eBay Refund Processing Changes Make More Work For Sellers, Risk Buyer Confusion
eBay sellers who frequently process partial refunds to provide combined shipping discounts note recent changes to refund process add additional steps to their workflow and could lead to buyer confusion.
The unannounced change appears to have been implemented sometime in the last two weeks, requiring sellers to manually divide refund amounts across multiple items instead of being able to enter a total discount and having eBay handle the math automatically.
Could someone humor me and explian why the ability to give a refund to a buyer has now become another unnecessary, complicated, multi step procedure?...
...So lets say I want to give my buyer a $10.00 refund on shipping. Before, it was enter in the total amount of the refund, (which would spread the refund over the whole order) hit send refund, and move on.
But no, someone has to mess things up, and now instead of spreading the refund over x items, now I have to go and enter in a specific amount for individual items, and have to come up with the grand total of the $10.00.
Dont get me wrong, its your sandbox. But with SO many other issues that should be addressed, this ranked high on someones punch list? Again, any insight sure would be interesting.
We can no longer enter an order-level refund and have the system prorate each item for us. We are now required to enter a specific dollar amount for each item. That's incredibly inefficient.
Can you get this feedback submitted please devon@ebay ? eBay is creating more time consuming work for sellers with (from the seller's end) an unnecessary change.
Sellers have also discovered the issue impacts single item sales, splitting the refund between item cost and shipping instead of just the item cost.
I noticed another issue with the feature as I am processing a partial refund right now. There was only 1 item in this order, but upon sending a partial refund I noticed the amount is prorated between item cost and shipping. Previously we could arrange it so the amount came off just the item cost.
Others pointed out having to go through three pages instead of one interferes with their workflow, adding unnecessary complexity.
Can Ebay explain why it is better for me to have to go through THREE pages now instead of ONE to refund a customer.
Now I am unable to simply put in the refund amount. I have to break it out through all the items e.g., I have a combined order and I want to refund the overpaid shipping on the 20 items - I can't, I have to now go through each item and put in a refund amount on each of the 20 items.
I know the last thing Ebay is going to do is explain anything to us. We have the choice of yes, or yes. Fixing something that wasn't broken.
Just found this out today. I was scratching my head as well. Lets take a simple streamlined process that has worked for years and make it more complex adding extra steps to the whole thing.
Sending a partial refund for a Shipping discount was done on one page up until yesterday on my account. Now the process is complicated by making it a multi-page process.
Page 1: This page is only for the Refund amount, the Buyer is their ID, NOT their full name like the old refund page. On this page you enter the amount and then click the Next button at the bottom that turns blue once a value is in the refund field.
Page 2: On this page you select the reason and type a message in the field provided BUT the Buyer on this page on the right is again just their ID, NOT their real name.
Page 3: Here is where you review your Refund ... and oh, the Buyer on the right is again their ID, NOT full name.
Page 4: Your refund is now complete and FINALLY, the Buyer's real name is shown on the right along with their ID (green arrow).
So this was my first time through this new process. It is now a 4 page process instead of two, I will have to remember the Buyer's name BEFORE starting a refund since eBay hides that info now until the end opposed to the old one page process where the Buyer's name was displayed for use in the typing field for a more personalized note. Since none of the pages seem to have a back button I could not go back and correct or change anything.
I am at a loss to explain why the programming department's changes typically mean more steps for simple tasks. The other one that comes to mind is the Feedback flow. We used to be able to get to the full feedback history by simply clicking the FB count number, now that too is a multi-step process.
I just fail to see this (or the Feedback page access) as being any kind of improvement. This is 2024 and making things easier seems to be a lost art for the venue's programmers.
Are you seeing these changes to the eBay refund process? Let us know in the comments below!
