Glitch: extra charges when revising listings
June 30, 2009
We’re hearing from a few sellers today that extra charges are being added onto their listings when revising – sometimes for the unsolicited addition of Gallery Plus @ £2.85, and sometimes for random and unfathomable amounts, some in excess of £5. If you’re revising listings today, keep an eye on that “revised fees” box. People who’ve spoken to Support have been told to end the listing and request a fee credit.
Free P&P FVF discount promotion extended
June 27, 2009
eBay UK have been running a promotion since last April offering 20% off FVFs to sellers in some categories who offer free postage on their items. This promotion was due to end this month, but has now been extended until 30th September. The promo is valid for the Clothes, Shoes & Accessories, Video games, Technology and DVD categories, and there are some other conditions, so do check before you list.
Got any mower Deals of the Day?
June 14, 2009
click to embiggen
“If wishing to go ahead with this purchase simply add the £179.95 to your Paypal checkout total.”
As the listing’s still visible, we might guess that it’s been ended by the seller rather than pulled by eBay (in which case it would disappear altogether).
This is not the first instance of eBay’s Daily Deal breaking eBay’s own policies. Recent weeks have seen multiple instances of both eBay rules and UK consumer law breached in these listings:
- sellers charging “restocking fees” for returned retail purchases
- sellers refusing to refund outward postage fees on returned items
- misleading former prices quoted, where these have not been offered by the same seller in the last 30 days
- sellers listing without business contact details
- refurbished items described as “new” in item specifics
Not to mention that eBay’s own stated criteria for inclusion in DotD include “ideally a PowerSeller with min 95% positive feedback”. In order to qualify as a PS, sellers need to have at least 98% positive feedback.
All of which suggests that the problem here is that eBay staff don’t really know what eBay rules are.
“Whatever happened to the level playing field?”
Sellers not included in this major promotion are – quite rightly – asking why DotD listings are not vetted to ensure they’re abiding by the same rules the rest of us have to. Threads on eBay message boards, forums and Twitter have wondered why eBay are so heavily highlighting listings that break both eBay policy and the law: why, if you’re a small seller who breaks eBay policy inadvertantly, you end up with a big red notice on your seller dashboard, but if you’re a big seller with a lot of product to clear, you seem to be able to get away with more?
I’ll admit – I’ve been avoiding blogging on this issue because I don’t want to send the mob after individual sellers. I don’t think this is about the sellers so much as it is about eBay themselves, and the people who are in charge of this promotion not having the knowledge they should have. And if marketing people don’t necessarily know the right bits of the law or of eBay regulations, then they need to bring in people who do. They could hire a seller or two to cast an eye over DotD listings before they go live – we tend to know what eBay regulations are, because our livelihoods depend on it.
Free picture offer extended to Home & Garden.
June 8, 2009
eBay’s reminder about changes to come this month mentions in passing that free eBay-hosted pictures are to be made available to the Homes & Gardens category. This offer had already been announced for Clothes, Shoes and Accessories.
Sellers will be able to use several image upgrades for free including Gallery Plus, Supersize and Picture Pack (up to 12 pictures). eBay have promised a “new zoom feature” later in the year, but the real advantage to using eBay-hosted images is that sellers can show multiple images near the top of the listing.
The offer, with eBay’s comment that
If you currently host your photos somewhere other than eBay, now is a great time to start moving them over to eBay Picture Services (EPS)
has led some sellers to speculate that the company may be considering disallowing self-hosted pictures in future. For the moment, though, this is purely speculation.
Are your listings ready for June 15th?
June 8, 2009
Back at the end of March, eBay UK made their announcement about what would be changing for eBay sellers this summer. The new rules and features launch on June 15th, so here’s our checklist: make sure your listings are ready!
Urgent changes
- Mandatory dispatch time: all listings must show a dispatch time.
