posted on November 5, 2001 04:09:34 PM new
Here is a copy of a message I sent to eBay.
Their only response was a message describing how to remove Billpoint from my auctions.
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Hi
Tonight is the first night I have had any auctions end with checkout and it appears to have thrown my entire end of auction process back at least two years.
Since the introduction of Billpoint my EOA process has become very streamlined with every high bidder getting a Billpoint invoice immediately upon close of an auction, these unpaid Billpoint invoices were used in conjunction with the "Billpoint summery page" to track my customers throughout the entire end of auction process, unpaid invoices were routinely re-sent from the Billpoint summery page until either paid or 'Final value fees' were applied. (we do not accept checks or money orders)
Now with checkout:
1: I can no longer send automated Billpoint invoices from the closed item page.
2: I no longer have any way to easily see who has paid or not.
3: I can no longer log into Billpoint and re-send unpaid invoices directly from the closed auction page.
The system I used up until today allowed me to list, sell and track $63,455.59 dollars worth of auctions last month (Oct 2001), it worked, it did not need to be changed.
Now it appears I may need to start over and formulate a new system.
Here are a few changes that would allow checkout and my auctions to coexist.
1: Allow eBay payments invoices sent from the closed item page 'update Checkout details' link to appear in the "My payments summery page"
2: When a bidder successfully completes checkout make the color of the bar near the top of the auction page change. (it is currently light blue regardless if the bidder has completed checkout or not, the old "pay now" button disappearing was a quick highly visible clue showing if an ended auction was successfully completed with Billpoint)
3: Fix the bug that makes the eBay payments icon disappear on auctions over $500.00, I have a $2000.00 per auction Billpoint limit with a 70,000 per month transaction limit, this $500.00 limit should not apply to my auctions.
Please feel free to contact me regarding any of these suggestions or to make any corrections or clarifications.
Thanks
Jim
posted on November 5, 2001 06:06:33 PM new
Yes this is what I received.
They said I could remove Billpoint then go ahead and use "your regular notification process"
The problem is my 'regular notification process' WAS Billpoint (I received over $35,000 dollars last month with Billpoint) every single highbidder up until a few days ago received an automatic Billpoint request the second the auction ended.
For them to suggest I remove it was unsettling to say the least and implied they didn't pay more than a cursory glance at my email.
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Hello Jim,
I have forwarded your email on to our product development team at:
where they will be reviewed further for possible implementation. If you
have any further suggestions as to how we may improve this program to
better suit your needs and the needs of all of our community members
(bidders and sellers) you are welcome to write to them there also.
In the meantime, While there is no way to opt out of the checkout option
completely, there is a way that will simply allow your bidder to email
you instead of submitting payment.
If you list an item auction style and wish to not have your bidders be
able to complete the checkout process and/or use the automatic payment
through Billpoint, you will want to select the following:
-No Billpoint Options
-Optional Checkout payment information Entered or Not - your choice
-Any of the "other" payment options may be selected. (Enter the payment
options under the "checkout policies" area)
From this point, while your bidder will be able to select the option for
"checkout", they will only email you with their payment information.
You will then be able to use your regular notification process to inform
them of the payment details of the listing. In addition, if the bidder
wishes to pay via Billpoint, you may click on the link in the email that
will be sent to you to generate the bidder an invoice so that they may
pay for the item using Billpoint should you wish to do so.
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edited for UBB error
[ edited by compucycle on Nov 5, 2001 06:10 PM ]
posted on November 5, 2001 06:13:26 PM new
Now that the bigboys are leaving they will soon change it back. eBay is WAY to big for its britches. Everyone should move to yahoo.
posted on November 5, 2001 07:42:48 PM new
I understand that ebay established its customer service center in Salt Lake City because it was cheap, and the labor pool never argues with management.
