your settings to avoid a negative impact on your performance.
Change your settings when you are absent: This option is recommended if you are able to easily estimate the length of time you will not be selling for.
You have two options:
- Your buyers can still shop with you, but the expected delivery period will change. Increase your handling time so that your overall delivery time will be longer and reflected on your listings.
- Your fixed price listings will be hidden in the eBay search until you return. Auction listings will continue to run for the set duration.
Activate the option “Out of stock”: This is recommended for indefinite periods of absence. Once you set the stock of your listings to 0, your listings will disappear from eBay searches and you’ll protect your sales history.
Other Guidance
eBay have also made accessible guidance from both the NHS and UK Government to give you more information on the measures being introduced to support businesses. This includes statutory sick pay relief, business rates holidays, grant funding for retailers (with more for some SMEs), loans to help with cash flow, and assistance to businesses struggling to pay their taxes.
9 Responses
Maybe ebay could suspend shop fees for businesses and reduce fees in certain categories to help small businesses some of which will be fearing if they will survive the next few months.
My Anchor fees are 25% of my turnover on their own. A month off that would mean I could go into lockdown without paying eBay the same as I’m paying my landlord, just for 30 days. I would like to switch off my listings for 30 days, do no business and not pat £480 to eBay for the privilege of doing nothing. That would be super.
I don’t think it’s asking the Earth to be able to suspend my subscription. If I could switch off visibility for 30 days, and do no sales, I would. I wouldn’t really be getting anything for nothing, and I could turn it on again when practical. As it is, my only option would be to cancel my subscription, but then when it came to rebuilding, it would take months or checking everything and re-listing from scratch. Or of course, turn it off for a month and pay eBay £480 for the privilege.
A general note should be issued by eBay warning of the possibility of the internet going down in some areas as it did in mine so please be patient with sellers at this time as they can’t take any action during this time.
Ebay is a joke. Completely blind to their customers (us sellers). It’s time for you guys to reduce fees by 50% in every category. Get rid of shop fees for the next couple of months. You want your customers (sellers) to disappear?
How about suspending the store fees? I live in Peru and borders have been closed since March 16th. I am not able to ship anything. If I close my store, eBay will charge me a early termination fee. This is stupid.
eBay and amazon in the uk should be subject to uk law and have very clear uk government guidelines but they don’t they can treat businesses how they like without even giving explanation even close them down, I have had both done to me and I now pay 4 percent more on my seller fees no explanation or notification and im scared to ask why in case they close me down again.