eBay Releases 2018 Fall Seller Updates

eBay Released their US Seller Updates: Here are some highlights:

Customer Service Phone Numbers

Sometimes buyers have questions about items they would like to purchase on eBay. While buyers and sellers aren’t allowed to share or request direct contact information prior to completing a sale for the purpose of making offers to buy or sell items outside of eBay, a new pilot program allows sellers to help buyers make purchase decisions.

With the new pilot program, a seller’s customer service phone number will be visible to buyers on desktop before the sale.

Sellers can opt into the feature within “Manage communication with buyers” in their account settings.

Managed Payment System

eBay opened up a survey for interested sellers to join the managed payment system. But sellers may want to read this story first before making that decision.

READ MORE: New eBay Payments Beta Comes with Significant Restrictions

Use Secure HTTPS

eBay is reminding sellers that Google Browsers will start to display warning messages when unsecure content is detected or served.

Sellers should double check that all their listings and all content from those listings is served via a secure connection. Here is more information from eBay.

Fee Increases

Starting September 15, 2018, the feature fee for Reserve price will increase to either $5 or 7.5%, whichever is greater and the Reserve fee cap will increase from $100 to $250.

In some Business & Industrial categories, the feature fee will remain at a flat fee of $5.

The feature fee for Subtitle will increase from $0.50 to $1 for listings with 1-, 3-, 5-, 7- and 10-day listing durations and an item price of up to $150, and from $1 to $3 for listings with an item price of more than $150.

For 30-day duration and Good ‘Til Cancelled listings with an item price up to $150, the feature fee will remain unchanged at $1.50.

For 30-day duration and Good ‘Til Cancelled listings with an item price of more than $150, the feature fee will increase to $6.

The feature fee for Value Pack will increase from $0.65 to $1.15 for listings with 1-, 3-, 5-, 7- and 10-day listing durations and an item price of up to $150, and from $1.30 to $3.15 for listings with an item price of more than $150.

For 30-day duration and Good ‘Til Cancelled listings with an item price up to $150, the feature fee will remain unchanged at $2.

For 30-day duration and Good ‘Til Cancelled listings with an item price of more than $150, the feature fee will increase to $6.50.

Changes to Insertion fee credits for auction-style listings that sell

Starting October 4, 2018, unlimited insertion fee credits for auction-style listings that end in a sale will be available exclusively to US and Canadian Store subscribers with Basic, Premium, Anchor, and Enterprise Store subscriptions.

Starter Store subscribers and non-Store sellers will no longer receive these insertion fee credits. Only listings created after you sign up for a Store subscription will be eligible for a credit.

Media price increase

Starting September 15, 2018, the final value fees for Books, and DVDs & Movies categories will increase from 9.15% to 12% for Store subscribers and from 10% to 12% for non-Store sellers.

Starting September 15, 2018, the final value fees for the Music category will also increase from 9.15% to 12% for both Store subscribers and non-Store sellers, with the exception of the Records category, which will remain at 9.15% for Store subscribers and 10% for non-Store sellers.

New Product-Based Shopping Experience Categories

Product-based categories are continuing to be expanded with this update.

Starting in mid-August 2018, as eBay previously announced, sellers will need to associate listings with the eBay catalog in enabled categories.

Any listings that require updating will be highlighted in both My eBay and Seller Hub.

Additionally, in mid-August 2018, sellers will be able to leverage their expertise and contribute edits to the eBay catalog within enabled categories using the new Create Product and Update Product Information features within the listing flow.

Seller contributions will help ensure that the eBay catalog is accurate, complete, and up-to-date, providing buyers with details they need to clearly understand the item being sold.

Starting in mid-September 2018, when sellers revise an existing listing or create a new listing in enabled categories, sellers will need to associate their listings with the eBay catalog.

If sellers do not associate active listings with the eBay catalog, the listings may have minimal or no visibility to buyers. If sellers do not associate new or revised listings with the catalog they will not be able to successfully complete the listing.

Looking forward, in mid-October 2018, eBay will enable sellers to associate listings for the following categories with the catalog.

Sellers will have until February 2019 to associate their listings in these categories with the catalog before the visibility of the listings will be affected.

• 3D Printers & Supplies
• CPUs/Processors
• Desktops & All-In-Ones
• DJ Equipment
• Electrical Equipment & Supplies
• Heating, Cooling & Air
• Home Telephones & Accessories
• Karaoke Entertainment
• Laptops & Netbooks
• Memory (RAM)
• Motherboards
• Multipurpose Batteries & Power
• Portable Audio & Headphones (except Parts & Accessories)
• Printers
• Pro Audio Equipment
• Scanners
• Surveillance & Smart Home Electronics (except Parts & Accessories)
• Test, Measurement & Inspection
• Tools & Workshop Equipment (except Parts & Accessories)
• TV, Video & Home Audio (except Parts & Accessories)
• Video Games & Consoles (except Video Games)
• Virtual Reality (except Parts & Accessories)

Here is more information from eBay about this new product-based shopping experience.

Service Metrics

eBay is reminding sellers of new service metrics that will go into effect this fall. These were previously announced in the Summer update.

October 1, 2018, sellers that have very high rates of “item not as described” returns may be subject to additional 4% final value fee in affected categories based on the Service Metrics policy. Maximum fee caps do not apply to the additional 4% final value fees.

Starting November 1, 2018, sellers that have very high rates of “item not received” requests may be subject to extended delivery estimates in affected categories.

Sellers will not be evaluated on a time period prior to June 1, 2018. Full policy is available here.

Not Much New

Most of the updates were already known and are only reminders from the Summer Update.

READ MORE: eBay 2018 Summer Seller Update for U.S. Sellers

Of course, there had to be a fee update, but most sellers expect that by now (grudgingly).

It’s interesting to see that eBay was forced to backtrack on the customer service phone number prohibition. Maybe they learned that customers sometimes do want to talk with someone before making buying decisions.

One has to wonder how they will try to enforce this? Will they use “secret shoppers” on accounts they may believe are violating the off-line sales prohibition?

We will look at the updates on UK and other eBay marketplace sites today and highlight those in another post.

What do you think about this eBay seller update? Head over to our Facebook Discussion Group or use the comments section below.

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