WARNING check your expanded dashboard

soolin

There seems to be another cull of sellers going on and a number of sellers, both private and business seem unaware of the importance of the expanded dashboard so I thought I would start a thread to raise awareness. Regulars no doubt are bored rigid by my obsession with the expanded dashboard- but it may benefit newer sellers.

Ebay have trigger points for restriction and suspension and these apply equally to business and private sellers and sellers need to do more than just watch their headline feedback. Every seller should make a habit of checking their expanded dashboard at least once a week, many of us do it daily. To find your expanded dashboard folllow these steps:

My ebay> account tab> seller dashboard

the first step is to look at the seller perforamce numbers, you need to look at the number of lows you have in each of the 4 categories.

to check further click on 'see your reports' and you can run reports to see what people are leaving. you can try experiemnting with different dates and criteria to narrow down any problem areas.

seller perforamce report on the LH margin is also useful as you can see the percentages you are allowed, it shows 'Do not exceed the maximum limits of both percentage and count'

Go back to dashboard and click on 'performance standards' by your current seller rating.

Really useful from that page is the 12 month trending data, that shows all the ratings.

Any warnings, any low stars should set alarm bells ringing. We do all (well I do) have some low stars , you can't always avoid them, but you need to watch in case any pattern emerges and deal with it immediately. By the time you get an email warning it is almost too late to save your account.

theonlywayisup

Often a knee jerk reaction to low stars is to stop selling. If you can avoid this at all costs, do so, it will only make matters worse as the better feedback and stars drop off and the low stars become the main factor.

There are two stars categories which can be fully protected.

P&P. If you offer free P&P a buyer is unable to mark you and the default is 5 stars.

Communication. If you mark the item as dispatched within 24 hours (or upload tracking), handling time in the listing must be 1 working day (or same day), payment is by paypal, and no communication took place between the buyer and seller from 14 days before the transaction up until the point that Feedback was left. This includes messages within My eBay and any opened cases. This is a default 5 star.

soolin

theonlywayisup wrote: »

Often a knee jerk reaction to low stars is to stop selling. If you can avoid this at all costs, do so, it will only make matters worse as the better feedback and stars drop off and the low stars become the main factor.

An extremely good point. Stopping selling is a disaster if you have low stars, if you don't get all good new feedback and stars the poor stars you do have become a higher percentage of the feedback overall and you can actually be banned weeks after you stop selling.

The first thing to do if you get poor stars is to list to keep the percentage watered down overall.

mrs_sparrow

They want you to sell more to up your stars, more sales mean more money for eBay. Clever right.

Here are the stats from my 181 sales this year:

Item as described 4.801.66% (3)
Communication 4.811.10% (2)
Dispatch time 4.782.21% (4)
Postage and packaging charges 4.800.55% (1)
Buyer protection cases
Your percentage (count) Opened cases 0.00% (0)
Closed cases without seller resolution 0.00% (0)

I take it the numbers in brackets is the number of people that have knocked me down? One of the 'not as described' was someone who wanted 'a full refund' as it has a 'washing stain' and I said I would refund her in full but she wanted a full refund and the item. I still - to this day - have no idea what a washing stain is.

Two of the 'dispatch time' knockdowns are because the courier I ordered did not arrive so the delivery went over the weekend. I kept the buyers fully informed as well.

Still, I guess I could just sell, sell, sell to up my stars which would line eBays pockets some more. We have another forum for 'scams', don't we??

mrs_sparrow

soolin wrote: »

An extremely good point. Stopping selling is a disaster if you have low stars, if you don't get all good new feedback and stars the poor stars you do have become a higher percentage of the feedback overall and you can actually be banned weeks after you stop selling.

The first thing to do if you get poor stars is to list to keep the percentage watered down overall.

So, what it is actually all about is making you sell more to up your 'star' level then? This makes it some kind of money making scam for them, then?

They are frightening sellers into doing something [selling more] which makes that company money..... and that is legal??? It sounds like some kind of extortion to me. Line our pockets with sales or we will ban you/take away your free listings.

I am SO relived that I no longer run my business on there in all honestly, living with the daily threat of having your business cut off. If they were banging at the door saying 'give us more money or we will cut your internet connection off' they would be in trouble, however they are free to say 'up your sales [make us more money] or we will no let you sell anymore'. Disgraceful!!!

