eBay Sellers Forced Into New Messaging System Still Missing Critical Features
As eBay implements messaging system changes announced in the Summer Seller Update, many sellers say the "new" text message style experience that has been in development since 2022 is still missing business critical functionality.
When the Summer Seller Update notified users that this years long work in progress was finally going to be forced upon them in the coming months, eBay community members questioned why the change was being made now with so many features still not included - particularly the ability to have messages cced and delivered to email, rather than only being accessible within the eBay messaging system.
I was ready to punch my computer when I read this is being forced on sellers within the next few weeks.
The new message experience has been around for years and eBay still has not resolved major issues such as CCing messages to our email.
Others have complained about the lack of reporting option and the lack of "reply with offer".
At the seller check in a couple weeks ago the team said CCing messages to email is being added but said nothing more. Can we get a specific time frame for that? I heavily rely on that function for record keeping and it's the sole reason I try to never use the app when messaging buyers (no ability to CC my sent messages to email).
The seller update team gave a vague and ambiguous response, saying they are still evaluating the possibility but not committing to anything.
We are still evaluating features such as CCing and we will be sure to let sellers know when new features have been rolled out!
That response was particularly frustrating as just weeks before, at the Summer Seller Check In event, someone asked about this and was directly to by Director of Product, Reviews & Messaging Patrick Hildebrand that eBay planned to add a CC option - not that it was still being evaluated as to whether or not it would be possible, but that it was already planned and definitely happening.
Many sellers see copying to email as absolutely business critical functionality and it is unacceptable for eBay to force sellers into this experience without that capability.
Others called out inability to share links to eBay listings in messages and the lack of a "sent" folder.
My first trials with the new messaging format have left me slightly stunned.
I am still unable to provide my recipient with a WORKING hyperlink, such as to the URL of an eBay listing of interest. I know you want to screen against third-party URLs getting sent, but there is no reason not to provide an in-house eBay URL as a working link, and not just a string of characters that the recipient must copy-and-paste. (You already have the ability to screen and tell the difference, per my own testing.) Even basic messaging on my phone has this capability.
I cannot figure out how to look at a list of just my OUTBOUND messages. The threaded format is fine for summaries of two-way individual discussions, but I just want to be able to skim my In box and my Out box to quickly see who I have contacted recently and when.
I echo the others' concern about the inability to do simple tasks such as CC'ing my own email account, since of course that is the only way to retain eBay messages after they time-out from the Messages folder here. (That's fundamental stuff, not something that needs to be "evaluated" here in 2024.)
These missing features are particularly disappointing because they have been a common points of feedback provided to eBay about this messaging experience for well over a year at this point.
Buyers and sellers both had also rejoiced in 2022 when eBay reinstated the ability to report messages, walking back a previous change that users had been complaining about for years.
Liz Morton
The decision was celebrated at the time as it appeared eBay was finally taking reports of abusive behavior seriously and providing users tools to deal with it, but the new messaging experience appears to no longer include this important trust and safety functionality in the desktop web experience.
And of course it wouldn't be an eBay update without some technical issues.
Some sellers say some messages only appear in Classic view but when switching to the updated experience, those message disappeared.
We received a message from an eBay member that only shows up in the Updated view of Messaging (which we are not using because it does not meet our needs). It is missing from the Classic view. The only reason I knew to look for it was the copy of it sent to our own email.
I went to answer it in Messaging (because there are sometimes problems relaying responses from personal email systems) and it wasn't there. I switched to the Updated view out of curiosity and there it was. But it is still missing when I go back to Classic view.
Another had the opposite problem, with old, previously deleted messages suddenly reappearing in the new system.
When they tried to switch me over yesterday, my Inbox was suddenly filled with deleted messages from over a year ago. Nice work, fellas.
What do you think of eBay's "new" messaging experience? Are you missing favorite functionality or experiencing glitches? Let us know in the comments below!