- Free postage and packing in some categories: if you list in Video Games, Mobile & Home Phones, Consumer Electronics, Computing, Photography or Clothes, Shoes & Accessories, then check the list to see if your sub-category is affected (not all sub-categories are). If so, you must offer free P&P as one option for your domestic postage, though you may choose to charge for an upgraded service. If you’re a non-UK seller listing on eBay UK, this includes you.
- Category changes, which will mostly affect sellers in Clothing, Home & Garden and the Motors’ categories (not an exhaustive list, so check your own cat.s aren’t listed).
Some sub-categories are being done away with and all listings will be moved into the parent category: live listings should move automatically, but make sure you update your listing templates or new listings in vanished categories could (in my experience) end up invisible to buyers. And check your Item Specifics too: previous category changes have seen them wiped out.
New features
It’s not going to be possible to plan for these in advance, because they don’t go live til the 15th/16th, but at least be ready for the cool new stuff when it happens.
- Multi-variation listings: time for a little stock-take, maybe, so you can get all those colour/size variants listed as soon as possible.
- Free pictures in Clothing Shoes and Accessories & Home and Garden. Most business sellers will be using their own hosting, but the advantage with eBay’s is that you get the slideshow at the top. Worth considering.
- Custom item specifics
- Easy returns
- Smart FAQs: have a run through your ASQs – do the same questions come up again and again? If so, that information should probably be on your listings… but Smart FAQs may also be useful to you.
eBay have put out a timetable of when the various changes are supposed to go live on the site: we share their optimism that everything launches smoothly 
eBay UK and IE hold half-price Motors’ listing weekend
June 4, 2009
eBays UK and Ireland Motors are holding a half-price listing weekend for the 6th and 7th June. Insertion fees for auction and BIN listings will be half the normal rate, so £4 or €4.50. Classified ads do not qualify for the promotion. All other fees apply as normal, and there is some other small print, so do read it before you list.
eBay UK listings showing on European sites
June 3, 2009
eBay have said that from today, listings on eBay UK will be “promoted” on other European sites. The announcement was made in an email sent to eBay UK sellers: I can’t find anything more official on the site yet.
In order to have their listings included in the promotion, sellers will have to offer PayPal and provide international shipping information. They’ll also need to include a translation of the item description into the language whose speakers they’re targetting: I’m assuming that this is so that listings can be found by people searching in not-English, rather than that eBay are going to filter by linguistic content.
eBay gunning for the wrong sellers
May 19, 2009
Let’s play a game. Can you tell the difference between these two items?
How about these two?
Just one more. This one’s a little tricky:
If you spotted that only one of each pair was a gun, well done: you did better than eBay UK. Numerous sellers over the last few days have reported receiving warnings that they may be in breach of eBay UK’s firearms policy when listing a range of entirely innocent items: lilac blouses, biscuit cutters, inflatable canoes, keyrings and bras are a few more of the restricted listings. The items can take several hours to show up in search, and sellers are being left wondering if their policy compliance – and hence seller discounts – will be affected.
Whatever filter has been added to eBay UK recently seems to have a powerfully broad vocabulary: videos which have been “shot”, “barrel” and “tube” shaped beads and “magazines” have all fallen foul of it, and may cause listings to be hidden in search. eBay support had said that they were aware of the problem and that it would be remedied by yesterday, but it seems that sellers are still getting warnings when listing items which have nothing to do with firearms.
Though Support have advised some sellers to wait a few days before listing items, the range of restricted items is so random and varied that it seems like just about any item any of us care to list might get picked up, so “don’t list that one” isn’t much of a solution. So while we wait for the fix, leave us a comment with your most ridiculous restricted item
With thanks to the following for pictures: beige sweater, bonsai tree, pendant, gun, gun, gun.
Isn’t it about time buyers got some privacy?
