0:02

I'm Brian. I'm Kayomi. And I'm Griff. And this is the eBay for Business Podcast,

0:06

your source for the information and inspiration that can help you start,

0:09

manage and grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace.

0:13

And this is episode 281. And you may have noticed there are three of us today.

0:17

There are. Welcome Kayomi! Thank you for having me.

0:20

Well welcome Kayomi. Thank you. I have some big shoes to fill.

0:24

Maybe I'll send you my Ruby slippers. You know,

0:26

I did wear them when I was about three years old when I was Dorothy from the

0:30

Wizard of OZ. So, I need a new pair. Guess where you can buy them? If you didn't listen to last week's episode ....

0:38

All the way to the end of last week's episode.

0:41

Exactly. Maybe some people didn't stay on with the whole episode,

0:44

so I thought we'd front load it. Brian, please let everyone know what's happening.

0:49

Well, March 1st will be my last day at eBay after almost 25 wonderful years.

0:54

So I will miss our seller community, but time for kind of the next phase of life and whatever

1:00

pastures they may bring me. Oh, I know what it is.

1:03

It's splitting your time between on the beach and on the golf course.

1:07

I was gonna say, I think more trips to Hawaii. Right?

1:10

That would be nice. That could get expensive though.

1:13

You know, on all those retirement big bucks, it shouldn't be an issue for you.

1:16

So. Well, we're glad to have you here. Kayomi thank you very much for agreeing to be our third co-host for the week.

1:22

Of course. Happy to tune in and be here.

1:25

The one thing I do wanna say is this is the last second to last chance,

1:29

I guess if you've got a question for me. You got this week and next week.

1:32

Yeah. Because after that you're stuck with me. And who knows, maybe Kayomi,

1:35

right? Yes. She's got a better voice than me.

1:38

So [email protected]. for all your questions.

1:42

And as we do every week, we have three questions that we're saving for the end of the episode.

1:47

So stick around for that. Do we have a guest this week? Ref?

1:49

We do. And in fact, it's somebody we know.

1:52

Kevin Reeth of Seller Ledger will be here to talk about the current status

1:57

of the 10 99 K forms for 2023 and 2024. You know,

2:02

it kept changing, so it's a little confusing. And Kevin will also,

2:06

of course talk about his most excellent bookkeeping app for sellers.

2:09

It's called Seller Ledger. But first let's talk a little bit about what's in the news this week,

2:14

Brian and Kayomi. Well, sure. You may remember last week I mentioned a change to the eBay mobile app,

2:20

displaying the term Verified Purchase on the feedback page.

2:23

Well this new feedback feature is now launched on the mobile app and it will be

2:27

launched on desktop in the next few weeks. There's been some discussion about why we added this text. Just to answer that.

2:34

We've added this text to remove any doubt that the person leaving the feedback

2:37

was involved in the transaction. Unlike eBay, other sites,

2:41

which shall be nameless, allow anyone to leave feedback or ratings,

2:45

not just those involved in a transaction. And in fact,

2:48

surveys with eBay users showed that half of them didn't know that on eBay

2:53

feedback can only be left by those involved in a purchase.

2:56

So we are confident that this text will remove any doubt.

2:59

And there's an update to our current street wear authentication process.

3:03

So first, the Authenticity Guarantee or AG process involves two steps authentication

3:09

and listing accuracy. In some cases, items may be authentic, but upon receipt,

3:14

our experts discover a discrepancy between the item and what was described in

3:18

the listing. When this happens, eBay communicates to the buyer what the discrepancy is and gives the buyer the

3:24

opportunity to either proceed with the transaction or return the item back to

3:28

the seller. I've had that happen to me as a seller.

3:32

Couple times it happened to you, didn't it? Yes. The second time it was a mistake, but the first time,

3:37

the box got banged up on its way to the authenticity center and so they

3:42

returned it back. The buyer wanted the item and said, Hey,

3:45

why did they return it? And I said, well, the box was got dinged up. He said,

3:48

I don't care about the box. They wanted the item. Sp I re-listed it and pictured the box as banged up.

3:53

And it was as long as you show that the box was banged up.

3:56

But this happened because I didn't ship it correctly.

3:59

I shipped it in a poly bag and it got banged up by the carrier and now

4:04

I don't because even sites like Amazon and other sites,

4:08

they ship their shoe boxes in poly bags,

4:10

but now I ship them inside another cardboard box to avoid that from happening.

