eBay Schuh Outlet in Feedback ‘Meltdown’

Schuh, the large footwear retailer is not having the best of times as one of eBay’s Outlet stores.

In the last 30 days alone, they have received over 1200 negative feedback and over 200 neutrals, mostly for the same reason – the item wasn’t actually in stock.

Schuh’s customer service page on their eBay Outlet states that due to a software error many items were listed when they were actually not in stock.  All auctions that ended between 7.30PM and 9.30PM on November 25th were affected.

Many buyers in their feedback seem puzzled as to why they didn’t receive their item, but it was later relisted.  Some have also claimed in their public feedback that the auction ended in such a low price that the item wasn’t sent.

It’s clear from reading the feedback that many of those disappointed customers don’t believe the ’system error’.

Schuh have also been apparently offering those customers a 20% discount off their next purchase – on their website.

Free eBay Media Listings for Private Sellers

eBay UK are currently running a promotion, allowing private sellers who list media items on auction with a start price of up to £4.99, with no insertion fees.  It runs from now until January 24th 2010.

Full announcement here

Free eBay Listing Weekend December 5th & 6th

eBay UK are running a free listing weekend for private sellers on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th December.

Announcement here.

Save Money on eBay & PayPal Fees Mini Guide

Want to maximise your eBay selling profitability?

Here’s our mini guide on how to save some money on your eBay and PayPal seller fees.

• Make sure you know the auction start price cut off points
• Use the correct category – some attract lower fees
• Use listing upgrades sparingly or not at all
• Use Turbo Lister to save on Listing Designer fees
• Use relist where applicable to get a relist credit
• Make use of Second Chance Offers
• Host your own photographs – don’t pay eBay for multiple photos
• Keep your listings topped up with stock before they end
• Consider opening a shop
• If your turnover is over £1500 a month apply for PayPal merchant rate
• If most of your items sell for less than £10 apply for PayPal Micropayments pricing

This is a mini guide based on our article Save Money on eBay and PayPal Fees on our main site.

Find Gifts in Our eBay Shop Directory

Earlier this year, we launched our eBay Shop Directory.  You can find well over 100 eBay shops all in one place.  If eBay search isn’t finding what you want, why not take a look at our comprehensive and varied range of eBay shops?

They are sorted into categories to make it easier to find what you’re looking for, without trawling through lots of irrelevant items that eBay sometimes throws up in searches.

Lots of gift ideas, consumables, jewellery, clothing, gadgets, accessories, toys, games, electronics and much more. 

There’s something for everyone in our eBay Shop Directory.

eBay UK Email to Sellers Re Search Outage

eBay UK have been sending out the following email in the wake of the recent problems with search and other failings on the site.

“By now you may be aware that between 4:45pm GMT on Saturday, 21 November and 8:00am GMT on Sunday, 22 November eBay search was unavailable with searches returning limited or no results.

We know this was a very serious disruption, especially as you look to increase your sales for the Christmas shopping season. Because you had listings ending during or within an hour after the outage, I wanted to let you know, personally, what we’ll be doing to support your business and protect your eBay reputation.

First of all, this outage will not negatively impact your feedback or detailed seller ratings (DSRs) in any way. All Auction-style listings completed during this time will be protected from negative and neutral feedback as well as DSRs below a five star rating.

In addition, we’ll not expect you to fulfill Auction-style orders completed during this time if you feel the search outage prevented you from realising the full expected price from your auction-style listings that closed during the outage or within an hour after the outage. It’s up to you whether you want to fulfill the item in the interest of good relations with your buyer or cancel the transaction.

If you do plan to cancel a transaction, we ask that you contact your buyer by end of day Tuesday, 24 November. For your convenience, we’ve drafted some language below that you can use in your emails to inform the buyer of your intention and let them know this cancellation was due entirely to an eBay issue and not you as a seller.

If you had Fixed Price listings completed during this time period, you would of course be expected to fulfill sold items as usual.

Second, in keeping with eBay’s Outage Policy and doing what’s right for sellers and buyers, we are taking the following actions for listings that ended during or within an hour after the outage (4:45pm GMT Saturday, 21 November – 9:00am Sunday, 22 November GMT):
• We’ll refund all associated fees for Auction-style listings and refund pro-rated fees for all active Fixed Price listings during the outage. This refund should be reflected in your next eBay invoice.
• We’ll remove negative/neutral Feedback and detailed seller ratings (DSRs) lower than 5 stars given by buyers for affected Auction-style listings.
• We’ll alert the eBay and PayPal resolutions team in the event that a claim of item not received is filed for an affected listing.
• We’ll be sending a 10% off coupon to buyers who won Auction-style listings during the outage for any inconvenience, up to a maximum value of £70.
We fully understand the impact of an outage of this scope on you, our valued partners. We sincerely apologise for the disruption to your business. I want you to know that we are continuing to focus our teams and resources to ensure a smooth and rewarding Christmas selling season for you.
Sincerely,
Jody Ford
Senior Director Seller Experience Europe”

They’ve also included a suggested email for sellers to send to buyers;

“Suggested email for notifying your buyer of cancelled Auction-style transactions:
Dear Buyer:
As you may know, for a period of time from Saturday, 21 November to Sunday, 22 November, eBay search was returning limited or no results. See the official eBay report. Unfortunately, the item you purchased from me on [date] was offered through an Auction-style listing affected by this technical disruption.
I wanted you to know that as a result of this issue, I will not fulfill this transaction and any payment you made will be fully refunded. In addition, eBay will be sending you a 10%-off coupon for your next purchase up to a maximum of £70 for the inconvenience. Now that eBay search is fully restored, I will be relisting this auction [today]. I sincerely hope you will bid again – and win!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact eBay via the “Contact us” link at the top of the eBay homepage. Thank you for your understanding. I look forward to your future business.
Sincerely,
XXX”

Finding Stock to Sell on eBay Mini Guide

Have you ever asked yourself ‘how do I find stuff I can sell on eBay’?

Here’s our mini guide on sourcing stock for sale on eBay.

• Search on Google for words such as wholesalers, suppliers, distributors and trade login
• Look at the packaging on items, they often have the suppliers details on the back
• Look in the phone book or yellow pages – not all suppliers have websites
• Look in bargain bins in shops, or go to closing down sales
• Keep an eye out for clearance & liquidation auctions in your local area
• Buy wholesale clearance joblots on eBay and sell the items individually
• Visit trade fairs and meet suppliers face to face
• Look at on-line trade directories

 

This is a mini guide based on the article Finding Stock to Sell on eBay on our main website.

eBay UK Testing New Feedback Options

eBay announced today a limited test for a new way for buyers to leave feedback for sellers – rating them on a scale of 1 – 10 as to how likely they are to recommend the seller to others.

The test is limited to a ’small’ percentage of users, and we’re assured that it will have no impact on actual feedback left.

You can read the announcement here

eBay Announce ‘Search is Fixed’

An announcement from eBay President Lorrie Norrington claims that the problems of the last few days are over – well mostly. The search is working again, but with limited functionality.

This weekend’s eBay outage has seen the search not working at all, shop links not working and disruption to emails and eBay messaging.

You can read the full announcement here

eBay Search, Shop Links Broken

For the most part of today, eBay users are complaining that shop links aren’t working, and tonight the search is totally broken. Users entering keywords to search are getting server errors, or error messages saying that the search can’t be carried out.

eBay.com have announced that they are aware of the issue and working on a fix, but how many lost sales will there be before it is fixed?

Of course eBay UK powerseller ’support’ recommend we clear our browser cache and cookies.