May 6, 2009
eBay UK announced today that winning auction bidders will have their IDs hidden after the end of the auction as well as during it. Sellers will of course be able to see their winner, and the anonmymised bid history page giving limited details of buyer activity over the last 30 days will be visible to all members. This brings eBay UK into line with other global eBay sites. eBay cite research from 2007 which showed that their making bidder IDs anonymous led to a 90% reduction in fake second chance offers.
No doubt those who think that shill bidding is still eBay’s biggest ever problem won’t like this. We’ve rehearsed those arguments often enough round here: those of us on the other side think that stopping people paying out money to receive absolutely nothing at all should be a higher priorty. The twain shall ne’er meet. But what’s really bugging me about today’s announcement is this sentence:
Feedback pages will show the same information as now – buyers and seller IDs, with comments visible to all.
Comments – and item numbers. If I want to see what you’ve bought on eBay, I can.
I seem to be saying this a lot recently, but eBay is the only ecommerce site where this happens. It’s the only ecommerce site with a “search by bidder” list – which also shows Buy It Now purchases, and means that I can go stalk you, check out what you’ve bought me for Christmas and how much you paid for it. It means that my mother can see the risque underwear I bought, my Labour-supporting friends can see I got Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography, my nephews can see what they’re getting for their birthdays, my partner can see that my shoe and camera lens collections have been augmented *again*… a whole bunch of people can see a whole bunch of stuff that is frankly none of their business.
There are ways to make all this more difficult: sellers can make their listings private, which means that buyer IDs don’t show up on individual listings. Buyers can make their feedback private: though if you search by bidder, though, you can still see what they’ve bought. And of course, you can always get a buying ID, or a series of secret buying IDs, so that the right things stay private from the right people.
The problem with private listings is that they’re forever tainted with the thought that “something dodgy” is going on. They’re not the norm on eBay, and even when they’re for a buy it now so shill bidding can’t be happening, there’s still that hint in some people’s minds. And really, why should I have to have a series of different IDs, with all the verification hassle that now is? I just want to shop, and I don’t want anyone else – not my sellers, not my family – to be able to nosey at that.
It’s time to dump the ability to track buyers across eBay once and for all. Shopping should not be public domain information. Get rid of search by bidder. Get rid of buyer visibility on BIN items. Get rid of any item number or other transaction record in buyers’ feedback. Make – I’ll say it again – shopping on eBay like shopping on every other ecommerce site out there.
eBay UK adds “additional terms” to Best Offer
May 2, 2009
Several sellers have noticed a new addition to their Best Offer pages today: a new text box for “additional terms” has been added, so that if you make a counter-offer, additional terms (or just comments) can be added.
Other sellers, mainly in the collectables categories, say they’ve had this for a while, so it seems to be something that’s only just rolled site-wide.
eBay sellers seem to fall firmly into two camps over Best Offer: those of us who love it, and those who hate it. For those of us who find it a useful selling tool, this will be a very welcome addition to the process. The lovely Martin from The Whirlpool Bath Shop, who sent me the original heads up, tells me he negotiated a price both he and his buyer were happy with via this console today, on the basis that the buyer bought accessories with his bath. I can see it being useful for my own sales when I’m happy to do a better price for buyers purchasing multiple items at a time. And of course, on the original B.O. console, making offers like “if you buy three I’ll give you free/upgraded P&P” wasn’t an option: now it is.
Those who don’t like Best Offer are of course free to not add it to their listings
eBay’s new dispute resolutions process in action
April 26, 2009
In eBay’s announcements of site changes last week, one of the things promised was more direct involvement in disputes between buyers and sellers. Just a couple of days after the announcement was made, the new system was already being rolled out. I heard from a TameBay reader we’ll call Tom, who had purchased a camera on eBay but had it delivered minus several of the promised components. Tom told me, “having got no joy from the seller and nearing the 45 day deadline, I went to PayPal to file a dispute, but was redirected to an eBay screen with a customer support number to call.”