4:14

Extra expense. In the new experience launching mid-February,

4:18

both buyers and sellers will be alerted when a discrepancy is found with the

4:22

details of the issue. For sellers you will start getting notification when a listing accuracy issue is

4:27

found in Seller Hub and via email for buyers listing accuracy details

4:32

will be sent to your email along with new notification in your purchase history

4:36

and View Order Details pages asking you to provide a response from a new

4:41

Inspection Details page. That's good.

4:43

Yeah, it is. We launched this process with handbags US in September of 2023

4:50

and we'll continue ramping up to other categories and markets in the first half

4:54

of this year. And one more news item if I may. Well actually more of a hint,

4:59

a peak if you will. A tease.

5:02

What is that? Well, if you're listening today, Tuesday, March 20th,

5:05

you'll want to pay close attention to the Announcement Board. Tomorrow,

5:09

Wednesday, March 21st. Well, thanks for the news, Brian.

5:13

Oh wait, Griff, there's more. Before we meet this week's guest,

5:16

I thought we might give the shout out to the folks at the eBay Merchandise Shop.

5:19

eBay Sellers love eBay branded merchandise.

5:22

And the eBay Merchandise Shop is the only official distributor of eBay branded

5:26

swag. And the eBay Merchandise Shop has a big sale going on now through mid-March with

5:32

amazing deals marked as low as 25% off original price.

5:35

Everything from tech items, apparel, backpacks, Carhartt duffle bags,

5:40

which is extremely popular amongst us, eBay employees.

5:43

I've seen this, this is like the Stanley mug right now.

5:47

I mean, we just talked about it in one of my last meetings, just organically.

5:50

So yeah, very well loved.

5:52

We also have drinkware Roots knit scarves, beanies, and so much more.

5:57

If you can believe it, if you're picking up some eBay swag for yourself,

6:00

a gift giving opportunity or as a thank you to someone, they've got you covered.

6:04

And who doesn't love eBay swag? Another thing to note their merchandise is mindfully sourced from bags made from

6:10

recycled water bottles to notebooks made from recycled apple peels to locally

6:14

sourced in minority owned businesses. They have you covered.

6:18

Apple peels? I don't think I've ever seen apple peels.

6:21

Now I'm gonna go to the store. I guess it can be done. If you're interested,

6:25

check out their official eBay merchandise at their eBay store,

6:28

eBay Merchandise Shop. That's ebay.com/store/ebaymerchandiseshop.

6:34

Thanks Kayomi. And as always, we'll put a link to the eBay Merchandise Shop store in the summary for this

6:40

episode. Well thanks everyone. It's time for us to go meet Kevin.

6:43

Great! Have fun. The status of Form 10 99 K,

6:49

that's the form that the IRS sends to businesses who have processed a certain

6:54

amount in a certain number of transactions during the previous calendar year.

6:59

The status seems to keep changing month to month,

7:01

and these changes have only increased seller confusion and anxiety. Well,

7:06

today we're gonna do our best to allay that confusion.

7:08

Kevin Reeth is the founder of Seller Ledger,

7:11

that's an online accounting platform built with eBay sellers in mind.

7:15

And Kevin is here with us this week to help shed some light on the current

7:18

status of the 1099 K form and what changes have been made or

7:23

will be made or are going to be made in the coming fiscal year and how they're

7:27

going to impact you. Welcome Kevin. Thanks Griff. Great to be here.

7:30

Let's just start right off with, what is the 1099 -K?

7:35

The 1099-K? It's a form. It actually got introduced in 2012 and it's an informational form that

7:41

basically payment providers and platforms send in.

7:45

They report a copy to you into the IRS. It started out with anybody who sold more than $20,000 a year or more than 200

7:51

transactions. It would just report your total gross amount paid by the payment platforms.

7:56

And it was a way for the IRS to kind of keep tabs on certain types of economic

8:01

activity. And they're still around today. They changed not so much the form,

8:06

but who is going to get the form is what changes.

8:10

So let's talk about that. What are the latest for the 1099-K reporting requirements and

8:16

who can expect to get them for the previous year?

8:19

Right now, the threshold, the, the fear that everybody had, uh,

8:23

going back to the American Rescue Plan in 2021,

8:26

was that the threshold was gonna drop from $20,000 to $600.

8:30

And that was supposed to happen actually last year.

8:33

And in mid-December of 2022, the IRS heard the feedback,

8:37

people weren't ready for it and they said, no, let's, we'll push it out a year.

