Running your business
Grow your brand and improve your business efficiency with a new messaging experience in the eBay app, more help reducing unpaid items, and updates to how feedback is collected and displayed.
What you need to know
- Updates to how feedback is displayed and collected
- Updates to fee credits and Below Standard final value fees
- New messaging experience in the eBay app
Updates to how feedback is displayed and collected
We’re evolving how we encourage buyers to leave feedback, as well as how we display feedback and other information about your business, to help buyers get to know your brand and feel confident buying from you:
- We’re launching an updated and simplified way to help you get ahead of negative feedback in the eBay app before you’ve had a chance to resolve the issue with the buyer.
- It’s getting easier to collect and leave feedback, with automated reminders for buyers in some categories, and new ways to automate leaving feedback for your buyers.
- Your Store will be getting a new Feedback tab to showcase customer feedback about your business.
Helping you get ahead of negative feedback in the eBay app
With increased visibility on your feedback, it’s important that your buyers see an accurate picture of your business—not one that’s marred by an unfair negative review.
That’s why, starting in late spring, we’ll be rolling out a simplified way to help you avoid negative feedback. If a buyer starts to leave negative feedback on the eBay app before they’ve contacted you on the eBay platform, we’ll automatically encourage them to reach out to you and give you a chance to resolve the issue first.
We’re also making sure that buyers see a streamlined and friction-free way to contact you before they leave negative feedback on the eBay app, to make it easy for them to reach out to you first.
As we roll this out, it’s a great opportunity to win buyers over and turn a negative experience into a potentially positive review.
Making it easier to collect and leave feedback
Collecting and leaving feedback not only helps build your brand reputation, it also inspires trust as you build relationships with your buyers. To help you do that, we're launching in-line notifications for buyers on the eBay app to proactively remind them to leave feedback and help shine a light on great buying experiences.
After an item’s estimated delivery, some buyers using the eBay app will start seeing a notification to leave feedback. This will be rolled out for refurbished inventory over the coming weeks and gradually expanded to more categories throughout the spring and early summer.
We’re also announcing in this Seller Update that all sellers will have access to previously subscription-only features free of charge. This includes a new way to quickly streamline and automate leaving positive feedback for your buyers to encourage them to keep coming back because of your great customer service.
Updates to Stores to help you grow your customer base
As Stores continue to evolve into a world-class tool to showcase your products, brand, and business, we’re making it easier for buyers to find your Store, and giving them an at-a-glance view of your feedback, to build confidence buying from you.
In 2021, we added a new way for buyers on mobile web to find your Store, with an easy-to-find link on your View Item page. This will be expanding to desktop and the eBay app—helping buyers on any platform quickly and easily navigate to your Store.
Once buyers are in your Store, they’ll start to see a more complete picture of your business with a new Feedback tab.
This new tab will showcase your customer service and the quality of your products by displaying your seller rating and your most recent feedback comments. From here, buyers will also be able to click into all of your feedback.
The new Feedback tab has already been rolled out for buyers on the eBay app, and will expand to all buyers across desktop and mobile web by early summer.
Next steps
You don’t need to take any action—just continue to provide great customer service and grow your brand across eBay, and we’ll continue to evolve new ways to help you see the benefits of your hard work.
Learn more about store subscriptions and their benefits.
Fee credit updates and Below Standard additional final value fee increases
To better support your business, we’re prorating final value fee credits for partial refunds that you provide to the buyer. In addition, when you approve a buyer’s cancellation request, the entire final value fee, including the $0.30 per-order fee, will be refunded to you. We’re also adjusting our additional final value fees for Below Standard sellers.
Prorated final value fee credits for partial refunds
Starting May 2022, when you issue a partial refund to a buyer, we’ll automatically credit a prorated portion of your final value fee based on the adjusted total amount of the sale. Along with this, we'll automatically credit prorated portions of other applicable fees including Promoted Listings Standard and international fees. Fees such as the $0.30 per-order fee, Promoted Listings Express fee, and Promoted Listings Advanced fee will not be refunded. We want to support your efforts to make things right for your buyers and adjust your fees accordingly.
Per-order fee credit for cancelled transactions
Currently, eBay keeps a $0.30 per-order fee when an order is cancelled due to a buyer request. This is in line with fees that other marketplaces and third-party payment processors apply in similar buyer cancellation cases. We're excited to announce that starting March 1, 2022, eBay will refund the entire final value fee, including the $0.30 per-order fee, when you approve a buyer’s cancellation request. We recognize that buyers may cancel transactions for various reasons at no fault of the seller and we want to support you by refunding 100% of the final value fee.