The eBay rep said that eBay themselves would process a payment for the cost of the replacement parts, took Tom’s PayPal email, and sent him the cash! Tom comments: “as a buyer, it’s a much cleaner process to get resolution to a problem transaction. If they look to recover this from the seller, my concern would be the the level of safeguards built in to the process.”
Mine too. I asked eBay for some more information on exactly how this kind of refund would work: were they not encouraging some buyers to make fraudulent claims, and how – when it’s a buyer’s word against a seller’s – were they to judge who was right?
eBay told me they have a number of fraud checks in place, and will also look at buyer and seller history when getting involved in disputes. Perhaps most importantly, they will have access to claims history – something that sellers don’t currently have – so will presumably be able to see serial claimants.
As for the question of who is funding the refunds, “we may seek to recover the funds in the future – just as PayPal does today for all claims in the buyer’s favour”. The significant difference is, of course, that PayPal require a buyer to return the SNAD item to the seller, whereas eBay haven’t yet mentioned any such requirement; potentially this leaves the seller out of pocket for item plus refund.
Sellers will be given “a certain number of business days” to provide prove that the item *was* as described; if the seller doesn’t respond, then the buyer will “generally” be refunded and eBay will seek to reclaim the funds from the seller. eBay add:
We understand that there will be times where both buyer and seller may be right. In those cases eBay may absorb the cost to reimburse the buyer without any impact on the seller.
Over to you – is this the reassurance that buyers need, or just asking for trouble? Leave us a comment.
eBay UK’s big announcement: mandatory free P&P expanded, easier returns
April 16, 2009
eBay UK have finally made their biannual announcement of changes affecting sellers for spring 2009. Much of the content is the same as the eBay.com announcement made earlier this week, but there are a few tweaks just for the UK.
Free P&P in lots more categories
As of 15th June, sellers in selected categories in Video Games, Mobile & Home Phones, Consumer Electronics, Computing, Photography, and Clothes, Shoes & Accessories will be required to offer free P&P as their first domestic postage option. Currently, this doesn’t apply to all the subcategories of each of those sections, so do read the full list on eBay’s page; for CSA, for example, only the accessories’ subcategories and clothing & shoe care are included.
eBay are sweetening the pill very slightly by offering a 20% Final Value Fee discount to sellers in those categories; we’d hope to see this made a permanent offer, otherwise eBay will rightly be accused of making extra profit on those included P&P charges.
As with other free P&P categories, sellers will be free to offer other, pay-for shipping options.
“Easier returns”
A new returns process will make it easier for buyers to say they want to return an item, and for sellers to process that return.
- Buyers who pay with PayPal will see a return link (presumably in My eBay) for 35 days after purchase. Note that this is longer than the eBay minimum of 14 days to return an item.
- When a return is requested, sellers will receive an email alert and have the opportunity to accept or reject the return.
- Sellers will be able to set a separate returns address and specify a default message to be shown to buyers returning goods.
- Sellers will be able to refund payment and reclaim FVFs from the same place.
Only items paid for with PayPal will be included in the new returns’ process. We’ll be looking more at returns and the handling of them in the next few days.
eBay Resolutions comes to the UK
eBay UK will have its own version of the eBay Resolutions dispute process revealed on .com earlier in the week. Substantially the same as the current PayPal dispute process, this will roll out over “coming months” and is expected to be available on all transations by Christmas 2009. Intriguingly, eBay UK actually mention that “we will also better monitor and prevent buyer fraud or abuse”, so perhaps those serial lost-in-the-post claimants will be less ready to claim in future.
Variant listings and changes to the choice policy
As announced by Mark Lewis at Catalyst, and as per eBay.com, from 15th June variant listings will be available in the adults’ shoes categories. In “late summer” (Mark said July 15th, so it seems the schedule’s already slipped), the feature will be expanded to selected Clothes, Shoes & Accessories categories, and Home & Garden categories. There’s no mention at all of the rest of eBay in this; I’ve heard roll-out side-wide in 2010 mentioned, but for now, that seems to be just a rumour.