8:40

Okay, great. Well, fast forward to a few months ago,

8:42

they've decided to push it out again. And I do know that eBay,

8:47

through the eBay Main Street Advocacy Program was pretty vocal and very

8:51

instrumental in, in helping getting this kind of raising the concern about this,

8:56

they have pushed it back yet again. Everybody listening for 2023 taxes,

9:00

there is no change in the threshold. $20,000 or 200 transactions you're fine for next year.

9:07

They're now talking about lowering it to $5,000 with the goal of

9:11

eventually getting it down to $600. That's the current status.

9:15

We'll see what they do again next year. Okay. So right now we're still at that $20,000 floor,

9:22

which is if you made less than $20,000 in payments through a

9:27

processor, you're not gonna get the 1099-k.

9:30

Does this mean smaller sellers are off the hook for reporting their 2023

9:35

eBay income? No, it does not. And in fact they've never been off the hook. In fact,

9:40

the rule is if you earn more than $400 in self-employment income in any way,

9:45

shape or form, whether it's a side hustle, you could be driving for Uber or do DoorDash selling on eBay.

9:51

If you generate that revenue, that income, you need to report it. Now,

9:56

it doesn't necessarily mean you're paying a whole lot in taxes.

9:59

And that's part of the confusion around these 1099-Ks.

10:02

Because they're all about the gross amount of payment that you received over

10:08

the previous year. There's a reprieve for a year.

10:12

And a lot of sellers are going to not get this, as you said,

10:15

because they may not have reached that threshold,

10:18

is if you're selling only on eBay and you're using eBay for those sales,

10:23

then the only payment processor involved it's going to be eBay.

10:26

And if you sold less than a gross amount of 20,000,

10:30

you're not gonna get the 10 99 K. But that doesn't mean you can just,

10:33

as Kevin says, not worry about filing.

10:36

All income as you said over $400 is reportable,

10:40

but a lot depends on how you have your business structured about what you're

10:43

gonna end up paying for taxes. And that's where you want specific advice about your business so that

10:49

you can be taking every single expense and deduction that you are legally

10:54

allowed to do so that you're lowering your tax liability.

10:58

That's where the magic is right in that spot there.

11:01

And it's not easy for a lot of people to do that with just a pen and paper or

11:05

sitting on a spreadsheet. I'm gonna throw this back at you, Kevin,

11:09

because as the founder and builder of Seller Ledger,

11:13

I am pretty sure that you might have something to say about how your product can

11:17

help when you're figuring out stuff like factoring in a 1099-K for example.

11:23

Yes. In fact, that's, that's exactly where we come in handy.

11:26

And if you don't mind, I'll throw some examples just from questions we've received from customers

11:31

around the 1099-K because they can get a little wonky.

11:35

One of the biggest things, and there's a lot of emotion around this when you hear people talking about all

11:39

the governments going after the little people, and what about when I sell personal items and now I have to pay taxes and stuff

11:45

like that? No, you don't. Again, this is an informational return,

11:49

it's just to give the IRSA heads up. But let's take the case of selling personal items. A lot of small eBay sellers,

11:56

if they're just doing this as a hobby, the IRS actually in their frequently asked questions,

12:01

you can go Google like questions about the 1099-K .

12:04

They give very specific examples. For example, they'll say,

12:07

let's say you bought a refrigerator for a thousand dollars and then you sold it

12:11

online or you sold it at a marketplace for $600. What do you do?

12:15

The answer is you do, like,

12:17

let's say you got a 1099 when they lower the threshold,

12:20

you got a 1099-K for a bunch of personal sales. Okay?

12:23

There's a form called Schedule one, it's part of the 1040.

12:27

And they actually tell you on this line, I think it's line eight z under other income,

12:32

you put down the money that shows up on your 1099-K ,

12:35

then you go down and you put down the exact same amount that you received under

12:39

other adjustments and it creates no tax liability whatsoever.