Sadly, they have a history of mis-reading and not comprehending our emails and sending inappropriate replies. Perhaps it is a deliberate ebay way of stifling constructive criticism. LOL
I use billpoint and checkouts now. I do my same EOA notification, and if people happen to use checkouts, so be it. I get their information from my billpoint sales history anyway.
I also take paypal.com and propay.com. I just check with each one at the end of the day to make sure everything matches up.
While I may not be a Gold PowerSeller, I sell about 800 items per week. All small items, but just as many things to track.
What is your process that checkout has interfered with? How do you normally process the orders/info/auctions?
posted on November 5, 2001 08:21:42 PM new
The way it used to work was as soon as the auctions ended a Billpoint Invoice was sent directly from the auction page.
This Billpoint payment request was essentially my end of auction notice and how the bidder was expected to pay.
Every day I logged back into Billpoint and re-sent every unpaid invoice until paid or they were 7 days old and were sent for a final value fee refund and written off.
Everything was nice and neat on one easy to read Billpoint summery page. (either an auction was paid or it was unpaid)
Now the new checkout emails are not in the Billpoint summery and I cannot send a Billpoint payment request from the closed auction page so I cannot as easily track my unpaid auctions or send daily payment reminders. (the eBay payment requests you can send now from the 'update Checkout details' link are virtual payment requests that do not show up in the Billpoint summery page)
I'm still figuring out how exactly I'm going to work things now as this all threw a monkey wrench in what was a very efficient system.
I think it does need to be said my average sale was just over $500.00 and I only run about 125 auctions a month so my system may not be practical for a highvolume seller.
If I had to send hundreds of End of Auction emails a day for $500.00 each my system clearly would not work.
posted on November 5, 2001 08:57:11 PM new
I see and I agree. You had a nice clean system and ebay screwed it up.
What happens if you opt NOT to have checkout's selected in your auctions, what does it do then? I haven't tried this yet myself.
We do it this way, all auctions when they end with bidders are entered into a central database, and as payments come in by ANY payment, it is updated. From that central database we process orders. While is a bit more work, it has handled hundreds of auctions at a time.
Your average sale is much higher than ours, so I can see that you had a system that works for you. Just another way ebay really doesn't care.
posted on November 5, 2001 09:55:34 PM new
YourDesigns
What happens if you opt NOT to have checkout's selected in your auctions, what does it do then? I haven't tried this yet myself.
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I don't know but I just listed my first batch of auctions since I entered the billpoint beta program that does not have Billpoint or eBay payments as an option.
Sad really, my sales doubled once Billpoint came into existence.
I always believed time is money I embraced Billpoint because it allowed payments to flow into my store quicker than money orders, telephone calls or faxes and I gladly paid any fees as long as they did a diligent job of screening my credit card payments, freeing up my accounts receivables clerk form that arduous but necessary task in the processes.
Now it looks like checkout only adds unnecessary steps to the end of auction process taking up more of my time that could be better spent on the phone with suppliers, supervising my techs or figuring out what mix of auctions to run that evening.
posted on November 6, 2001 07:30:28 AM new
Checkout Billpoint problems. Ever since the checkout details have been on my listings, I have been having trouble. The checkout does not work as I cannot update my checkout to put the shipping and tax on it. It just doesn't work. I get an error message every time I try and it doesn't update the checkout details. THUS, no one pays me. Also I seem to be having problems with non-paying bidders ever since checkout was put on my listings. I think Checkout is confusing to the buyers. I mean if it is confusing to experienced sellers (and I happen also to be really computer savvy), imagine what the new buyer goes through.
With the old Instant Purchase option I got a lot of purchases through Billpoint, now I don't get any. And this has been in the space of a couple of weeks.
I think I am going to take checkout off and not use Billpoint for awhile and push PayPal and all the other services I use for payment instead and see if that helps.
posted on November 6, 2001 08:11:25 AM new
outoftheblue I know what you mean. I used to sell on yahoo and when it finally was paying off they started charging insertion fees. Lets hope they move to a FVF instead of insertion fees. Then eBay will have a challenge.
