
eBay is running a free-listing promotion, but sellers are reporting some serious issues. As
we wrote yesterday, eBay sent an invitation to sellers touting "Zero fees on 3000 international listings" as part of a deal with third-party firm Webinterpret.
But when sellers clicked on the link in the email to read more about the promotion, eBay signed them up to the program and launched listings automatically. Among the problems one reader described:
- eBay transferred his/her free shipping listings to 5 EU sites and Australia. EU Buyers saw “free shipping” on all the listings that were US based.
- eBay took each listing and duped it 6 times and 6x the inventory. "Now I had thousands of listings while my inventory count + sales and listings reached the top end of my limits."
We reached out to eBay and WebInterpret today to learn more and to see if the companies had any advice for sellers. eBay did not respond to our inquiry.
WebInterpret's Herbert Knibiehly responded, stating he was sorry there was some confusion about the promotion. "Our goal is to allow sellers to easily test their potential for cross border trade. We've been partnering with eBay on international programs for years and we're committed to help sellers grow their business worldwide."
He provided some specific advice for sellers who run into problems:
- If a seller wants to opt out or turn off the program in case he signed up by mistake he can contact us and we'll immediately cancel his free international listings. We'll do this directly on his behalf through the platform so he won't have any manual work to do.
- Sellers who hit listing limits and want to sell more can contact eBay to request an increase. We will also contact eBay to let them know a seller is on the program and is having listing limit issues.
For signed up sellers, there's a direct access to support from within the Webinterpret.com platform. Otherwise there's a contact form
available here.
He said the promotion is free, with no eBay Final Value Fees and no WebInterpret fees; he added that sellers would not be automatically opted in to a paid plan.
eBay has been having a lot of problems with promotions in recent months. It's unfortunate that a promotion that promised to help sellers test international selling (outside of the GSP) at no cost would end up backfiring.