12:43

Tah-Dah! Exactly. Where it gets interesting, especially for our customers, you know,

12:48

the eBay sellers who are generating real income on eBay,

12:53

but they might have some personal items that get sold. Well,

12:56

what do you do then? You could choose to split it out,

13:00

but then the amount that you're reporting for your business in your Schedule C,

13:04

your business income and expenses and and profit and loss would look potentially

13:09

quite a bit different than the 1099-K . But if you follow the IRS's guidance,

13:13

and we actually have a feature, I know last time we talked I had previewed some of the stuff we're doing around

13:18

inventory. We now have the ability for every item you sell on eBay to go click right next

13:23

to it and add in the cost of that item. So for those personal items where the IRS has said, look,

13:29

record the total amount you received and then write off the exact same amount as

13:33

the expense, so there is no taxable event,

13:35

you can just do that right in the software and all of the numbers will add up at

13:38

the end of the year. Oh, I like this. This is very cool.

13:41

And I'm in that situation by the way because last year I sold,

13:45

before I moved quite a bit of personal property, I kept a record of it.

13:50

So I know what I sold it for, but I'll be able to account for it using that method in the schedule one and

13:56

if I need help, I can just use Seller Ledger and it'll let me plug that in when I'm doing my

14:01

taxes. That's exactly right. What other ways, what other examples do you have, Kevin?

14:05

Another one. This depends, this is more of a multi-channel problem,

14:09

but one of the other challenges with the 1099 is, you know,

14:13

Congress passed the law and said, okay, we need you to all to report it.

14:15

But each platform can report slightly different numbers. For example,

14:19

eBay will collect and remit the sales tax for you.

14:23

They exclude the sales tax from the gross number.

14:25

But other platforms who don't necessarily remit,

14:28

they're going to report all of the money that you receive, including sales tax.

14:32

Even when eBay reports the gross number,

14:35

it's all of the money that you've made selling everything.

14:38

If you had to refund a bunch of those items,

14:41

you're gonna have to subtract those numbers out after the fact. And again,

14:45

this gets to, you know, the IRS is seeing how much total money you got paid by a platform that

14:51

does not necessarily mean how much money you made in profit.

14:55

Exactly. Yeah. And that's where the burden is on the seller to do some good bookkeeping,

15:01

you know, stay organized so that they are on top of what their business actually made and

15:05

profit. That's what you pay tax on. And that's really what our software focuses on by automatically connecting to

15:11

eBay and other platforms, pulling the data in. And in fact,

15:15

one thing that we've added since you and I last chatted is in our reporting

15:19

functionality, you now have the ability to look at your profit and loss by sales channel.

15:25

So if you are a multi-channel seller and you're gonna get multiple

15:30

1099-Ks, you can look at, okay, well let me look at my eBay data,

15:34

let's compare that to the 1099-K I got. And oh! Here are all the refunds,

15:38

the discounts, the shipping expenses, all of that stuff is automated.

15:42

Another small thing that we did, just to make it easier as you're getting this data to really be able

15:48

to, to look at it, to verify it. And then most importantly,

15:52

because if you get multiple 1099-Ks, the

15:56

IRS is gonna get them too. But you're only filing one tax return.

16:00

That has to be a summary of all of it. We should make it clear that the,

16:03

the IRS is not going down to the last decimal point and looking for everything

16:08

being in compliance. It's a rough idea. They'll know if,

16:11

if even if you've been selling across multiple platforms and you add up all the

16:15

1099-Ks and say it comes to something like 35,000,

16:19

but when you're filling out the Schedule C and you're putting in all your

16:24

expenses, that still totals up to be a gross amount.

16:27

And those two should be relatively balanced and equal,

16:30

but not necessarily to the dollar penny.

16:32

Right. And again, it's because each platform has slightly different ways of reporting it and a lot

16:38

of it is driven by their business and their underlying accounting and how they

16:41

have to do things. You can have payment platforms out there that don't have anywhere near as much

16:46

knowledge about your actual transactions as eBay does with Managed Payments.

16:50

eBay has very good data about everything about the sale,

16:53

but there are other payment platforms where, well,

16:55

they're just getting an amount that they need to process and that's what they're

16:58

reporting to the IRS. The numbers should be pretty close.

17:02

I'll be shocked if anybody's are spot on across the board. But again,

17:07

as long as you keep track of the important information and more importantly

17:11

don't try and hide things, you'll be fine.

17:14

The rare, rare case that you should be audited to the extent where you have to be

17:19

visited by or go into an IRS office.

17:22

I had to do this once in 1998. I just brought in a box of donuts and everything was fine.

17:27

Now I'm not gonna say that's gonna always work, but I can tell you that the IRS auditor's eyes,

17:32

they lit up when I walked into that room with Dunking Donuts and coffee.

17:36

That is fantastic. Yeah, I've gotta imagine, you know, like I said before,

17:40

these have been around for a decade and the rules keep changing.

