listings page order

capeverde

Help required please, we have an ebay shop with a number of items for sale under buy it know. Our most popular item has been on page 1 on the best match button for ages. It sells lots and is usually in the top ten on that page. It was there yesterday, but checked today and couldnt find it. Eventually located it on page 15 grouped with other of our items. Whats happened to justify this, its below dozens of items that arent even that relevant to the search. We have 100% record and 4.9 and 5 on the ratings?

capeverde

ps, we havent done anything to change our settings.

capeverde

ok, ive found out its due to our dispatch time ranking, can somebody shed some light on this. Basically our ranking for item as described is 5.0 ranking for communiation is 4.9 ranking for p&p charges is 4.7 which is a bit tight to be honest as most of our packages cost £25 to send, bt they weigh over 70k and we actually subsidise this by £10 per item and our ranking for dispatch time is 4.4 which is where we seem to have been penalised. We advertise 13-15 days as everything is hand made to order. We've never been late with a delivery. This seems totally unfair that we have basically dropped off the map because of this. If we advertised 3 days and took 10 I could understand it, but we are up front with timescales. Apparently they arent going to reassess this till 20th of july and cant see us getting any sales by this time to change things. Anyway of getting this sorted??

terra_ferma

capeverde wrote: »

ok, ive found out its due to our dispatch time ranking, can somebody shed some light on this. Basically our ranking for item as described is 5.0 ranking for communiation is 4.9 ranking for p&p charges is 4.7 which is a bit tight to be honest as most of our packages cost £25 to send, bt they weigh over 70k and we actually subsidise this by £10 per item and our ranking for dispatch time is 4.4 which is where we seem to have been penalised. We advertise 13-15 days as everything is hand made to order. We've never been late with a delivery. This seems totally unfair that we have basically dropped off the map because of this. If we advertised 3 days and took 10 I could understand it, but we are up front with timescales. Apparently they arent going to reassess this till 20th of july and cant see us getting any sales by this time to change things. Anyway of getting this sorted??

with stars of 4.4 :eek: your ranking is the least of your worries, you are at risk of being limited, if not worse.

soolin

capeverde wrote: »

ok, ive found out its due to our dispatch time ranking, can somebody shed some light on this. Basically our ranking for item as described is 5.0 ranking for communiation is 4.9 ranking for p&p charges is 4.7 which is a bit tight to be honest as most of our packages cost £25 to send, bt they weigh over 70k and we actually subsidise this by £10 per item and our ranking for dispatch time is 4.4 which is where we seem to have been penalised. We advertise 13-15 days as everything is hand made to order. We've never been late with a delivery. This seems totally unfair that we have basically dropped off the map because of this. If we advertised 3 days and took 10 I could understand it, but we are up front with timescales. Apparently they arent going to reassess this till 20th of july and cant see us getting any sales by this time to change things. Anyway of getting this sorted??

Unfortunately stars seem to be ebays favourite things at the moment, and your understanding that falling below standard for despatch is going to affect you is correct. 4.4 is quite poor and I would keep your eye on your expanded seller dashboard in case you get any below standard warnings which is the first step to suspension.

Unfortunately unless you can get those stars up to a more average 4.7 at least, you may find it gets worse rather than better. Ebay do not seme to have any mechanism at all for aco!!!!ing for sellers who make to order.

capeverde

But guys, this seems ridiculous, as I said we sell large handmade items that are made to order. We dont carry stock as people can customise sizes, colours etc. They simply cant be made any quicker. As I said, item as described and comms are 5 and 4.9 in that order and everybody comments how happy they are with the items. We do exactly what we say on the tin, despatch in 13-15 days. If people dont want to wait this time and want something realloy cheap they can go to B&Q and pick something up on the day. Its not helpful somebody putting a stupid emoticon about a dispatch time rating when in my opinion they main things are quality and service. If youre buying anything custom made you have to wait a bit longer.

