As if life wasn't hard enough EBAY!!

stebiz

I'm sorry if this has been posted before but I just got an email from ebay that I am quite annoyed with. I have been trading on ebay for about 10 years and until the last couple of years was a nice little earner.

Over the last couple of years sales have dried up somewhat, I have to pay auctiva because ebay changed their policy and many other things I could moan about all night.

Then today they send me:




Now don't get me wrong. I don't like buyers being 'ripped off' in any way, but although I have sold thousands of items over the years I am still on/around 99.1%. You always have customers who aren't happy. Only yesterday a neighbour, who sells on ebay, told me that she had received a phone call. REFUND MY MONEY. I KEEP THE ITEM. YOU GET POSITIVE FEEDBACK!! Now I know this isn't the norm, but I have had similar, with customers asking for partial refunds because certain items were 'not quite' what they thought they were!! And what about Christmas.........4% of buyers only need to complain about delivery time and you have ebay on your back.

Now I've got that off my check......I'm off to concentrate on other online businesses I have become involved in over the last couple of years, since Ebay has changed many of their policies!!

Stebiz

soolin

I didn't think the new 1 and 2 * rules were in place yet..Goodness, I felt from the moment I saw the new criteria that this is going to hit a lot of sellers very badly and I suspect my fears are well grounded. Imagine how low 3% is for a private seller who maybe only sells half a dozen things a month. That basically means if one person leaves a 1 or 2 * they are doomed.

I have been wittering on about this for ages, especially on the 'excessive postage' threads as I don't think people really appreciate that they need to look beyond their feedback percentages and overall stars.

The only thing I would say about your post though is that as a business buyers can demand a full refund on return, if they start whining about partials just stick to your guns and insist either a full refund on return or nothing at all.

chja

Better not to get feedback at all really.

Jo_F

Are they trying to get rid of the people that don't do ebay for a living? I mean I sell if I am lucky about 20 things a year, at the moment all my percentages on the email they sent me are at 0, but it's not going to take too many problems to put a stop to my meagre sales

mrmr37

I just received this email as well and as a seller im a bit concerned about this. For example, what if a buyer doesn't pay for an item. The seller is perfectly entitled to open a NPB case in ebay. The buyer could then decide to pay for the item so they don't get a strike against their name but as revenge they could leave 1&2 stars on the sellers dashboard. For infrequent sellers it only takes 1 nutter to render thier ebay account useless.

I notice the email does say

'If the rate of 1s and 2s goes over any of these limits sellers will get lowered placements in search and may even face limits on selling activity until their ratings improve.'

So it looks like as soon as you hit the limits then you receive lower placements in search results. However, at what point will they limit your selling activity? Anybody know anymore on this?

cyberbob

Oops I think I deleted that email. It'll all even out in the end though. If all us sellers get lower places in the searches we'll all be the same

Brodiebobs

i too think its a bad idea, really shocked when i read the e-mail, i dont sell too much mainly kids outgrown clothes and think this maybe a bit harsh to honest sellers. I too had an incident recently when i sold a kids coat, from next, and the buyer complained because she was under impression it had a 'next' logo on the front, but it didnt only on the labels so she wanted her money back as people wouldnt realise it was from there(!?), and to keep the item!! obviously refused offered full refund if she returned, but she declined and left neutral, then on this email it said i'd had one item not as described star rating, presuming its her!

So one more like this and i could be off!!!

chja

The odd thing is that it seems to penalise high volume / professional sellers.

The % compliance is fair enough, but the volume is more a problem - for example 4% 1&2 on postage - fair enough, but 6 max... if you sell hundreds or thousands of items you dont need many muppets saying "you charged me £1.90 but the stamp was only £1.85" before you are hit.

tomq_2

I need to agree, that the new system will hit most in private sellers who sell only few items a week. I don't sell much and I do use Free P+P on most of my listings, if the P+P is expensive is only charge for how much it will actually cost and I still have the rating on P+P 4.8 and one 1 transaction with DSR 1 or 2 for P+P costs!

Smart_But_Casual

The PS board has been on meltdown for weeks about this!

Smart_But_Casual

Smart_But_Casual wrote: »

The PS board has been on meltdown for weeks about this!

I should and that there are gold and platinum PS who are not going to qualify despite 100% feedback and DSRs of 4.9!