Ecommerce news: eBay Shipping Centre move and Amazon Prime Day
In our news round up this week: eBay’s new Global Selling Programme centre causes confusion, Amazon announces the date for Prime Day 2017 and eBay is testing a shorter response time to ‘item not received’ claims in the US.
New eBay UK Global Selling Programme depot
In June, eBay announced that it would be relocating it’s UK Shipping Centre for the Global Shipping Programme to a larger premises. From June 26, sellers were supposed to see the new address on orders being sent through the Global Shipping Programme, although the previous warehouse will continue to operate until all orders are cleared.
However, some sellers have experienced difficulties sending items to the new Shipping Centre: their courier’s don’t recognise the postcode, or have been told to send the items to different postcodes. Find out more about the problem with eBay’s new UK Shipping Centre here.
eBay has since clarified that the address for its new Shipping Centre is:
GSP
Unit 3 Dove Close, Fradley Park
Lichfield
WS13 8UR
However, you should always send the item to the address eBay provides on the invoice.
In our news roundup this week: Amazon announces the date for Prime Day 2017 and eBay is testing a shorter response time to ‘item not received’ claims in the US.
Date for Amazon Prime Day announced
Amazon’s Prime Day will take place on 11 July, with deals starting at 6pm on 10 July, meaning there will be 30 hours of offers. 40% of Lightning Deals for Prime Day 2017 will be from third party merchants.
Sellers had until 21 May to submit their products to be included in the Lightning Deals. However, if you haven’t signed up you can still expect an increase in traffic to your listings, and hopefully more sales - it could be worth offering lower prices or deals on certain products, especially ones that you want to clear out.
If you are taking part in Prime Day then you will need to make sure that you’re prepared to handle the increase in sales. Make sure you have enough staff to fulfill and dispatch your orders, reliable shipping software like Zenstores, and it’s also worth checking that your couriers will be able to handle an increased volume of parcels.
Find out more about Amazon Prime Day 2017 here.
eBay.com testing shorter response time to cases
eBay.com have apparently been testing faster resolution for ‘items not received’ cases - if you don’t respond within 24 hours the case will be closed in the buyer’s favour. Currently, when a buyer opens a case because they haven’t received the item you have up to three business days to respond to them before eBay will step in.
In response to a thread on eBay.com’s seller boards, an eBay representative said: “this situation may have triggered a faster resolution process that we are testing out. If an item not received case is opened more than 5 days after the estimated delivery date, no tracking is provided and the seller does not respond then the case will actually be escalated for a refund after 24 hours have passed...If a seller has concerns with the timeframe provided, we recommend they reach out to customer service to discuss the details.”
There’s currently no indication that this is being tested on eBay in the UK, but it’s always worth checking your eBay notifications and messages as frequently as possible and responding promptly.
