Open House Discussion with Sharat on Customer Support on 2nd Dec, 4–5 PM

[sapana@ebay.com]

On Sharat's behalf:

Hi, I am Sharat Digumarti and I recently taken up the responsibility of managing Operations and Customer Support for eBay India. I invite you to join me for an Open House discussion on eBay PaisaPay operations and Customer Support.

Over the last one year, we have taken multiple initiatives, to make your eBay expereience a pleasure.

• Revamped Buyer protection program into eBay Guarantee* making it Simpler, faster & convenient for our Buyers to resolve their concerns with their purchases
• Extended Seller Protection policy to protect Sellers interest
• Expanded PaisaPay payment options (Credit cards / Debit cards/ Banks transfers/ Prepaid cards / Cash On delivery), enabling buyers to chose their preferred payment mode to pay for their purchases on eBay
• Expanded from “only email” communication channel to also include Chat as a option for resolving certain TnS related queries
• Launched Max caps for Shipping & handling charges to provide transparency to buyers on the overall cost of the item
• Implemented mandatory 5 star for shipping & handling DSR for free shipping transactions
• Implemented & fine tuned (basis community feedback) INR policy to penalize Sellers who have high INR rates.

Having said the above, I also believe that we still have a long way to go to deliver on the high expectations of our members. On Thursday, Dec 2nd from 4 PM - 5 PM, I shall be available on this thread to hear and understand your requirements such that we can bring further improvements in the Customer Support team and operations process.

Looking forward to meeting you here!

Thanks and Regards,
Sharat Digumarti
Head – Operations & Customer Support

[sharat@ebay.com]

Dear Community Members

I am happy to be here and spend the next one hour responding to the posts

Thanks
Sharat

[sharat@ebay.com]

Hi Rajelectroniks,

Thanks you for sharing your feedback! eCommerce in India is still nascent. A buyer can buy from an person whom he has never seen or met, is only because other buyers have taken risk of buying from the seller and shared their feedback about the same. Stopping buyers from leaving feedback will make it difficult for others buyers from making intelligent choices about buying from a seller and a particular product.

Interestingly, our data tells us that the number of sellers leaving feedback for buyers is far lesser than that of buyers leaving feedback.

On Community court, we are looking to revamp the existing community court forum and will share the details with our community members in the next 3-4 weeks.

Regards,

Sharat

[sharat@ebay.com]

Hi berrynxt4u,

Thank you for your feedback on eBay guarantee* bug, I will have this rectified soon.

On your comments on shipping time – I think your overall comments on shipping come from the fact that you do not have a direct control over shipping time. I understand your concern. However, the other side of the story is that post buying an item, receiving a well packed product in timely fashion is a very important aspect of successful Online shopping. If we want to grow eCommerce in India, we will have to together ensure that eCommerce sellers are able to ship the item they promised on time in good packaging. Remember, buyer have the option of taking his business elsewhere, if he does not find sufficient value in online shopping. Thus, it becomes very important for sellers to work closely with courier companies to ensure timely delivery. This includes choosing the right courier company to shipping the product as soon as possible, tracking he parcels and communicating with buyers as required. Once again, not allowing buyers to leave feedback or removing their feedback is not the solution that will help us grow the business of our sellers and therefore of eBay.

On Community court, we are looking to revamp the existing community court forum and mentioned in my earlier response will shortly share the details in 3 -4 weeks.

Regards,
Sharat

[sharat@ebay.com]

Hi ultimate.traders,

Thanks you for your trust on eBay Guarantee* program. The Sole objective of eBay Guarantee* is to ensure buyer concerns are resolved quickly & amicably to the satisfaction of both Buyers & Seller. eBay will play a active role in addressing road block which will help the concerns are resolved faster.

We do understand that there could be instances where the buyer & seller may not be at fault but still the buyer has gone through a bad experience and hence we implemented the Seller protection policy along with the eBay guarantee* to ensure that Seller interest are also protected.

On Seller suspension, I would disagree that eBay suspends sellers without any warning. On the contrary, when ever we feel that a seller’s service levels are deteriorating, we inform the seller, post which on no improvement, restrictions are placed on sellers account. Only if there is no improvement in a seller’s service level after multiple warnings is his account suspended. Most of our top sellers have account managers who continuously work with sellers to ensure that they work on their improvement areas.

Having said that, I do agree Sellers do not intentionally give bad experiences to buyers. But we should also not loose focus of our buyers experience on site as well. We all agree that buyer makes a big leap of faith on ebay when he pays upfront for the product basis the item description provided by the seller. If the buyer then goes through a bad experience (though unintentional by the seller), he may be very skeptical about his future purchases on ebay which impacts both our seller community & eBay.

I will relook at the current process we have in alterting sellers and make some improvements.

Regards
Sharat

[monas_indianheritage]

hi sharat,
i have no problems with ebay at all , i have full support with ac/manager she is really nice person. one main problem is with negative feedbacks ,
some buyers do it without any reasons and it totally impact our business , so i request you to change some policies regarding negative feedbacks,we want you to take actions or ask buyer wat kind of problem he or she has with item beofre leaving the feedbacks or do something with this, hope you will try to solve this policy soon.
thanks
monas_indianheritage

[sharat@ebay.com]

Hi Punitsolanki,

Be rest assured that your purchase on eBay is protected by eBay Guarantee*, In case you have not raised a claim with eBay Guarantee, would request you to go through this link http://pages.ebay.in/aboutebay/eBay_Guarantee.html , which will help you explain what eBay guarantee is all about and also guide you to raise a eBay Guarantee Claim. In case of any query would request you to contact out Customer support team http://pages.ebay.in/paisapay/phone-support.html

Would also urge you that you should make payments through PaisaPay for all your future purchase on eBay.

Regards
Sharat

[sharat@ebay.com]

Hi Navneeth,

Thanks for your feedback,

On the maximum allowed shipment charges, Shipping values are arrived at after considering various parameters (incl. past transaction data, feedback from the sellers & buyers,). Basis the set values a seller we believe should be able to ship the products to the buyer. We also review the charges on a regular basis to ensure that they are up to date as per market norms.

On your query on Negative feedback, I am sorry that you had the experience. I understand that there are times when buyers leave unjust feedback. Please escalate such cases to your account manager / CS / TnS teams and we will review such cases. If the case merits removing the feedback, we shall have the same removed.

Regards
Sharat

[sharat@ebay.com]

Hi Discusinfotech,

eCommerce in India is still at a nascent stage, and most buyers shopping on eBay may have near zero feedback to start with. Although most buyer do pay for their purchases, but there could some instance of buyers not paying for their purchases. This could be mainly due to 2 reasons, the buyers do not know how to pay or they do not intend to pay. To address the first concern, we have dedicated team in customer support who contact buyer and educate them on how they can make payment for their purchases.

In case you are facing issues of non paying buys with your fixed price items, I would recommend that you should offer only PaisaPay as a payment method which will ensure only Users intending to pay for their purchases are able to buy.

Regards
Sharat

[sharat@ebay.com]

Hi Jasmin_day,

Thanks for raising this, I will check and ensure that cases of SNAD cases are not being raised as INR cases against sellers


Regards
Sharat

[sharat@ebay.com]

Hi bigbazarstore,

The responsibility of communication rests equally with both buyers as well as sellers. A practice that has worked well for many sellers is that along with the product they also send their business card and an email with their contact details where buyer can immediately contact in case of an issue.

Also, in cases where sellers strongly feel that the negative feedback received is due to buyer abuse, please feel free to contact TnS / CS and basis our review we may have the same removed.

Regards
Sharat