eBay Releases 2022 Spring Seller Update

Just two months ago eBay issued that unusually timed Winter/February update and today, the company released its 2022 Spring Seller update.

Normally, the Spring update is more encompassing. But this one is just a few items that build on changes already announced during the company’s Winter update and its Investor Day.

Running Your Business

During the Winter Update, eBay announced it would reduce unpaid items by automatically collecting payments from buyers when their Best Offers are accepted.

This effort will be expanded to include other Best Offer scenarios, including Offers to Buyers and counteroffers.

Later this year, buyers will also be able to request bundled offers on multiple items when they make a Best Offer the company said in the update.

eBay is also changing how it is counting listing page views, switching from a lifetime count to a 30-day rolling count. This new way of counting views should be live in a few weeks.

The reason for this change is to make reporting more consistent across the platform as it uses this counting method in the Seller Hub Traffic Report and Promoted Listings reports while also reducing the impact of non-human traffic on reports, providing sellers a better understanding of the traffic to their listings.

This change is anticipated to be live in late April 2022.

Lifetime views are not going away completely though. eBay is introducing a new listing traffic history report that will show the past 2 years of view counts for each listing.

The new traffic report will show a breakdown of views, including trends over time, for each individual listing. Sellers will be able to filter for page views over various timeframes, from the past 24 hours up to the past 2 years the company explained.

eBay’s new messaging experience is also rolling out to more sellers. The company said that sellers should ensure they have the latest mobile app installed and look for “We’ve updated messaging. Try it now” at the top of their inbox.

When they see this message, they’ve been invited to test the new messaging experience. During the testing phase, users will be able to switch between the classic view and the new beta version.

Listings & Promoting

More Category and Item Specifics changes are coming on May 17. Sellers should review the new changes here and make any updates prior to the implementation date as otherwise, eBay will automatically move listings to new relevant categories.

In addition, the company is rolling out more item specifics in the following categories.

• Collectibles (Toys)
• Health & Beauty
• Home & Garden
• Parts & Accessories

However, unlike the category updates, the new Item Specifics cannot be added until May 17 and eventually will become mandatory.

Therefore, sellers should mark this date and check out this page on eBay that explains how to best update your listings in bulk using eBay’s free time-saving tools.

Fees & Financials

eBay is adding more flexibility to payouts, something the company had announced during its Investor Day but now has made official through this update.

• Monthly payouts of Available funds are sent to the seller’s bank on the first Tuesday of the calendar month.
• Biweekly or weekly payouts of Available funds are sent to the seller’s bank on Tuesdays.
• Daily payouts of Available funds are sent to the seller’s bank within 2 days after the buyer’s payment is confirmed.

Over the next several weeks, eBay will also enable On-demand payouts for sellers who have selected a weekly, biweekly or monthly payout schedule.

Sellers will be able to request a payout of all or part of their Available funds on demand, before their next scheduled payout date.

However, the on-demand payout is not instant transfer as some sellers may be familiar with PayPal. Instead, it will take the normal 1-3 days for funds to transfer from eBay to the seller’s bank account.

Last year, we reported some eBay sellers reported claiming they received a survey from the company asking if they would be interested to expedite payouts (instant transfers) for a fee.

It’s unclear if this is still under consideration and eBay did not mention this possibility during its Investor Day or during this update.

However, another initiative revealed during Investor Day, the Digital Wallet, was indirectly mentioned in this update without using the term.

eBay said that “Spendable Funds” are coming soon to the platform. These are funds from proceeds of sales on the marketplace that can be used immediately (well…after they are cleared) to make purchases on the platform.

It’s somewhat interesting that eBay is calling it Spendable Funds and avoided the term Digital Wallet. Yet, immediate access to funds to make purchases on eBay was the only feature its Digital Wallet initiative announced during Investor Day was bringing to the table.

Maybe someone at the company realized that real digital wallets offer more features than what they proposed during their Investor Day?

That’s It For the 2022 eBay Spring Update

And that’s all folks for this Spring Seller Update. Here is the link to the full announcement that offers a few more details on these changes.

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