Free photos in Clothing, Shoes & Accessories
CSA sellers will now get free Gallery Plus, Picture Pack, Supersize and additional pictures. With the new view item page pushing seller-generated content further down the page, having more pictures above the fold should be a plus.
A new Copy Web Files tool will make it easier for sellers to import pictures from another web server into eBay Picture Services; scroll to the bottom of this page for the current scanty details. We’ll be watching with interest to see if eBay will just allow the import of any pictures from the internet, or whether they’ll require an FTP connection to the server in question to prove legitimate use.
Smart Answers actually are smart!
There’s more information on how the new Smart FAQs will work; I’m particularly liking the idea that eBay could answer questions for me:
As you’ll have already provided the information about your item to eBay, we use that information to answer your buyers’ questions. This information includes item details, P&P information and transactional details. As long as your item details are up-to-date and accurate, eBay can accurately answer questions for you. For example, if a buyer asks “Do you ship to country X?” we check the shipping destinations provided by you and send the buyer an answer.
As ever, this won’t suit all sellers (you might want to except buyers from your normal requirements, after all) but for some, it will be exceedingly useful.
More product pages
Not quite so extensive through the media categories as on .com, but expect to see product pages expanded in Movies & DVDs, Music, Mobile Phones, Consoles, Digital Cameras and Camcorders.
Category changes
Changes to some subcategories of CSA, H&G and Collectables. More details on these in early May (so much for 60 days’ notice!). The Cars, Parts & Vehicles category will be split into two categories: Vehicles and Parts.
So, good, bad or indifferent? How will the changes affect your business? Leave us a comment.
[Updated] eBay UK & Germany reduce FVFs for free shipping
April 6, 2009
Another push for free shipping today from eBays UK and Germany: until 30th June, there’s a 20% reduction in FVFs for items offering free shipping in clothing, DVDs and some technology categories. The offer applies to all listing formats except classifieds, but sellers will need to have an eBay Shop to qualify, and to be eBay.de registered to get the discounts on that site.
As usual there’s some small print, so please do read it for the relevant site before you list.
[CA Catalyst] eBay UK: the shape of things to come
March 30, 2009
This afternoon’s keynote speech at ChannelAdvisor Catalyst by Mark Lewis, MD of eBay UK, and his team had some good news for sellers about changes to come this year.
Perhaps best of all was the news of just how changes will be made in the future: Mark acknowledged that last year’s process of constant alterations to site specifications was difficult for sellers to work with. Vowing that eBay UK wants to be a better business partner and easier to work with, he announced that in future, major changes will be made in two “annual releases”, meaning that sellers can make all necessary changes to their listings in one hit. Better still, eBay UK will aim to announce these changes 60 days in advance, so that sellers have plenty of time both to plan for and to implement them.
This year’s annual releases will take place in June and September: it was acknowledged that these are pretty close together, and in future years, it’s hoped to spread things out more evenly. But there are changes eBay want to make this year: June is just about sixty days away, so the announcements need to be made soon, and September was chosen to be well in advance of the holiday shopping season.
Raphael Orta gave us a sneak preview of some of the changes being announced in the first round.
- Multiple variation listings will finally allow sellers to offer a choice of colours, sizes, fits etc. etc. in their listings. Multi-SKU listings have been on the cards for a long time now, and are something that many sellers have asked for time and again.
- Free pictures
- Smart FAQs will build on the FAQs currently available to sellers to display when potential buyers use “ask seller a question”. There will also be the option to turn off questions altogether.
- Easy returns: eBay will introduce a simple way for buyers to notify sellers that they wish to return an item, and to print off a “returns slip” to send back with their item. I’d guess that “easier returns” will worry some sellers, but I suspect that it won’t increase returns rates much, and that any small increase that does happen will be more than made up for in buyer confidence.
