eBay Expects Seller to Respond to Shoppers in One Hour

by: GetAGrip

My store, My prices, I will ship when I'm ready, And I will respond to those questions that don't ask about a lower price ( we don't take offers ) or the questions asking what color is the red sweater in the listing. As for response time I will respond when I feel like it and if greed bay doesn't like it they can ban me. I haven't been ruled by greedbay for 25 years and I sure as hell ain't going to start now.

by: Jon M

Not on either seller ID.

by: comments

This kind of rings a bell. I am not sure which variation of this I saw but I recall it saying something like "seller usually responds within an hour" not that they do. The shipping time also says something similar if you have 1 day handling enabled on ebay it says "will usually ship....". I am sure this feature is confusing but harmless like many others.

Hats off to the seller who earned that badge by usually responding within an hour. All sellers should be so attentive!  

by: Sierra

Is this a test (or do we know)?

Is this only for store sellers (as far as we know)?

by: Bill

This is completely stupid. I am up o for most of the day but I do sleep and sometimes it takes up to an hour for an email to show up from eBay to let us know there is a question.
What a bunch of idiots!

by: Dea

OMG!  I can see etsy following the wizard on ebay.  They already want us to include weekends as production time.  

by: my2cents

It is a TEST.  And Ebay does NOT say they "EXPECT" a seller to respond to the buyer within an hour.  What it actually says is Responds in 12 hours or 8 hours or 24 hours whatever the average is for that specific seller to respond to messages submitted.

It isn't on all listings either.

by: Actual Seller

We have "Responds within 48 hours"

Which is not true.
We always respond pretty much right away but a lot of our messages require zero response so we never do.
Maybe averages wrecked us.

Could it explain our recent slow down in a niche that has no slow downs?

by: shut1968

Well that's not gonna happen.. I answer questions once a day.. usually around 7am.
I have other more profitable sites to tend to.

by: my2cents

I was wrong and @ Actual Seller is correct.  

Be happy that yours says 48 hours, that is the policy for sellers.  But they are testing a much shorter amount of time for those sellers that have a history of responding to buyers faster.  This can cause buyers to get really upset at sellers, especially when a seller may not know what Ebay is stating on their account.

by: HowardTheDuck

Have not encountered this one, but eBay makes up stuff all the time.  For years they have included shipping statistics for me, like today's: "Tracking uploaded on time and validated 71.49%".  The real number is less than 1%, because I only use tracked shipping very rarely,  10k positive feedbacks and no negatives say that my model works, but I have no clue where their 71.49% comes from.

by: ronk53

Yawn!

by: Rexford

When pigs fly.

This is the company that allows a buyer to use an item for 29 days, open a return, and take another 3+ weeks to return it.

Hey eBay, you are all about copying some of Poshmark's features--why don't you copy their return policy?  Poshmark has the most seller friendly and sane buyer return policy of any site.  

Poshmark appears to know that a buyer should know within a short window of time whether or not they are happy with an item.  And Poshmark has protected me against scammers, something that eBay, despite their claiming otherwise, will never do.

by: Rexford

"This can cause buyers to get really upset at sellers, especially when a seller may not know what Ebay is stating on their account."

22+ years selling on eBay.  Oh, the coddled eBay buyer.  Never live in fear of an upset buyer.  We give excellent fast service, but we are not going to tether ourselves in such a way that we have to give a buyer an instant answer.  Especially when most of them don't read job descriptions because eBay does not put the front and center.  

eBay continues to create buyers with unrealistic expectations.  And what hypocrites--do you know how long it can sometimes take to get to an incompetent eBay customer service rep on the telephone after you have to navigate through the eBay self-help and bot driven eBay customer service support?  Self-help = "we are too cheap to pay for live customer support".

by: iBuyers

Easy, use an auto responder like we do. Meets the need.

by: sfauctionsmith

So let me get this right, if a Buyer asks a question at 3 in morning I should answer it by 4 in the morning... really? Is eBay ever going to get it that without Sellers there would be no Buyers and OMG NO eBay!

by: AddyUp

Over here eBay's own reps often take weeks to answer questions on their forum, if at all.  

A recent weekly chat never happened. No announcement no nothing. Explained a week later that one of the reps had a dodgy limp wrist or maybe the dog ate his homework.

It's all pretty pathetic. eBay should lead by example. Or stop setting standards that they fail miserably to meet themselves.

by: iheartjacksparrow

I always answer questions as soon as I see them. But I do sleep, I go to the post office to drop off packages, and do other things that keep me away from the computer for extended periods. Every seller should be allowed at least eight hours to respond to a question.  

by: Stone Cutter

*** The pressure is on ***

I saw an interview this past week with an executive from Walmart. It was said that their success with online sales has much to do with their response time with the customer and faster delivery dates. Other online retailers say the same.

Buyers do not want to wait for their products. They will shop elsewhere for faster service.

Knowing this data, I always respond to messages within hours, and I always ship within 1 business day. My buyers appreciate my fast response time because they tell me so.

As a jeweler on Etsy I have a 92% repeat customer rate. Good customer service is crucial in such a competitive retail environment.  

by: Chicago48

Shouldn't EB send out an Email blast to sellers about this feature?