Advice for your eBay account in response to the Covid-19 outbreak

Archived on 23 December 2020

Customer support update

You may experience longer than usual waiting times for Customer service at the moment. Please read the page below for the latest updates on Covid-19 virus before calling the team.

PayPal

We are unable to help with PayPal specific problems. We would advise members to review PayPal’s statement on their services: here.

Seller Help

If you can't find any answers to your queries below, visit Seller Help where you can manage and resolve all of your selling issues in one place: Seller Help.

Seller Protection

We may at times put seller protection measures in place in case of systemic interruptions to postal services that are beyond your control. It's always best practice for sellers to be upfront with their buyers and let them know if delivery delays are expected. It’s also advisable that sellers set their handling times to reflect their current circumstances. You now have the option to manually set your handling / dispatch times for each day of the week: here

As always, we want to assist you in delivering the best possible experience for your buyers. Uploading tracking numbers to your transactions allows your buyers to see where their item is and you’ll be better protected in the event of carrier delays or if a buyer opens an item not received case.

The following seller protection measures have been put in place when evaluating your Seller Performance Standards level:

Your Late Delivery rate will be automatically adjusted. We will automatically remove Late Delivery counts and any related Negative or Neutral feedback received for:

  • Domestic transactions between 14 December to 31 December 2020
  • Cross Border transactions between 7 December to 31 December 2020

Your item not received count (INR) in Service Metrics and any related Negative or Neutral feedback will be automatically removed if you uploaded valid tracking before the delivery was scanned for:

  • Domestic transactions between 14 December to 31 December 2020
  • Cross Border transactions between 7 December to 31 December 2020

We understand that things are difficult at the moment for many of us and with interruptions of services at some borders you may need to unexpectedly cancel an order. We want to reassure you that if you have to cancel a cross border transaction, we will remove those defects from your seller performance evaluation.

We’ll be processing Defect removals and any related Negative or Neutral feedback as quickly as possible. Please be aware that it may be a short period of time when this information appears in your account before being removed.

Please note, even though we may protect individual service metrics from affecting seller standard rating, if a seller’s delivery performance drops below an acceptable level or if we observe unusual activity on accounts, we may have to restrict account privileges while we investigate.


How to sell safely

Whenever you drop-off a parcel or meet with a buyer to complete a transaction, please respect the social distancing rules as highlighted here by the government. To minimise contact with other people please consider taking the following steps:

If you normally visit your Post Office or parcel drop-off point, please make sure that you follow the new in-store processes. Learn more

Remember: Before you travel to the Post Office or drop-off point, please make sure you check the opening hours. They may have been changed. You can check them here. 

If you normally pay for postage in the Post Office, you can buy and print postage labels yourself via eBay. For non-tracked Royal Mail services, just drop the packaged item into a letterbox or parcel postbox - you don’t need to visit the Post Office.

Royal Mail launched a Parcel Collect service where you can book a collection of up to 5 items from your door. Available nationwide. Learn more

Use Click & Drop from Royal Mail to prepay for postage and drop off your items. Learn more

Use collection services (see below)

If you are struggling to dispatch your items due to the current situation, you can adjust your dispatch time on each listing.

Where is the nearest post office or drop-off point?

You can still drop off parcels at the post office and most parcel shops.

You can find your nearest post office: here

Find the nearest drop-off point here:

  • UPS
  • Hermes

Please note the Government advises that post offices, grocers, newsagents, storage and distribution facilities (including delivery drop off points) are permitted to remain open.


Use Collection Services

In the event that you can no longer personally deliver your consignments to a delivery service, consider the parcel collection services listed below. eBay has been working with our delivery service provider Packlink to lower prices on the Hermes collection services. These prices now match the prices for drop off services from Hermes when these services are purchased on eBay.co.uk. This offer will run from 6 November until 31 December 2020.