- Free shipping: there are currently visibility incentives to offer free P&P (i.e. advantages in Best Match): financial incentives are also to be offered (no indication of just what these might be). Giving sellers a financial incentive to offer free P&P should finally put to bed the old argument that eBay only want it to push FVFs up, and should encourage more sellers to experiment with including shipping in their item price.
Free shipping will also be mandated in more categories this year: there was no official announcement of which categories this might apply to, though I’m hearing a rumour that tech will be one of those affected.
In response to a question on free P&P, Richard Ambrose said that there are no plans to change DSRs for these transations, either to make a “5″ compulsory, or to make the DSR unavailable.
More than the details of the actual changes – which are all pretty sketchy at the moment; a full official announcement is expected in the next few weeks – I have to applaud the sense that’s limiting major eBay changes to just two tranches a year. Last year was a hellish round of constant listing editing for many of us: we can’t and won’t go through that again, and now it seems we don’t have to.
eBay.com retires old search system
February 20, 2009
eBay.com has announced that their old-style search format will be retired in April. The new “finding” system offers users the ability to specify a range of criteria from payment method and item location, to specifics of colour, size and item condition.
eBays say that 90% of users are now using the new format, and that “response from the Community to the new finding has been great”. A thread on the US discussion board is less enthusiastic: one member writes “the biggest single enhancement the users have asked for is to keep the OPT OUT link working because we don’t like or even want the new search”.
The announcement’s been made only for eBay.com, so it’s not quite clear how this will affect other sites: eBay UK had said the old system would be retired in March, so it’s possible we’ll see the option to opt out disappear before .com users do.
2012 Olympics items VeROed from eBay UK
February 19, 2009
If you were hoping to make a couple of quid on eBay selling souvenirs for the London 2012 Olympics, think again. Donna from Delphinus Dreams told us that a red bus-shaped keyring marked “2012″ was pulled from eBay as a trademark violation. As pointed out by members of the PowerSeller Forum there are numerous trademarks and copyrights connected with the Olympic and Paralympic Games, including the Olympic five rings symbol, the London 2012 logo, the words “London 2012″ themselves – and as Donna found out, just “2012″ by itself.
It seems inevitable that as we get closer to 2012, unauthorised merchandise will be produced and some of it will be offered for sale to eBay sellers. Don’t waste your hard-earned on buying it, because you’re not going to be able to sell it on eBay (and you shouldn’t be selling it anywhere else either).
Here’s some more advice on 2012 branding for businesses.
Updates on price change and payments policies
February 2, 2009
Today was the day that eBay UK were supposed to roll out the change to Best Match so that sellers could increase prices but not be penalised in Best Match for doing so. This was announced in the most recent Business Seller newsletter, but unfortunately the technology is not yet working. Sellers who’ve increased prices today have seen their BM standing plummet. eBay have recommended sellers wait until at least tomorrow before changing any prices, and have said that there will be an announcement made shortly. We’ll keep you updated if we find out anything more.
There is also some clarification on how UK listings with ISV will appear on eBay.com if they offer paper payment methods which have now been banned for US eBayers. James, eBay UK’s community manager, wrote on the PowerSeller board:
As long as you are offering a safe payment method then your listings will show on the US Site. How this works is when you purchase ISV (because you need to offer PayPal as a requirement for ISV) if the listing also offers cheques/ money orders, then these payment methods will be removed & not appear as options on the US site.
We’re still waiting for clarification of what will happen to listings which offer paper payments within the body of the description. For now, if you’re paying for ISV, then avoiding mention of paper payment methods in your description is probably the safest route to take.