17:45

The backend reporting by each payment processor keeps changing. Yeah.

17:48

So you've gotta believe that the agents on the other side at the IRS,

17:51

they've seen it all. They know the examples and that's why they put out these,

17:57

these frequently asked questions about very specific and you think, wow,

18:00

that seems like a niche question about selling personal items.

18:03

They must have heard it enough that they are addressing it.

18:07

Now we can lead people and we should directly to Seller Ledger.

18:10

And I'm assuming that's sellerledger.com still?

18:13

Yes. Is it a subscription based product?

18:16

It is a subscription, but we give everybody 30 days to play around with it completely free.

18:21

You don't need a credit card. And we'll even put this in emails to people.

18:25

We don't ask for money unless you're happy with the software.

18:28

So if it doesn't work for you and you want to go use somebody else,

18:31

go right ahead. So that's sellerledger.com. Before we started recording,

18:36

when we were just having a little conversation between us,

18:39

you mentioned that you have a blog at a YouTube channel where you discuss in

18:43

greater detail some of the specific examples of different

18:48

situations that businesses might find themselves in,

18:50

where they could use these examples to help illuminate their own situation.

18:55

Back right before, it actually happened right before they, they pushed out the,

18:59

uh, threshold deadline again. We did a bunch of research and we posted on our blog.

19:03

So if you go to seller ledger.com/blog,

19:06

there are a few articles in there about some of these more interesting cases.

19:10

As I mentioned about inconsistencies.

19:13

One of the other ones that we dug deep into, in addition to the inconsistencies in personal,

19:18

is what to do with consignment sales. We've been covering that a lot on the show because there's a lot of people

19:24

moving into that business model. Yeah. And it's a compelling business model and,

19:29

but it creates a little bit of an interesting angle in terms of 1099-Ks because

19:34

again, that 10 99 k eBay doesn't know that you're selling something on consignment.

19:39

Right. None of the payment platforms know that you're doing it,

19:42

so they're just gonna report the total amount. But that's not what you keep.

19:45

As a consignee you're only keeping the commission and you're remitting the rest

19:49

of it back to the original consignor. Right.

19:52

So that just creates a little bit of a bookkeeping hassle.

19:54

And so our blog goes into a couple of different ways you can do that.

19:58

And the same with kind of the personal expenses. And if you have co-mingled,

20:02

personal and business sales and in the blog we,

20:05

we do point to very specific language documents from the IRS that are

20:10

frequently asked questions, their guidance, this isn't us making things up,

20:13

this is really taking their language, their examples and saying, look,

20:17

they're trying to be super helpful and say here's exactly how you handle it.

20:20

And they also do a pretty good job of explaining the spirit of this. Right.

20:24

Which is they just want to know that whatever activities you're engaged

20:29

in, you are reporting them. And they know anybody who's receiving a 1099-K in e-commerce,

20:36

they know cost of goods is gonna be the single biggest write off.

20:39

Every reseller, anybody who's selling online,

20:42

they know right off the bat and you know,

20:44

they can look across millions of returns and they have a sense for okay,

20:48

cost of goods in this ballpark. Yep. That makes sense.

20:51

That's really what they're looking for. You know, they wanna make sure that you're not dodging.

20:55

You're not conducting a total gray or black market business.

21:00

Yes. Well Kevin, this has been great. I want to thank you for stopping by, uh,

21:03

continued success with Seller Ledger.

21:05

We'll put the links to seller ledger.com and your blog in the transcript for

21:09

this episode so people can go and visit and maybe check out the free trial.

21:14

Wonderful. Thanks so much for having me. It's always a pleasure chatting with you Griff,

21:17

and look forward to staying in touch. Kevin Reath is the founder of Seller Ledger,

21:22

an online accounting platform that was built with eBay sellers in mind,

21:26

but of course is multi-platform. Check it out sellerledger.com.

21:33

You got questions? We got answers.

21:36

And we have three questions for three co-hosts this week. Kayomi,

21:41

we're gonna start with Brian. Brian, would you read the first one?

21:43

Certainly. This is from the folks at Hayes Instrument Services, Jim and Ryan.

21:49

And they ask the following, I'm looking for a report or a list of all the units I have sent offers to not

21:55

going to each one and looking at them separately as it is very time consuming.

21:59

Is there a way to see this info easily so I can see all of them together?