Below Standard additional final value fee increase
To encourage good buyer experiences and improve trust for sellers on the platform, we will increase additional final value fees for sellers who do not meet minimum seller performance standards for Canada. Starting March 30, 2022, we will increase additional final value fees from 5% to 6% for Below Standard sellers. This fee does not apply to Above Standard and eBay Top Rated Sellers. You can check your current seller level on your Seller Dashboard.
New messaging experience in the eBay app
We’re in the process of rolling out a new, up-to-date messaging experience in the eBay mobile app that will better connect you to your buyers, improve the way you communicate with each other, and make it easier for you to manage your messages. If you’ve not received a notification in your mobile app yet, you will see it over the coming weeks. For now, the updated experience will only be accessible on your mobile app and the messaging experience on your desktop won’t change.
You’ll be able to opt in to the beta version of the new experience when you receive a prompt in your mobile app. This is not the full version of the new messaging experience, and you will see some additional features, such as the ability to create auto-responses and sending offers to buyers, when we launch the full version. You’ll receive an additional prompt in the app when it’s your turn to switch to the full version of the new messaging experience.
While we are rolling out the beta version for your mobile, you’ll still be able to opt out and use the old messaging format. In late spring, once the full version of the new app messaging experience has been launched, we will start to move all sellers over to the new experience.
This new messaging experience means you’ll be able to keep a closer track of all your communications. Your inbox will also be easier to manage as all messages can be grouped together by buyer or by listing.
Messages to and from your buyers will now be displayed in a more modern, user-friendly format. As with many other messaging platforms, all messages from the same person, for a specific item, will be grouped together in a threaded conversation. With threaded messaging, you’ll see both sides of a message conversation with a buyer in chronological order on one screen, giving you the full conversation history and context of each message.
What’s changing?
- We’ve refreshed the look and feel of how you and your buyers can view and send messages in your mobile app.
- This new experience makes messaging much clearer and more straightforward to use, as individual conversations with buyers will be simpler to follow and keep track of.
- Messages in your inbox will be grouped by buyer and listing so it will be easier to stay on top of all your communications.
- The full version coming later this spring will include features such as auto-responses and offers to buyers, and you'll be able to flag and delete a message conversation.
- The full version of the new messaging experience will be compatible with iOS, Android and later with desktop.
What isn’t changing?
- For now, the desktop messaging experience is not changing.
- While your messaging format and experience is changing on the eBay app, this does not mean we expect you to change the way you communicate with your buyers or to reply more quickly to your buyer messages.
- You’ll still be able to contact your buyers whenever you need to—nothing is changing in that respect.
- Your old messages will still be available in the new format, as will any folders you’ve created. You won’t lose any of your messages. As with the old format, messages in the new experience will be kept for one year and then automatically deleted.
Next steps
- Look out for a prompt in your message inbox in your mobile app to opt in to the new beta experience on your mobile. You can opt in to the new beta experience at any time, but starting in late spring we will begin to move all sellers over to the full version.
- Be one of the first sellers to try out the new messaging experience before it’s rolled out to all sellers over the next few months.
- Let us know what you think about it! You can find a button in your inbox to leave us your feedback.
Messaging FAQs
When is this change taking place?
You will shortly receive a prompt in your app to try the new messaging experience on mobile. You can opt in and opt out at any time in this beta version. This version will not contain all of the new features. Starting in late spring, we will begin to roll out the full mobile version of the new messaging experience to sellers.
Will any formatting in the old messages break when they are imported?
No, formatting won’t break when importing messages to the new experience. However, HTML won’t be supported and messages will be shown as plain text.
Will sellers and buyers see a different experience?
No, not if you use the eBay messaging system. All buyers will be able to use the beta version of the new experience until they are moved over to the full version. If you use a service provider, your experience isn’t expected to change, but the buyer will experience the new interface.
Will I still be able to send buyers a private offer?
Yes.
I reply to sellers using a service provider. What does this mean for me?
Your experience will vary by platform, but messages will come to you in the standard format for your service provider.
What happens to the desktop messaging experience?
The beta version and the full launch of the new experience refer only to the messaging in your eBay App. On desktop, you will still see the old experience for the time being. We are working on bringing the new, updated messaging experience to desktop and will notify you in your desktop inbox once it is ready for you.
Sellers are talking about the Winter 2022 Seller Update in the eBay Community.