More ads in My eBay
January 28, 2009
Just a few days after eBay UK launched the new My eBay, users woke up to a huge new banner ad across the top of the screen this morning. Many users have complained that the flashing adverts are distracting, and slow their computers considerably when they’re trying to use My eBay: ironic, when you consider some of the content:
Some ads are being tailored to individual eBay members based on age, gender, buying and selling history and so on. Members can opt out of this in My eBay > Site Preferences, but this won’t switch off the ads altogether: you’ll just see random banners not targetted to what eBay think your interests might be.
If you use Firefox, Adblock Plus will get rid of the ads. If you’re using IE, Adblock Pro should do the trick: there’s a 30 day free trial, or it’s $19.95 for a lifetime subscription — unless anyone knows of a free ad-blocker for IE users?
Private sellers get 5p listing weekend on eBay UK
December 26, 2008
Private sellers can list auctions for just 5p this weekend on eBay UK. On Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th December, auctions’ insertion fees are reduced to 5p. All other fees are charged as normal. Buy It Now items are not included, though sellers can add a buy it now price to their auctions for the normal upgrade fee. Some categories are also excluded, so do read the small print before you list.
PowerSellers and Business Sellers are not eligible for the promotion – so time to list your Christmas presents on your buying ID. And I can’t resist saying that this is *exactly* as predicted by Psychic Psue on the the PowerSeller Board last week
eBay UK to hide quantity on multi-item listings
December 4, 2008
eBay UK have now rolled out the change for multiple item listings made a few weeks ago on eBay.com. BIN items with an available quantity greater than 10 will now say simply “more than 10 available”, rather than listing the actual quantity a seller has in inventory. Here’s an example; I can sneakily reveal that Chris has 34 of these in stock.
As the original .com accouncement put it
buyers tend to purchase less often when they see a large quantity of items available. This is most likely because they feel a lack of urgency to purchase, or they perceive that the item isn’t selling well.
Hopefully this should instill a sense of urgency into more eBay shoppers, though I’d still say in some categories, “more than ten” is too many and sellers should stick with listing fewer and amending their listings where necessary.
eBay crashes, PayPal reverse payments
November 30, 2008
eBay appear to be having a few problems tonight with many site functions returning “Sorry, that’s not working right now” messages.
Whilst this is frustrating for sellers trying to send invoices what’s even worse is that buyers PayPal payments are being reversed. Sellers are reporting payments appearing in their PayPal account followed immediately by a reversal. At the same time the item the buyer thought they had purchased appears back on eBay as a live listing and not as a sold ended item.
If you normally rely on PayPal payment emails for shipping make sure you double check before dispatching goods tomorrow that the item has actually been sold and paid for.
If you’re a buyer double check that you have successfully bought and paid for the item that you think you’ve won.
(P.S. eBay… The “Sorry page” has a link to the “eBay Announcement Board for major system issues and changes“, it’s not got a single post on it yet…..)
eBay to refund all fees for VAT affected listings
November 28, 2008
eBay have just announced that they will refund all UK insertion and listing enhancement fees to enable sellers to update multiple quantity fixed price listings with the new VAT rates.
To qualify for the refunds UK sellers must be business or VAT registered, the listing must be a multiple quantity fixed price listing and and it must be manually ended and then re-listed to update the VAT information between Tuesday 25th Nov 2008 and Friday 5th Dec 2008. For qualifying listings eBay will refund both the Insertion and Feature fees.
On the Q&A forum eBay give further explanation explaining that they’ve been working to update the site automatically but it’s simply not been possible to achieve this in the short period since the Pre-Budget report announced the VAT changes. Hopefully by the time the next VAT change takes effect on 1st January 2010 there will be an easier way to adjust VAT rates on the site.
There will be no need to apply for refunds, they will automatically be credited through the normal invoice process.
Although it still leaves sellers with a fair amount of work to do to update all their listings over the weekend at least they won’t be penalised financially on listing and insertion fees. Those who have multiple listings with the more expensive enhancements such as Featured First can breathe a sigh of relief that their fees will be refunded.
