Thursday, March 21, 2019

Is eBay's Add Answer to User's Question to Listing Feature Going Bye-Bye...in Favor of Something Else?

For quite a while now --- I would say several months -- I've been having a problem when an eBay user uses the Ask Seller a Question feature. There was before an option to, once you had answered the question, sometimes at great length, add the question and answer to your listing, so other potential buyers could see the question and answer, and maybe not have to ask the same question again (and again).

This was something, as I remember, as simple as a checkbox that gave you the option to "Add Answer to Listing." Maybe not that wording but something like that.

For months, after I would get questions, and type out answers, sometimes at great length; I would check that checkbox but then afterward the question and answer exchange did not show up like it was supposed to.

Now, I must admit, sometimes I felt I was the only one bothered by this, and maybe I still am.

But when I asked in the eBay for Business Facbook group about it, something strange went down.  eBay said they would look into it, and the seller support person was very helpful imo, and did go to the technical team about it. But after some delay, the answer I got was odd...it didn't seem to answer the question of whether eBay was going to fix that feature or not...in fact, to me it seemed to imply that eBay was going to do something totally different to facilitate a question-and-answer exchange between buyer and sellers.

To wit:

"We heard back from the technical team and it looks like that option has been deactivated. They are working to find another way for sellers to share information but the current format isn't intentionally shut down for now. I do apologize for the delay on that."

I replied:

---
"Hi Xxxxxx, not to worry at all.  But I don't understand eBay's intent on this...don't they want a way for sellers and buyers to converse?  This is a key feature on Etsy, Poshmark, etc...I don't get it? 

"So is it they will be introducing something new, but can't say what it is yet? Or something else?  It would be really nice to just have the system add my answer to any user's question so I don't have to tediously type it out as an addition to the listing. Well, thanks again for your help! I know you may not be able to say, and are just doing your job.   Thanks, Julia"
----

Sometime later, I heard from a different customer service rep:

"We definitely still want buyers and sellers to converse.  Unfortunately, I don't have further info on if there will be an update or not to this. Your best option at this point is to add any updated info from conversations with buyers to the listing. Thanks so much for your understanding!  ~Xxxxxxxxx"

Hmmm....well now what does that mean? I'm going to go out on a limb and predict eBay may be rolling out a new seller-and-buyer or seller-and-potential-buyer communications system.

What do you think it is? Did you use this feature much, and do you care that there's been a problem with it? Post a comment here!