Harrowing customer service stories from an online buyer’s viewpoint is known to many. But what a seller goes through to get support from marketplaces is little less known. Today we will find out about one of the big ecommerce player, eBay’s seller support offered to the thousands of small & big businesses registered on the shopping portal.
At a global level, eBay is one of the biggest players in e-commerce business. As of April 2014, eBay India has about 30,000 sellers that sell in the domestic market as well across the globe. According to Latif Nathani, Managing Director of eBay India, “The 15,000 sellers here are micro-multi-nationals – small sellers who sell across the globe to 31 countries.” In the same interview he further added, “We are a trusted marketplace. Every 44 seconds someone buys a product from a mobile device, every eleven seconds, someone in the world is buying a product from an Indian eBay seller, and within India, we sell 16 products every minute.”
With so many sellers putting their trust on eBay and are helping to churn out huge revenue for them, are they getting the support they need from the online marketplace giant? Turns out, not really!
Long wait to get through eBay’s seller support.The above image helps to get a clearer picture as to how ‘long’ the wait is for a seller to even get hold of an executive, forget about getting their issues resolved. 66 minutes is a really long time for someone to receive help and it can also prove to be detrimental for a seller’s business.
One of the sellers wrote on Ebay community thread , “38 minutes just rolled over on my timer. For someone who’s racked up over $10,000 in sales on ebay in the last 90 days, not to mention an almost equal amount of purchases, this hold time is completely unacceptable!”
We posted a question on the shopping site’s seller forum. Below was the reply we got:
The above image helps to get a clearer picture as to how ‘long’ the wait is for a seller to even get hold of an executive, forget about getting their issues resolved. 66 minutes is a really long time for someone to receive help and it can also prove to be detrimental for a seller’s business.
One of the sellers wrote on Ebay community thread , “38 minutes just rolled over on my timer. For someone who’s racked up over $10,000 in sales on ebay in the last 90 days, not to mention an almost equal amount of purchases, this hold time is completely unacceptable!”
We posted a question on the shopping site’s seller forum. Below was the reply we got:
IndianOnlineSeller spoke to two eBay sellers to understand the truth behind this. A seller, who goes by the name ‘vbay_trade’ has been trying to get in touch with the higher officials of eBay but with no luck. The issues are lying unresolved from months and terming it as lack of concern from their end is an understatement. He shared, “Sellers are really helpless on Ebay. Big sellers due to high volume of sales, they cover up losses. But, small sellers find it very very difficult. I have wrong weight cases that I reported 3 months back. I was promised it will get resolved in 7 days but, now nothing but, I need to bear the losses.”
While speaking about seller protection, vbay_trade said, “Even after many complaints eBay do not cover under seller protection and do not pay me amount for that. Buyer got refund. Everyone is secure. Only sellers face the total loss.” This story about ‘Seller sues eBay for alleged ‘Buyer Always Wins’ Policy’ adds credibility to the above-stated seller’s account as to how ‘sellers face the total loss.’
The seller also narrated challenges faced by small retailers on an online platform. Retailers receive money at least after a month of sale, which they stand to lose if the customer returns the product for no specific reason. This problem they don’t face while operating from offline stores. Big sellers like WS Retail associated with Flipkart might make millions but many small sellers are unfortunately bearing heavy loss.
While speaking to IndianOnlineSeller, another eBay seller, Sachin voiced his opinion, “The problems start with the basic mistake that ebay has made….assuming Indian buyer/sellers are same as buyers in the US market.
When asked about the wrong weight cases faced by many eBay sellers where courier companies put wrong weight, Sachin said, “The weight over-charges are a big issue too, but I don’t think ebay is directly responsible for it. The problem is ebay isn’t doing much about it. ebay just doesn’t listen to its sellers or buyers and that’s a big problem.”
The ecommerce company did try to introduce some programs or initiatives that aimed at improving seller’s marketing & selling skills. We had published about their ePro Program for which they had tied up with SpeakWell Academy and NIIT. But when it comes to delivering satisfactory service to its sellers, eBay doesn’t have the basics in place.
This is what exactly one reader commented after reading this IOS article, “Rather than educating your sellers, why dont you try to increase and improve the quality of your telephone handling associates.”
So what they need to do is:
Hire and train executives to effectively handle seller grievances instead of blurting out standard reply or rude answers such ‘eBay is like this. If you have issues why don’t you consider leaving eBay’ (actual response given to a seller by their executive!) This will also considerably reduce the wait time
Hire skilled account managers who are equipped to deal with a team of sellers and genuinely care about resolving issues rather than recruiting someone who goes AWOL
Sort out their PowerShip program, which essentially provides shipping support. It was noticed that many seller grievances stem from wrong logistics and delivery information.
Strengthen the eBay Seller Protection Program by introducing transparency and hearing both the sides – buyer & seller, while resolving an issue.
Most importantly respect and value sellers before they start migrating to other marketplaces.
The front runners of Indian ecommerce as of now are Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart, who all want to get more sellers on board. If eBay wants to race ahead and enter the top 3 rank then they will have to look into the unfair treatment meted out to its sellers or else sustaining this intense online retail battle will be an issue.
Editor team is specialized in introducing the marketplace content targeting the Indian online sellers. They plan and coordinate to bring the appealing content for the small businesses on how to partner with the e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart and strategies for improving their online business.
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