22:04

For example, on Saturday, Jim sent some offers percentage discounts to potential customers out of our eBay

22:10

store on the Send Offers Eligible section of our active listenings.

22:14

How do we see the offers he sent? There should be a report or a screen view that shows all offers sent.

22:19

The reason this is important to us is there are two people working out of the

22:22

store and sometimes one is not in the office.

22:25

It would be nice to see what offers he they sent without having to ask them.

22:29

The only thing I can find is the Send Offers Sent section,

22:33

but that section only shows the offers that eBay sent automatically to our

22:37

potential customers based on the parameters we set up with that feature.

22:41

I hope this makes sense. Thank you Jim and Ryan of Hayes Instrument Services Inc.

22:46

Yeah. Well thank you Jim and Ryan. And the reason why I've included you both is you both sent me separate emails

22:51

because there was a little bit of misunderstanding. So I've compiled their emails into one. The first bad news,

22:56

and you guys may know this already, is there isn't a report for offers sent or a view where it shows you

23:03

just the offer sent by item and what the offer was.

23:07

It's a great idea though. It is.

23:09

So I've already sent it off to the Product Team.

23:12

Oh good. I wonder if they don't do it 'cause the offers expire. I,

23:15

I can't think of why we wouldn't offer it but. Well it might be difficult to do a report function,

23:21

but having a page that's updated dynamically would be a good idea.

23:25

Because you know sellers, I don't know whether your conversations with sellers,

23:29

the ones I talked to when they're sending offers, they're sending a lot of offers. So they want to be able to track them.

23:34

It makes sense. But I think that Jim and or Ryan got something wrong when they said about the

23:40

Send Offer Sent section only shows the ones that are sent automatically because

23:44

it's not true. And I actually tested this myself with my own inventory.

23:49

That utility that he's talking about is one of the options in

23:54

the Active View page on Seller Hub. It's the quick filter feature.

23:59

There's one there that says Offer Sent and that's on the Active Listings page.

24:04

So it's Best Offers, Offers Sent. If you use that filter,

24:08

it'll return all the listings where the seller has sent an offer manually.

24:12

You still have to review each one. So it's gonna put 'em all in a filter on that active view page.

24:17

But the only way to then check, you know how much and everything is,

24:20

you have to look at the offer information for each of those.

24:24

I admit that's not elegant. No, especially if you do a lot of them.

24:29

Yeah. And I suspect they do. Now the other thing you could do is you could use the custom label field for an

24:35

active listing because you can change those dynamically and you can type in

24:40

the offer amount that you sent and the name of the person in your company who

24:44

sent it. And then that'll make it easier with that quick filter view to see the amount

24:49

and who sent it. But like I said before and I double tested this,

24:54

that feature, that quick filter doesn't return those that are being sent automatically.

25:00

There's another view on the page in the search section where you can filter

25:05

a them by a search that says Offers Sent Automatically.

25:09

And those are two different courses of different colors.

25:12

So if you want to see the offers that are being sent automatically,

25:16

you use that search function. If you want to see the offers that you sent manually offers sent,

25:23

then you use the quick filter button on the Active View page.

25:27

So does that make sense? It does. I hope it makes sense to Jim and Ryan.

25:32

Yeah. It made sense to us. Great investigation.

25:35

Yeah. And I tested my own listenings. I sent some offer to see what would happen. One of them sold so Yay!

25:41

Offers work. Our next question is from Amanda and Kayomi,I thought you might like to read it.

25:47

Sure. This like Griff said, is from our eBay seller Amanda who wrote the following to [email protected].

25:53

Hello, huge fan of your podcast. I'm a small seller compared to most,

25:58

but I enjoy my hobby selling fun items and crafting items.

26:02

I'm a Top Rated seller and offer free 30 day return policy as recommended by

26:06

eBay. In January I had four returns,

26:09

which was about triple my usual return rate. Two items were returned for reason,

26:14

did not like. Two items were returned for item not as described.

26:18

I never mailed out any labels but all four items were returned to me.

26:22

My question is, where in eBay can I find how much I was charged for the return label?

26:27

I regularly go to my eBay payments all transactions and review all charges

26:31

there. But I never saw any of the four items that were returned to me.

26:35

Show return label charges. Thanks for the help Amanda in her store is Sonic Treasure.

26:41

Sonic Treasure. Well Amanda,

26:44

the charges for return labels are shown in the Payments Tab in Seller Hub.

26:48

Yeah, she was looking in the right place. She was.

