Dear Ina,

I have followed this blog for a long, long time and I have gleaned a lot of great insight from it. Mostly I have learned of problems and figured how to circumvent them in my business. I never thought I would be writing, but I am.



eBay announced their new returns process several months ago and I was excited to participate. I sell in the Clothing, Shoes and Accessories area on eBay. We are a growing business and returns is a problem for us, as it is for any clothing retailer. I tried to participate in the beta for the returns process, because it was so key to our business. It was full, and I was told to wait it out.



It is finally here. And what a boneheaded blunder it is.



The single greatest issue of CSA is sizing, mostly too small. Over and over and over, too small. In eBay's returns system, guess what. There is no option to return for incorrect size.



Instead, the Buyer is forced into a category like: Reason for return: Item defective or does not work.



The buyer is then forced to justify the return: Buyer comments: size - "the shoe runs very small! I have ordered the next size"



And then the kicker from eBay - "Because the buyer told us that the item was not as described, you are responsible to pay for return shipping charges."



Not as described? The item was precisely as described. It was the foot (in this case) that was not as described, not the shoe, but because there is no other way to specify the return, the buyer is forced to besmirch the seller and the seller is on the hook for the return shipping.



I give a lot of latitude for eBay's changes being annoying, but to automatically force me to refund return shipping for every item returned for size is unconscionable.



All they needed to do was to try things out with a single CSA seller and it could have been avoided.



Is there nobody with any on-the-ground retail experience in the organization?

George