You can book a collection service through eBay delivery powered by Packlink on eBay.co.uk by  selecting ‘Print Postage label’ in Sold items

Hermes

  • Parcels up to 15 kg with prices from £2.89
  • Collection: Monday to Friday from 8am to 8am
  • Delivery time: 3 days

Other collections services available but not within the promotion

UPS

  • Parcels up to 15 kg with prices from £7.19
  • Collection: Monday to Friday with 2 available slots - from 9am to 3pm or 12am to 7pm
  • Delivery time: 1 day

DHL

  • Parcels up to 15 kg with prices from £7.32
  • Collection: Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm
  • Delivery time: 1 day

 

Estimated Delivery Day(s)  

We're actively working with carriers and International logistics providers to understand and monitor their operational status and performance. We’ll make changes to buyer-facing delivery estimates as we deem necessary.  


Domestic delivery

During these challenging times and peak season, time has been added to buyer-facing delivery estimates to account for any delays that may be experienced in the delivery network. We are actively monitoring the situation and will make any changes as we deem necessary. We have also extended estimated delivery dates to align with Royal Mail’s last posting dates for Christmas: You can view these dates here: Last posting dates


International delivery

Due to the current challenges being experienced with goods moving to and from Europe, time has been added to buyer-facing delivery estimates to account for any delays for international delivery. We are actively monitoring the situation and will make any changes as we deem necessary.  We are actively monitoring the situation and will make any changes as we deem necessary.

International delivery estimates have been extended to align with Royal Mail’s last posting dates for Christmas. You can view these dates here: Last posting dates

We've also suspended exports for non-GSP listings to any country based on suspensions as seen on Royal Mail’s International Incident Bulletin which means that buyers in those countries may not be able to view your listings.

Find the latest information on your preferred postage and delivery services

Please inform yourself about the current situation at delivery service providers:

November Shop subscription relief

We want to relieve some of the pressure businesses are facing due to the changing circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, that's why we're again offering a Shop subscription relief solution to support sellers.

We'll refund Shop subscriptions if a seller has to close their eBay Shop for an extended period of time*. 

  • If you enabled your Time Away settings and hid all fixed price listings for 21 days or more between 5 and 25 of November, eBay will credit you with that month’s Shop subscription.
  • If you enable your Time Away settings and hide all fixed price listings for 10 days or more between 5 and 25 of November, but not the full period, eBay will credit you with 50% of the month’s Shop subscription.

To opt into the refund:

  1. Accept the invitation to opt-in any time from until 25 November to get your subscription refund for November. 
  2. Enable your Time Away settings and hide all fixed-price listings. If you’ve already enabled your Time Away settings and hidden your fixed price listings, all you have to do is to opt-in.
  3. Receive your refund back to your account - see our terms and conditions* for details.
  4. Opt-in to the promotion before 25 November to get your refund and don’t forget to turn on your Time Away settings.

*Terms and conditions apply. Available to all eBay.co.uk Shop subscribers with a Basic, Featured or Anchor Shop on 5 November 2020.


Time Away settings

Sellers can activate Time Away settings and either hide fixed price listings in eBay search until they return or keep them live with extended times. Auction-style listings will continue to run for the set duration.

Find out more

Restrictions on items you sell on eBay

To stamp out unreasonably inflated prices of essential items during the Coronavirus pandemic, we’ve restricted the sale of all Face Masks, Hand Sanitisers, Paracetamol, Cleaning Wipes & Pads, Toilet Roll, Baby Formula & Milk, Nappies, Baby Wipes and Tampons on the platform.

Please note, only a small number of selected business sellers are permitted to sell these products on the UK platform. Private sellers are not permitted to sell these items.

As a private seller,  your listings will be blocked or removed and your account may be suspended if you attempt to re-list or create new listings for such items. 

The decision to remove listings that go against our policies will be final. Do not contact Customer Support as they will not investigate appeals.

We are monitoring the situation continually across a broader range of categories and additional restrictions may be applied.