26:51

So I, I don't have any returns so I couldn't use my own returns to figure this out

26:57

but, or recent returns. I don't wanna make it sound like I'd ever get returns.

27:00

I'm not a saint. I have got returns. So I talked to the Shipping Team and they found some information. Amanda,

27:07

we had the Shipping Team check your account and they were looking on the payment

27:10

page. They found one return recent in January one return label charge

27:15

for you and you can see it if you look it's labeled return shipping

27:20

label. So go back and look for that label return shipping label and I think you'll find

27:25

it. And that takes care of one of the labels in questions.

27:28

That's the one that you were charged for. Now for the other three returns you mentioned,

27:32

according to the Shipping Team there were two returns with buyer remorse.

27:37

And that was the reason that you described as did not like.

27:40

Your return policy for these two listings indicated that the buyer pays for

27:44

return shipping. So you were not charged for those.

27:47

Yeah, so those weren't, apparently they weren't free returns.

27:50

So they were based on the reason why and if it's buyer remorse then they were

27:54

charged for the labels. And on the fourth you caught a break on this one because that one it turns

28:01

out in for a deeper investigation was returned for item not

28:06

as described. That's the one you were talking about. And the return details show that the buyer had the option to print an eBay label

28:12

but the buyer shipped it back with their own label.

28:14

So they didn't print a label and then you would've been charged for that.

28:18

But they went and purchased their own label,

28:20

which means they paid for return shipping. So you're off the hook for that.

28:24

You weren't charged for the label. So out of all four of those you only paid for one label.

28:28

That was fortunate for her. So Amanda, you were looking in the right place.

28:32

Just keep an eye out for any shown in the Payments Tab where it says return

28:37

shipping label. Yeah. Kayomi, in your travels on the Community Pages,

28:41

do you see this topic come up at all? We definitely do but I think like you all were saying,

28:47

it's pretty easy to find and so I think as soon as they know where to look and

28:51

where to find it, they don't have these problems anymore.

28:54

I think it's just a matter of knowing where to look. Amanda, you were close.

28:57

Hopefully this helps. I think it might be a shortcoming on our part.

29:01

Maybe we don't make that indication of what the transaction charge was.

29:05

Clear enough. Something to consider.

29:07

Exactly. So again, if you need to look for these charges, uh,

29:11

you go to my eBay payments all transactions and you review the

29:16

charges from there. Now I'll read our last question for this week and then we can all discuss it

29:20

beause it's a really interesting case and I think this comes up occasionally for

29:23

sellers. It's from eBay seller Maximilian and he has an UPS issue and he says hello

29:29

eBay for Business Podcast Don't have to worry about name order with that one.

29:34

And Ka, you probably don't know this, but Brian and I have this ongoing little war to see whose name they use first.

29:40

Like hello Brian and Griff. I was a little sensitive early on in my podcast career and I kind of commented

29:46

that Griff was always first and now we have a competition.

29:50

I wouldn't call it a competition, it's just a friendly wager.

29:53

Well, I'm excited to see how that turns out in the future. I'm looking forward to see the different name variations I get.

29:59

Yeah. Oh anyway, Maximilian says I sold an item and

30:03

tracking shows that it was delivered. But the buyer said that they didn't receive it.

30:07

I checked on the UPS tracking and they sent a picture of where they delivered.

30:11

I shared that with the buyer and the buyer said that was not his porch. Oh dear.

30:16

So I contacted eBay Support through chat and chat advised me to open a

30:21

UPS claim. Strange advice, but okay.

30:24

I was on the phone with UPS and they said that I could not make the claim and

30:28

instead the third party channel account, which is eBay in this case,

30:32

would need to open the claim. I then contacted eBay again and a different representative told me that they

30:38

couldn't open a UPS claim that the buyer needed to reach out to eBay to do so.

30:42

So the buyer reached out to eBay to open a claim and the eBay rep told the buyer

30:47

that the seller needed to open the UPS claim.

30:50

Oh no. It's like a huge loop. They also told the buyer not to worry that they had the money back protection.

30:56

Okay. So anyway, max says the case is closed and the buyer doesn't have the package and is out

31:01

the money and I don't have a good feeling about it. So Max's customer focused,

31:06

that's clear. How would someone who purchases UPS shipping through eBay go about filing a

31:12

claim? So I know a little bit about this 'cause it's come up before,

31:16

but I suspect without denigrating any of our august and esteemed third parties

31:21

that, you know, they don't want to pay out if they can avoid it.

