The eBay UK Bulletin: Issue 205
The eBay UK Bulletin: Issue 205, 21st December 2010
Topics in this issue:
1. eBay News: UK vat increases in January
2. Paypall [sic] spoof
3. eBay seller report update.
4. Reader’s rant – buyer beware
5. Ask Molly – How can I add a message?
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The eBay UK Bulletin
Many thanks for all the e-mails about the picture of the elves included in last week's bulletin. Just to put the record straight, despite the beards they are girls; it’s just an ugly streak that runs in the family!
It’s all over for another year as sales have all but stopped, a bit like most roads in the UK. And the railways and the airports. I must have replied to 50 e-mails titled ‘where is my item’, some only four days after dispatch! I even picked up a neutral for my poor delivery service.
This will be the last bulletin for a while as the whole of HQ celebrates the season with a massive stock take – we know how to party I can tell you!
This week a reader lets off steam about nasty sellers and...
A little Christmas challenge to include bad weather notices in your listings – what fun!
For details of this newsletter, please scroll down to the end.]
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1. EBAY NEWS: UK VAT INCREASES IN JANUARY
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Just a quick reminder to all UK VAT registered sellers about the increase to 20% and the need to amend your eBay listings. That should be a fun holiday activity.
This change affects any VAT registered business that sells or purchases goods or services that are subject to the standard rate of VAT.
To increase your inclusive prices to reflect the change from 17.5% to 20%, you should multiply your old prices by 120/17.5.
eBay help page - http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/vat-increase.html
HM Revenue & Customs’ guide -
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/forms-rates/rates/rate-rise-guidance.pdf#sec411
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2. PAYPALL SPOOF
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No, I didn’t get the spelling wrong, here’s another PayPal spoof sent in by Mealiepip - http://shop.ebay.co.uk/mealiepip/m.html?
If you see something like this in your inbox, especially with the bad spelling in the email address, hit the delete key.
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From: PayPal
Subject: Notification of Limited Account Access RXI-112
Notification of Limited Account Access
Dear,
As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the PayPal system. We recently contacted you after noticing an issue on your account.We requested information from you for the following reason:
We recently received a report of unauthorized credit card use associated with this account. As a precaution, we have limited access to your PayPal account in order to protect against future unauthorized transactions.
Case ID Number: PP-324-885-309
In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement, your account access will remain limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if access to your account remains limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further limitations or eventual account closure. We encourage you to follow our verification procedure as soon as possible to help avoid this.
Once you log in, you will be provided with steps to restore your account access. We appreciate your understanding as we work to ensure account safety.
This is a final reminder to log in to PayPal as soon as possible.
We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department
PayPal Email ID PP-324-885-309
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Please keep the spoofs coming – Mollybol@ebaybulletin.co.uk
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3. EBAY SELLER REPORT UPDATE
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Hi Molly,
Thanks for the heads-up on the seller report, I did drop them a line, here is the reply I had from eBay about it.
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Hi,
The report is sent out to a certain percentage of accounts based on size of sales.
However, you can also access much of this info through your seller dashboard which you can access under My eBay – Account – Seller Dashboard.
Hope this helps,
Regards and happy Christmas
Patrick Munden
Seller Communications eBay.co.uk & eBay.ie
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A Typical reply from them I think :-)
All the best for Christmas and the New Year.
pgibson1001
M – Oh well, I guess you can’t just email and be put on the distribution list.
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4. READER’S RANT - BUYER BEWARE
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“Hi Molly,
I have currently found myself in a less than desirable position and the term banging my head against the wall comes to mind. Let me explain... I purchased an item, paid for it with PayPal and after non-delivery I contacted the seller to make sure all was well.
I got an almost immediate response saying "out of office until 30/01/2012" [Ed - that's some holiday]. So thought I would try and get some support via eBay to discover the item had been marked as payment not received and all eBay would advise was for me to contact the seller and ask them to mark the payment as received! Caught in a loop!
Discovered that I could open the case via PayPal and I am currently in the process of that when I get an unpaid item case against me. My options - 1. Pay again or 2. Get a strike.
Nobody wants to hear from me because the seller marked the payment as not received. I am now unable to leave feedback also! Talk about feeling victimised. The buyer meanwhile carries on selling.
Buyers beware.”
mummy-mac - http://shop.ebay.co.uk/mummy-mac/m.html?
M - This is a strange one as PayPal does not seem to have marked the item as paid, time will tell.
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5. ASK MOLLY – HOW CAN I ADD A MESSAGE?
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“Hi Molly,
Quick question about the eBay settings. I want to put a message about delayed post on each one of my listings. The only way I can find is to put a sign in my shop. Is this correct or is there a way to get this message to appear on each listing?”
It is possible to add a weather notice of sorts as a shop banner in the shop description or logo under display settings, but of course it will only appear in the shop.
There is to my knowledge no facility to add a note into each listing on an ad-hoc basis.
It is possible to build in notice boards into item descriptions using some basic HTML.
There are a few ways to achieve this but I opted for a banner at the top of each listing measuring 380px by 98px. Usually this banner is blank, the same colour as my background, which is normally blue, and so cannot be seen. A simple jpeg picture cotaining your message can be loaded into Photobucket and then brought into each listing using the HTML code, call it something like header.jpg.
As and when you want to show a message or promote an item, sale, seasonal greeting, etc., just create a new jpeg of the same size and load it into Photobucket with the same name and it will now be shown instead of your blank banner. Microsoft Paint is as good as any for this process.
Adding this into existing listings is a pain as every one needs to be amended. For new listings use the sell similar option and all the codes will be copied to the new listing. To get the HTML into the listing you need to switch to HTML in the 'Describe the item you're selling' section. This code should do the job
It should work, as long as buyers read it of course!
If you have a question about eBay or home working in general, please send it to: mollybol@ebaybulletin.co.uk
-- END NOTE --
That's all for this week. Check out www.ebaybulletin.co.uk
A little good news to end on, my feedback percentage score has returned to 100%, my positive to negative ratio must have reached 2000:1. Does it really matter? Well not really but it is just one of those things you would rather have than not.
That’s it for this year, back soon with all my New Year's resolutions and a glance back at 2010.
Best wishes, merry Christmas and happy eBaying.
Mollybol
Author of the bestselling title, 'The eBay Business Handbook' - available direct from the publishers: www.harriman-house.com/ebaybusiness
At age 40 and