If you’ve been delaying updating your listings but now intend to take advantage of the relist credits we’ve written a check list for changing the VAT rates on auctions and fixed price items to make the process as painless as possible.
Action plan for VAT changes to your eBay listings
November 28, 2008
Due to the large number of VAT registered sellers who will have to update their eBay listings manually this weekend I thought I’d share my work plan for updating VAT rates on live listings.
To do today
- Use TurboLister to bulk edit all auctions without bids ending on or after 1st to amend to the new VAT rate. It will then be correct on the date the auction ends.
- Bulk edit all templates in TurboLister (you’ll need to do this in two steps – all auction templates and then all fixed price templates)
- Consider launching shorter duration auctions to cover any days when you didn’t list. 3, 5 and 7 day auctions can plug the gap and be listed today with the new VAT rate. (If you use 1 day auctions make sure that they are listed with the current VAT rate)
- Schedule fixed price listings to start on 1st
To do on Sunday 30th November
- End auctions with bids, consider selling to the current highest bidder if an acceptable price has been reached.
- Use TurboLister to bulk edit any fixed price listings without sales or best offers, for any subsequent sales before midnight edit VAT back to the old rate on the SMP invoice.
This is potentially the most difficult step as whilst you can see start and current quantities to identify listings with sales (Right click TurboLister columns, click “Customise columns” and make “Qty” and “Available Quantity” visible), it’s not possible to see which listings have received best offers. Attempting a bulk edit which includes just one listing that’s received a best offer will block the VAT field from being revised.
- End any fixed price listings with sales or best offers and relist with the revised VAT rate as soon as possible (or schedule them to restart on 1st December) and manually edit the VAT rate on the SMP invoice for any final sales from the 30th.
You should now have all your listings updated showing the correct rate of VAT and can enjoy the rest of your weekend!eBay UK sellers must manually edit listings for VAT changes
November 26, 2008
This post was written in November 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.eBay UK have finally made an announcement about how the 1st December change in the VAT rate should be reflected by sellers on the site. That’s the good news: the bad news is, we’re on our own.
eBay’s announcment says this:
- the VAT rate can be edited on listings without sales.
- listings with sales will have to be either allowed to end as scheduled, or manually ended by sellers, and relisted with the correct VAT rate.
After 1st December, offering items for sale with 17.5% VAT will be illegal, so allowing your listings to end naturally after that date is not an option. Listings with sales, therefore, *must* be ended and relisted, with all eBay listing and featured listing fees payable again on the new listings.
Frankly, this isn’t good enough. It would not have been too much to ask for eBay to automatically change all 17.5% VAT-listed items to 15%, or if not that, to make the VAT field editable on listings with sales. Instead, they’ve abdicated any shred of responsibility; not only are sellers left with huge numbers of listings to edit when they should really be ramping up their sales to crazy point for Christmas, but eBay are profiting by the extra listing fees on the whole mess.
eBay have said that editing the VAT field will not affect sales recency for Best Match: this isn’t going to be a whole bunch of comfort to sellers faced with editing and paying to relist their entire eBay inventory.
If anyone from eBay is listening, please reconsider: do a bulk edit from 17.5% to 15%. And if you won’t do that, then at very least, consider waiving some listing fees.
Updated to add some conversations with HMRC
A couple of TameBay readers have spoken to HMRC and been told that they do not need to change the VAT rate quoted on eBay so long as their own records and invoices show the correct rate (see comments below).We’ve just spoken to HMRC’s Glasgow contact centre and been told that displayed rates *do* need to be changed, and that sellers need to contact eBay to find out how to do that (ha ha).
So if you’re chosing to leave 17.5% standing, it’s very much at your own risk.
Free listing weekend for private sellers on eBay UK
November 26, 2008
This post was written in November 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.eBay UK has a free listing weekend for auction items with a 99p or lower start. The promotion is valid for private sellers only (so dust off that buying ID
), and runs on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th November 2008. All other fees are charged as normal.
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