capeverde

Also been looking at competitors, many have worse rankings than us for everything including despatch times and are still on page 1 or 2. Been on the phone to ebay and they are going to look into this. They did say that the worse your rankings are, the less they are going to promote a company, which I said is understandable over item as described quality ect, but if we advertise that items will take a certain time to despatch and we always stick to that, it seems stupid that you can be marked down for this. He also said that many buyers may say fantastic item, but wish we could have got it a bit quicker and mark you down a bit without realising this will affect you. Apparently when we email customers to say there item has been despached we should put in the mail for them to not mark us down on despatch because the items are hand made. Personally I think this despatch rating thing needs addressing because its not doing the job it is intended to do. Its penalising quality in favour of cheap tat.

soolin

I fear you are missing the point. Buyers are asked for their opinion on a seller by way of clicking on stars, it doesn't say anything at all about whether you have stuck to your estimated time or not, the buyer is basically rating you against their expectation.

It is very unfortunate that this tends to affect people who sell customised items, but you asked what you can do about it and were told the truth, that basically you are stuck. I do feel your frustration with this but please take note of the warning about watching your expanded selller dashboard, a warning on there or any other issues and you will very likely start to get limits on your listings and then posisbly suspended.In fact if you have a competitor with worse headline stars than yours but higher in Best Match it suggests you already have problems on your dashboard and I would suggest checking all your categories and stats as a matter of urgency.

As for ebay sorting it out, don't hold your breath. In my opinion they are the worst company ever for telling you what you want to hear just to get you off the phone. They cannot artifically massage your ratings or get you out of trouble.

capeverde

yes a warning came up on the dashboard about despatch times. Apparently 4% of people wanted the items quicker. As I said though we still are 4.4 on this and there are others rated under 4 and yet still on page one or 2. We have better ratings than them on everything else as well and a 100% satisfaction. Thanks for you reply anyway soolin. Good job ebay is just a small amount of our business. See what the ebay guy says when he calls back tomorrow, said hes going to look through the ratings and see if theres anything untoward. Just seems indicative of the 'want it now culture' as I pride myself on the quality of our products and our customer service. Also think there is confusion over despatch and delivery times. We had one item that the courier lost for a couple of days, but we maintained contact with the customer on a daily basis and were about to despatch a replacement when it turned up. We also refunded them the delivery costs.

terra_ferma

cape, what you say makes a lot of sense
unfortunately I've seen a few cases on ebay.co.uk and .com where sellers of made-to-order items had their account suspended/closed exactly because of that.

I think it's sad that this is what is coming to. I would say ebay required faster and faster despatching, if I can't post within 24hrs I get a bit nervous. Like today I had a couple of people paying last night, I normally post daily, but today I had to deal with a large delivery, no listing=no sales, it's a matter of priorities, but it makes me very nervous.
And people very happily leave low stars even when I managed to post same day, within a few hours, but Royal Mail took a while to deliver.

terra_ferma

capeverde wrote: »

yes a warning came up on the dashboard about despatch times. Apparently 4% of people wanted the items quicker. As I said though we still are 4.4 on this and there are others rated under 4 and yet still on page one or 2. We have better ratings than them on everything else as well and a 100% satisfaction. Thanks for you reply anyway soolin. Good job ebay is just a small amount of our business. See what the ebay guy says when he calls back tomorrow, said hes going to look through the ratings and see if theres anything untoward. Just seems indicative of the 'want it now culture' as I pride myself on the quality of our products and our customer service. Also think there is confusion over despatch and delivery times. We had one item that the courier lost for a couple of days, but we maintained contact with the customer on a daily basis and were about to despatch a replacement when it turned up. We also refunded them the delivery costs.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you seem a bit naive, and you may not survive on ebay if you don't act quickly.
Ebay will not call you. They fob people off like that all the time, in my case it was an email within a couple of days, never came.
(If they do and I'm wrong let me know, I'd be happy to hear good news , but I've heard this so many times from other sellers...)