Well, this is the second bad experience I’ve had on eBay, but the first one was due to an incompetent seller so that’s not eBay’s fault. This one, on the other hand, was a string of poor UI design decisions on eBay’s part that caused me 20 minutes of pain and frustration. Here it goes…

So, holy crap, I just went through a whole ordeal when all I wanted to do was print a packing list for an item I just sold. I had printed one before but I didn’t remember exactly how. I’ve only sold a handful of items on eBay so far and the last one was over a month ago. Today, the auction ended on a foldable keyboard for a Toshiba Pocket PC I was selling. I was promptly paid and wanted to get the item ready to ship. So I fire up the browser and go to My eBay so I can print a packing list.

I scroll down to the “Items I’ve Sold” section and there’s this nice big button called “Print Shipping Labels”. Hmmm…that sounds pretty close, so I check the box next to the item and click the button. I see a PayPal page with a choice between UPS or USPS. PayPal has some deal with both shippers where you can enter all the info, purchase, and print a shipping label then all you have to do is take the package to a dropoff location. All I want to do is print a packing list and the page looks similar to the one I used a month ago, so I play along. I think to myself, “I know I did this last time, but I’m not sure how”. So I see that the “Continue” button is enabled even though neither of the two radio buttons for UPS and USPS, were selected. So I click “Continue” without making a choice. Buzz! Wrong answer! I have to make a choice, so I just randomly pick one.

Then I’m at the point where I need to enter package specifics. I realize that this path is for purchasing the shipping, but things seem to look familiar enough that I figure that maybe once I get far enough, I can just print the packing list then cancel the shipment. Well I enter some bogus information and click “Continue”, it then gives me a summary of the shipment. I scan the page and still couldn’t find a “Print a Packing List” button.

Well at this point I still don’t see any cues that this step will actually submit the shipping order (no credit card or other payment confirmation text). To top it off, the button to proceed is just called “Continue” as opposed to something more indicative that a transaction is going to take place like “Place Order” or “Purchase Shipping”. So I click “Continue” only to see a big UPS label ready for print. At this point I realized the error of my ways. I definitely went too far down the wrong path. I wanted a “Cancel” or “Undo” button ASAP, but didn’t find one!

So I go to the PayPal account history page to see if I was in fact, charged for this transaction. The system model wasn’t clearly communicated so I wasn’t sure if the payment occurs when you print a shipping label or when the package gets scanned in at the drop-off location.

On a side note, Heather recently purchased shipping via the FedEx site and it was equally ambiguous. We are waiting for our credit card transaction to clear to find out exactly when we are charged. Back to the story….

I notice that the charge was still “pending” in the Account History, so I knew I had hope. I click on the small “Details” button thinking I can cancel from there, but no go. After searching in PayPal’s Help and the FAQ’s I couldn’t find anything about canceling a shipment. I called PayPal support and was asked stupid questions by the automated phone system, to which I only could answer out-loud. These systems should always allow keypad responses in addition to voice responses. People don’t like talking to machines, especially when in earshot of other people, but that’s another soapbox.

So I’m on hold for five minutes due to “an unusually high volume of calls..blah, blah”, when I notice I have a new email in my inbox for the shipment I didn’t want to purchase in the first place. While still on hold, I start reading the email and notice the section called “Voiding Instructions” at the bottom. I read the description and see a beautiful, blue-underlined hyperlink to cancel the order! Hallelujah!!! I click it in pure delight.

Now I still have the matter of printing a packing list. So I go back to “My eBay” and just keep clicking random links related to the sale until I finally click on one that takes me to the transaction details page. This is a PayPal page that looks kind of like an invoice. Maybe this is it!? I scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and see another sight for sore eyes, a “Print Packing List” button. Woo, hoo! Twenty minutes and much frustration later, I accomplished my goal.

Many of these problems were caused by poor user interface design, but another confounding variable is the tie between eBay and PayPal. eBay purchased PayPal not too long ago but they still appear as two loosely coupled entities from the eBay user perspective. Printing a packing list has little to do with the payment but more to do with the auction.  So why not provide that ability from the eBay site?

So as not to be just a complainer, I sent this story to eBay’s suggestion box (which also had a few bugs), with these suggestions. For any eBay Human Factors or Usability lurkers, here they are:

1. eBay: Add a “Print Packing Slip” button in the “Items I’ve Sold” list on the “My eBay” page.
2. PayPal: On the shipping summary page before the transaction is submitted, change the “Continue” button to “Place Order” or “Purchase Shipment” or something that better communicates that a transaction is actually going to take place and it is the point of no return.
3. PayPal: Have a “Cancel Shipment” button, or at least a link to a help topic, on the Print Shipping Label page.
4. PayPal: Provide a help topic on “How to Cancel a Shipping Purchase” with cross-references to related terminology.
5. PayPal: In the shipping confirmation email titled “You created a shipping label with PayPal Shipping!” change the sub-section title from “Voiding Instructions” to “Cancelling your Shipment”. Voiding is for checks, cancelling is for orders. I really don’t care what the FedEx or USPS system terminology is!