31:24

And in this case, they're relying on the fact that eBay is the actual agent and then eBay seems to

31:28

be sending or some eBay reps sent the buyer back to say

31:33

the seller has to file the claim. I was gonna say,

31:35

it sounded like in some of the responses there's a coaching opportunity for a

31:39

couple of the agents. Yeah. But you know, I wonder what the,

31:41

what the information they should be telling is?

31:44

To the buyer they should say thank you for the report.

31:47

We'll file that on your behalf. See, I disagree.

31:50

I think eBay should be saying here's the money out of our pocket.

31:54

Uh, that's true because we're the ones technically on your shipment. Kayomi, do you run into this?

31:58

Not directly myself fortunately,

32:00

but I know after working with our GCX folks who often help us many a times on

32:05

the community, like Brian was saying, maybe this is a teachable moment and a coaching opportunity on what we tell our

32:12

sellers and our buyers. But I think at least what we would recommend is that Maximilian contact

32:19

Customer Support directly and ask for an escalation in this case.

32:24

Yeah. Obviously the buyer's the one that has to be made whole.

32:27

And it does appear from what Maximilian tells us

32:32

that this is a UPS at fault. They delivered to the wrong porch.

32:36

Yeah. And now I'm thinking a little bit more about this. You're right Griff.

32:40

Like we should just cover it and take care of that buyer. In some ways,

32:44

Maximilian's got the right focus. He's focused on this buyer. Yeah.

32:47

We should be focused on that buyer as well. I think that's actually the good lesson here.

32:52

If this played out the way that Max is telling us, then UPS is it fault here?

32:56

But good luck trying to get anything out of them maybe. Yeah.

32:59

We should be the one focusing on the buyer and just making sure that their

33:02

whole, in this case, if it was their porch and the item was taken,

33:07

well now it's the buyer's responsibility to make sure they're providing a secure

33:12

location for any drop off of parcels. And that's a different story altogether.

33:16

But even then I heard of that happening where eBay will make it right for the

33:20

buyer out of our pocket and not the sellers.

33:23

I do like Maximilian's Focus. Yeah. He's customer focused.

33:27

If you out there have any of those kind of stories to share,

33:30

we'd love to hear them. So how did they happen and how did they play out When it's unclear where

33:36

the fault was or if the faults with Carrier and it kind of got left in limbo,

33:39

we'd love to hear it. So call us at (888) 723-4630. Or you can send an email as always to [email protected]. Kayomi, you're terrific!

33:48

Thank you. Thank you. And that's all that we have for questions this week, Brian and Kayomi.

33:54

And if you'd like us to answer one of your questions, we're ready.

33:58

All three of us are ready. Call it in on (888) 723-4630.

34:03

That's (888)723-4630. So we have the data that shows at this point in our podcast

34:09

that some people start to tune out because it's just boilerplate. Stop.

34:13

Don't tune out! There's some information coming.

34:15

You can call that hotline anytime of the day or any day of the week.

34:18

Leave a question or comment and we just might put it on the air.

34:21

And if you're not a call on the phone person, you can email [email protected]. That's [email protected].

34:27

And now Kayomi, you may not have heard this before, but it's time for what we'd call every week the Three Point Podcast Checklist.

34:34

Ooh. Okay. Let's get into it. Check the Announcement Board at ebay.com/announcements for up-to-date seller

34:41

news every day. And speaking of the announcement board,

34:45

you'll want to check it tomorrow or your email or both. That's Wednesday,

34:49

March 21st for some very important updates

34:55

of interest to all sellers. Mm-Hmm.

34:59

<Affirmative>. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I hear what you did there.

35:01

Was it obvious? For those discerning ears? It was. Okay.

35:05

Need to review anything in this episode. It's easy.

35:08

Check the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've

35:12

heard and to find the links we referenced during the episode.

35:15

On our next episode, we will have news of some important updates to the eBay mobile app where our

35:21

good friend and seller advocate Chuck VanPelt returns with a list of those

35:26

updates. We'd like to again, thank our guests this week.

35:28

Kevin Reeth of Seller Ledger and of course our colleague Kayomi Kayoshi

35:33

for joining us this week. And hopefully we'll hear from her next week.

35:36

I guess they'll have to tune in and see.

35:39

Yes, it's always a, a suspense. This is a serial tune in next week to see the eBay For Business Podcast

35:46

is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.