New eBay change (for a change) 6 6

[skypinkblu]

I don't see that this was discussed before, but eBay is making a change and not notifying the buyers, you get surprised.

I've been doing a lot of buying on eBay recently (nail polish strips, not comics;) and some of them are very inexpensive best offers, auctions. 

All of a sudden I got a popup saying my credit card was going to be charged when I made a best offer. I got no notification before the popup. Once they enable your credit card, they just keep using it. 

I was combining shipping on some of these, so it kind of threw me for a loop. 

After speaking to 3 people who each had no idea what they were talking about, I spoke to a supervisor tonight. 
Apparently this is something new...because people were not paying. eBay has decided to require immediate payment on everything, using your saved credit card (or other saved payment method.

She said that sellers have been begging for this...buyers apparently don't count.

I told her that I pay immediately when I buy from a store but that it would be NICE to know that there was a change. Then I was thinking...most stores don't charge my card until the item ships.

The good thing is ...I have enough nail polish strips, so I don't mind quitting shopping on there, or at least I KNOW now that there will be an immediate charge if I do decide to bid on an auction.

I pretty much stopped selling on eBay a few years ago, but for those of you who shop there and sell there, I thought you might like to know the change.

BINs always had an option to require an immediate payment, but this is a roll out on everything.

 

[lizards2]

[Lightning55]

This has been in a test mode for almost a year. It's just now getting more fully rolled out, but still about 50% of the time it will not ask you to load a payment method up during a Best Offer. I haven't seen any "payment on file" requirement to bid, so I don't think that process has been affected at all. Just Best Offers.

This is eBay's brain dead attempt to lower abandoned accepted offers, or to make sure the buyer is putting in a serious offer. Other sites like Poshmark and Etsy use this method, so of course they copy them, right or wrong. No original thinking at eBay.

And yes, something to keep sellers from getting jerked around has been requested for a long time. Buyer makes offer, seller accepts, buyer plays dead. Super annoying and time consuming going through the process, after you gave the buyer the deal they wanted - several messages to buyer, cancel transaction, relist item, block bidder on eBay, report to Block Bidder list here, etc.  But this is not the best method.

Once a reduced price was agreed upon during the offer process, all eBay had to do was let the seller send an item-specific coupon to the buyer for the difference. It would expire in X amount of time. The buyer goes through the normal Buy-It-Now process and applies the coupon. Or they choose not to, and the item remains listed like nothing happened. Cuz nothing happened. 

[Ride the Tiger]

What if there are counter offers made? It kind of sounds like you get charged for the first initial offer on a bin/obo or does it wait for the transaction to pan out?

[kenaran]

I've been buying a fair bit of comics off ebay this year.  When I do a BIN I'm actually serious, but the main issue is the sorry state of combined shipping.  It seems every seller does it differently, so I have to ask, which means waiting for an invoice.  The few times I've run across a seller who set it up for the website to do, it's not always all that stable.  The last time I combined an order the website flat out gave me an error, and said it wasn't working.  Add to cart generally just stacks the shipping charges, this has been a mess for a VERY long time.  This feels like a knee jerk reaction to one issue that is ignoring other issues.

[Cat]

I have enough trouble just getting a REPSONSE from sellers over here who have Best Offer set up, and that's with offers of 85-90%, which I think is reasonable. Three sellers in a row have just let the offers time out. I'm sick of them having the option enabled then leaving it unattended and ignoring it and me. 

Edited August 8, 2023 by Cat

[wiparker824]

Definitely not in place universally. I just had a buyer take 3 days after I accepted their best offer to make the payment. So I’m not sure if this is something the seller has to enable, the buyer has to opt-in for, or eBay just doing it randomly but it’s not happening for me.

[october]

Anything that reduces the amount of buyers that make offers and disappear is good with me. Payment should be automatic and immediate when a deal closes, be it auction, BIN or Best Offer. 

[Jayman]

I renently put in a best offer on a comic and ebay prompted me to choose an automated payment option. No hidden surprises, and I chose my options. About 20 min later my offer was accepted and I was charged the amount. I’m ok with it so far.

[Gaard]

This happened to me a couple of times already. Less than a second after submitting an offer, I got a message from Ebay confirming the order. It's surprising and I would prefer it not being like this, but it didn't bother me too much. What really stinks is the combined shipping aspect mentioned above. I had a seller with three different BINs listed that I wanted to make an offer on. I emailed the seller, telling him about this new policy and that I'd be charged the total shipping cost on all three comics. He knew nothing about it and told me to go ahead and buy them one at a time (he already said he'd accept my offers) and that he'd reimburse the shipping. That seemed too risky as I didn't know this seller from Adam, so I passed. Ebay just cost me (and them) three sales.

