OT: Another eBay Enhancement

[Buythatcard]

I have been selling on eBay for 13 years and have seen many enhancements by eBay. None of them to help the seller. This last one really pissed me off. It might not be important to many Sellers but it was to me.
Whenever you sold an item, eBay would send you an email saying "Congratualtions, Your Item Sold...." It would include the item #, price it sold, buyers eMail address, etc. The key bit of information was the buyer's email address. This is how I kept track of all my buyers and what they bought thru the years. It also gave me an easy way to contact them when there were issues.

So, now eBay has decided to remove the eMail address from the confirmation. Now I have to search for the buyer's eMail address through my listing software which just complicates things.

I called eBay 3 days ago and they had no idea why it was no longer there. I asked the customer service rep whether there was some setting that I can set myself. He didn't have a clue. He said that he would look into it and contact me in a few hours. Still waiting for a response 3 days later.

Just wondering if anyone knew a solution to this.

Thank you eBay for making my job so easy.

[ATP]

I just sold something about an hour ago, and on the "congratulations, your item sold..." Message, i can see the email address for the buyer in the same place as usual. Maybe it could be a setting change?

[Buythatcard]

Jeff, thanks for that confirmation. Now I just have to find out where that setting is. Really bugs me that it would suddenly change on me.

[thecatspajamas]

Another possibility is that it is a change that they are rolling out to a few lucky "test subjects" at a time. Ebay has a history of making changes and "enhancements" in waves rather than hitting everyone at once. If they are satisfied that the latest change induces or restricts whatever new behavior they want to control, they will eventually roll it out for everyone.

Since Ebay has long been trying to push all communication between buyers and sellers to be through their own message system rather than direct e-mail, it wouldn't surprise me if we all get this latest "improvement" eventually.

[Buythatcard]

Just got off the phone with their customer service. They say that they no longer will include the eMail address.

They told me that if I want the buyer's email addres, I would need to contact the buyer. I said I can't contact the buyer because I don't have their eMail address.

They said I need to go thru eBay to contact the buyer. At that point I just hung up.

[glchen]

I use the ebay Seller Manager add-on, which is free, and there it lists the email addresses for the recent transactions. I always copy these into my spreadsheet which tracks my sales, which I later use for tax purposes. (The emails are also in paypal.) Here's a snapshot of the Seller Manager.

Edit: To subscribe to the free Seller Manager, go to My Ebay -> Account -> Subscriptions. Then subscribe to the free ebay Seller Manager. (The Pro version may have a fee if you don't have an ebay store.)

Edit 2: Scrubbed the email addresses in the picture slightly to protect the privacy of those customers.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Buythatcard

They told me that if I want the buyer's email addres, I would need to contact the buyer. I said I can't contact the buyer because I don't have their eMail address.

They said I need to go thru eBay to contact the buyer.

Yeeeeaaahhh... see, that's going to be a problem, because eBay will block any message sent through their system that includes an e-mail address.

So in other words, eBay has decided that there is no possible reason that sellers should ever need to know buyers' e-mail addresses. Great.

The up side is that, because Paypal is tied to your e-mail address, you should still be able to get to it that way for the 99% of buyers who pay with Paypal.

[swarmee]

As a buyer, I'm actually pretty happy about this. Nothing worse than buying a $5 item and being added to a mailing list that you didn't want because the seller wants to make extra coin off of you.
Plus, almost all transactions are made from PayPal, right? And that requires an email address in order to track payments? Don't see a problem here.

[Buythatcard]

The problem relying on Paypal is that you can only see the eMail address after the Buyer pays. Until then, you need to search it out by other means.

This change that eBay is implementing will not stop Sellers from creating mailing lists. As some of you mentioned, there are other ways to get the eMail address. It just requires more work for the Seller.

Gary, thanks for your suggestions and I will try them out.

[Exhibitman]

Reminds me of the conversation I had with my guidance counselor in H.S when I started 10th grade as a new student at the school:

GC: You have to take a language. We offer French and Spanish.
ME: OK, I will take French.
GC: Have you taken French before?
ME: No.
GC: We don't offer French for new students in 10th grade.
ME: So I have to take Spanish?
GC: No, we have French and Spanish, which do you want?
ME: French.
GC: We don't offer French for new students in 10th grade.
ME: So you are saying I have to take Spanish?
GC: No, you can take French or Spanish.
ME: OK I want to take French.
GC: We don't offer French for new students in 10th grade.
ME: Is there someone else I can talk to?

[thecatspajamas]

Similar to Gary's suggestion, if you are a Store subscriber, you can download a .csv file of recent items sold and the e-mail address of the buyer is one of the columns of information (along with the expected item number, title, mailing address, etc). Since I use Excel spreadsheets for my record-keeping anyway, I take that downloaded file, dump it in another spreadsheet that I made to move the info around to fit the format of my sales record spreadsheet, and copy/paste it into my records.

If they stop including the e-mail address THERE, then I'll be screaming too.

And FWIW, as of this afternoon, all of my Item Sold notification e-mails still include the buyer's e-mail address. I don't know if it's because I have a Store subscription, or for some other reason, but they haven't "improved" everyone's notification e-mails yet

[Buythatcard]

Thanks for your suggestions.

I actually am subscribed to Seller Pro and I didn't even realize it. I will just have to get use to doing things a little differently.

Speaking of doing things differently, just had to switch my listing software (Blackthorne Pro) because eBay will no longer be supporting it shortly. Spent 2 days trying to configure the new software to my liking.

Do the idiots at eBay just sit around all day and look for ways to make the Seller's life miserable?

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Buythatcard

Do the idiots at eBay just sit around all day and look for ways to make the Seller's life miserable?

No, that would imply that they care about sellers

[Buythatcard]

Strange thing happened today.

The email addressed of the buyers are appearing again in the eMails.

Was it just a flaw or did eBay actually realize that they made a mistake?

[detroitbaseball]

This is hilarious. Reminds me of Casey Stengel & his Stengelese.

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Reminds me of the conversation I had with my guidance counselor in H.S when I started 10th grade as a new student at the school:

GC: You have to take a language. We offer French and Spanish.
ME: OK, I will take French.
GC: Have you taken French before?
ME: No.
GC: We don't offer French for new students in 10th grade.
ME: So I have to take Spanish?
GC: No, we have French and Spanish, which do you want?
ME: French.
GC: We don't offer French for new students in 10th grade.
ME: So you are saying I have to take Spanish?
GC: No, you can take French or Spanish.
ME: OK I want to take French.
GC: We don't offer French for new students in 10th grade.
ME: Is there someone else I can talk to?