eBay Seller Capital October Community Chat

What if you held an eBay community chat and no one came? Or more importantly, what if no one from eBay came actually ready to answer questions?

That's what happened in today's monthly eBay community chat which was perplexingly all about eBay Seller Capital Loans - a subject that appears to be fairly low down the priority list for sellers, judging by the low turnout.

Never the less,  a few sellers did take time out of their day to show up at the appointed time, just for the chance to speak directly to eBay's Seller Capital team to get some in depth and informative answers!

Monthly Chat - October 12th at 1:00 pm PT

Hi Everyone! This month’s chat you’ll have an opportunity to talk with the eBay Seller Capital Team. The theme of the chat is, ‘All things eBay Seller Capital’. Come join the chat on October 12th at 1PM PST! Edit: Thanks for joining us for the Monthly Chat with the eBay Seller Capital Team.The chat…

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Multiple sellers were interested to know if there are any plans to introduce working capital loans paid back as a percentage of sales, as are already available in Germany and the UK.

I will like to know if eBay is working on bringing back the working capital loans based in sales repayment plan? Like PayPay used to work. eBay has already implemented those loans with other companies in Germany and UK. I understand those are smaller markets and eBay has historically implemented new thing and products in those countries. However, working capital loans based on sales repayment plans aren't actually new to eBay or eBay sellers.

Can you please let us know if eBay is actively working in bringing back those type of loans in the near future?

My question is the same as @moto_partss . The UK recently provided a webinar entitled "Prep for Peak" to help ebay sellers prepare for Q4 and one of the things they toured was the ability of their version of Working Capital to provide the ability for a certain percentage to be taken directly out of sales...the better one's sales, the faster the loan gets paid back, and, if one hits a slump, it's still only a percentage of sale taken out, not a fixed price.

This sounded great to me, but come to find: it doesn't work that way in the US.

So...any chance you will implement something like that?

The in depth and information answer to both questions from the highly trained Seller Capital team?

Thank you for sharing your feedback – we hear you and will work to incorporate this feedback to improve your experience with our products. Please keep an eye for future updates on https://pages.ebay.com/sellercapital/.

Also feel free to reach out to us with any questions anytime at sellercapital@ebay.com

Another seller said they had struggled with being approved and had asked if it was possible for PayPal sales to be considered as part of their application.

I have tried 4 separate times since it has been implemented to obtain a loan from Lending Point. Turned down every single time, even for $500. While I appreciate that the application process is simple, transparent, convenient and fast, this option has never worked for me. Can Paypal be added as a third-party token so they can gather the needed information regarding my sales so that I can once again obtain a needed working capital loan?

And another helpful answer from the team.

Thank you for recognizing our loan application is simple and convenient. The loan approval decision is based on the applicant's credit worthiness.

If you have more questions, we can reached out by

Email: businessfunds@lendingpoint.com.

The lack of substantive responses caused the few sellers who did participate in the chat to wonder they eBay bothered to have one today.

I have spoken to several eBay representatives all the way from customers service to upper management. We have seen every video , every blog , every forum, every podcast looking for an answer for over a year. All you guys say is : we hear you and we will pass on the message. Even though I understand you may not have the authority for making these decision, someone IS. At some point we the sellers need an answer. May I ask what was the purpose of this months chat then ?

Or did you make all of us wait and stop everything we had to do to come here and tell us the exact same thing we have been hearing for over a year?

Unless of course you guys came here to talk about LendingPoint? Which was obviously the WORST business decision eBay has made in a very long time!!!

Lending point simply doesn't work, at all !!!!

To begin with , NOT everyone qualifies. We have been in business with eBay for over 9 years and our business makes a substantial amount of money yearly. Even we are struggling to get a loan with LendingPoint for more $36 thousand ( that is a ridiculous amount of money ) Not to mention the interest rate is insanely high. I can only imagine how smaller companies are struggling with this loans ( most of smaller companies aren't even approved)

So , can you please give us a serious answer other than we hear you ? Because are clearly not listening to a thing we have been telling you guys for the last year or so.

One of the community team members, Devon@eBay, stepped in to advise this seller to simply email sellercapital@ebay.com to get more detailed answers to his questions - but isn't that the whole point of having the Seller Capital team in the chat? 🤷‍♀️

The seller responded

I appreciate you talking the time to talk to us Devon,

However, I feel nothing but disrespect coming from eBay ( not you ). The fact that eBay decided to make a monthly chat to give propaganda to LendingPoint loans . When we ALL know LendingPoint is one of the worst lending companies eBay could have found? Is beyond disrespectful!!!!

We HAVE contacted every single department eBay has. All you guys say is " we hear you , we will pass your feedback" I am not saying you guys don't pass on the message. However, the disconnect between eBay and us ( the sellers) is beyond my understanding. If eBay continues to ignore us. Many of us will be out of business sooner than you guys can even imagine. And let me assure you. Yes , one business leaving eBay makes no difference. But when hundred of sellers either leave the platform or have to close their businesses due to eBays lack of support. You will lose millions of dollars.

Then sellers chatted amongst themselves for a bit, wondering what the point of the Monthly Chat even is any more, until finally Devon announced the chat was closed and locked the topic.

Of all the many topics eBay could have chosen to kick off Q4 (holiday marketing or shipping challenges maybe?) why did they go for Seller Capital Loans and then utterly fail to actually answer any of the questions asked?

What a colossal waste of time and missed opportunity.  🤦‍♀️