 

BTW- what's a nail polish strip?

[lizards2]

On 8/7/2023 at 6:20 AM, Gaard said:

 

BTW- what's a nail polish strip?

If you have to ask..., 

[Action252Kid]

As others said, this definitely isn't universal.  I mainly deal with auctions (both buying and selling) and I have yet to see this for me (either as a bidder or as as seller), but I've seen others mention it.  I've heard that it's something that a seller can turn off in their settings and it appears to only be on BIN/Make Offer stuff right now.  

[skypinkblu]

On 8/7/2023 at 9:20 AM, Gaard said:

This happened to me a couple of times already. Less than a second after submitting an offer, I got a message from Ebay confirming the order. It's surprising and I would prefer it not being like this, but it didn't bother me too much. What really stinks is the combined shipping aspect mentioned above. I had a seller with three different BINs listed that I wanted to make an offer on. I emailed the seller, telling him about this new policy and that I'd be charged the total shipping cost on all three comics. He knew nothing about it and told me to go ahead and buy them one at a time (he already said he'd accept my offers) and that he'd reimburse the shipping. That seemed too risky as I didn't know this seller from Adam, so I passed. Ebay just cost me (and them) three sales.

 

BTW- what's a nail polish strip?

That's the problem, the combined shipping.

Good question, they  are nail polish strips. I started using them after a friend's wife showed me them just before the pandemic. You just stick them on over your nails (it's not much more than that) and you have what can look like you got  a professional manicure without sitting in a salon for an hour   for about $5 instead of $60.

Feel free to tell your wives and have them shocked at what great info you found on a comic board, lol.

They are as addictive as beanie babies, people even search for "rare" ones. I am fine with common ones;) If you are careful, you can get 2 manicures out of one package. If you buy them from the website they are more expensive.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2499334.m570.l1312&_nkw=colorstreet&_sacat=47945

Edited August 7, 2023 by skypinkblu

[Timmay]

On 8/7/2023 at 1:26 PM, skypinkblu said:

That's the problem, the combined shipping.

Exactly.  I sell three cheap raw books via best offer EVEN THOUGH I HAVE COMBINED SHIPPING SET UP for 50 cents extra per book the buyer will pay full shipping on each book.

Each transaction will be a separate charge, and I will get charged 30 cents for each one.  And then I will have to issue two separate refunds for the shipping.

And no you can't opt out as a buyer or seller, i already asked.

Nickel and diming at it's finest.

 

[jcjames]

 

Don't buyers still have the option to put things in the "cart" then pay for them all at once, to account for combined-shipping discounts? 

 

[Gaard]

On 8/7/2023 at 1:51 PM, jcjames said:

 

Don't buyers still have the option to put things in the "cart" then pay for them all at once, to account for combined-shipping discounts? 

 

Possibly, I don't know. I only have experience with this new policy when making offers. I'm pretty sure sellers have the option of having offers of (or greater than) a certain amount being automatically accepted. When that happens, I automatically purchase the item (the money is automatically taken out of my PP).

[Lightning55]

On 8/7/2023 at 1:51 PM, jcjames said:

 

Don't buyers still have the option to put things in the "cart" then pay for them all at once, to account for combined-shipping discounts? 

 

Yes, in general (sometimes).

But with the new offer method, as soon as it is accepted, the payment is made, no way to combine after the payment. 

Edited August 7, 2023 by Lightning55

[skypinkblu]

On 8/7/2023 at 1:51 PM, jcjames said:

 

Don't buyers still have the option to put things in the "cart" then pay for them all at once, to account for combined-shipping discounts? 

 

Not if you make an offer, or you bid in a auction, this is all new.

[Cat]

On 8/7/2023 at 10:27 PM, Cat said:

I have enough trouble just getting a REPSONSE from sellers over here who have BIN set up, and that with offers of 85-90%, which I think is reasonable. Three sellers in a row have just let the offers time out. I'm sick of them having the option enabled then leaving it unattended and ignoring it and me. 

I did forget one esteemed gentlemen who did take the time to reject my offer, on the basis that he doesn't accept offers. 

So. Why. The. Freaking. Hell. Do. You. Have. Offers. Available. On. Your. Items. You. Galactic. insufficiently_thoughtful_person?

[Lightning55]

A lot of sellers don't even know that they have enabled it as an option.

EBay proactively adds it to the listing flow, and if you don't notice that and remove the check mark, you have it showing without realizing it.

Mostly the smaller sellers, as larger sellers will use their own 3rd party listing management tools and avoid the eBay heavy-handedness.