Not every customer is ever going to be happy even if you gave 100% service, honestly, I've had some right nutters buying from me (one threatened to come an kill me which I had to go to the police and eBay about because I refused to refund without the item being returned) and eBay seems to be rife for people to say something is not as described to frighten the seller into giving them a refund and when they refuse (as I never refund without having the goods in hand, I would rather be out of pocket - I can smell a con artist a mile off) they just knock your star level down.

Some days I just need reminding why I hate eBay so much!!!!

I am off to get dressed before I REALLY start off on a tangent over this!!

soolin

mrs_sparrow wrote: »

They want you to sell more to up your stars, more sales mean more money for eBay. Clever right.

Here are the stats from my 181 sales this year:

Item as described4.801.66% (3)Communication4.811.10% (2)Dispatch time4.782.21% (4)Postage and packaging charges4.800.55% (1)Buyer protection casesYour percentage (count)Opened cases0.00% (0)Closed cases without seller resolution0.00% (0)
I take it the numbers in brackets is the number of people that have knocked me down? One of the 'not as described' was someone who wanted 'a full refund' as it has a 'washing stain' and I said I would refund her in full but she wanted a full refund and the item. I still - to this day - have no idea what a washing stain is.

Two of the 'dispatch time' knockdowns are because the courier I ordered did not arrive so the delivery went over the weekend. I kept the buyers fully informed as well.

Still, I guess I could just selll, sell, sell to up my stars which would line eBays pockets some more. We have another forum for 'scams', don't we??

Your stats are actually getting a little low, anything more than 3 lows in a category is a serious worry. The despatch star with 4 lows is the one you need to address to prevent being suspended. Buyers don't care what time we say we will despatch in, they tend to compare us against each other.

So when they receive goods and are asked what was the despatch time like, they may mark down any seller who appears slower than normal. Don't forget they are not asked whether sellers despatch in the time frame stated, they are merely asked to rate them against other sellers.

We all do it, I received a dozen things yesterday, my default is 5* but one seller has kept me waiting almost a week on the basis they only post once a week, my brain tells me they are not therefore deserving of the same 5* that the other sellers got- it's human nature to compare.

mrs_sparrow

Serious worry?

No soo, losing your home is a serious worry, not having enough food to eat is a serious worry. Some people depend on eBay for keeping a roof over their heads and feeding their kids.

Having the threat of being suspended because they have not dispatched within 3 days (for whatever reason the buyer does not know or care do about) is a disgrace.

I sold some stuff and we had a pipe burst in the house earlier this year - we lost absolutely everything on the ground floor of our house and sending my eBay stuff out (stuff that did not get damaged) was the very last thing on my mind. Luckily my buyers understood - maybe some marked me down, maybe it was someone else, if they didn't I'd have been suspended.

Way to go!!

soolin

If a seller depends on eBay to keep a roof over their head and food on the table then surely having a dashboard that is in danger of restriction is a serious worry?

SOme of us sell for extras, yes I love the money I get as it means lots of extra holidays for me, but it would not be the end of the world if I did give up entirely. Yet I do still monitor my dashboard and make sure I am on track to keep selling for as long as *I* choose to.

I would have thought ignoring the expanded dashboard was the last thing anyone who needs the money would do.

theonlywayisup

mrs_sparrow wrote: »

They want you to sell more to up your stars, more sales mean more money for eBay. Clever right.

Here are the stats from my 181 sales this year:

Item as described 4.801.66% (3)
Communication 4.811.10% (2)
Dispatch time 4.782.21% (4)
Postage and packaging charges 4.800.55% (1)
Buyer protection cases
Your percentage (count) Opened cases 0.00% (0)
Closed cases without seller resolution 0.00% (0)

I take it the numbers in brackets is the number of people that have knocked me down? One of the 'not as described' was someone who wanted 'a full refund' as it has a 'washing stain' and I said I would refund her in full but she wanted a full refund and the item. I still - to this day - have no idea what a washing stain is.

Two of the 'dispatch time' knockdowns are because the courier I ordered did not arrive so the delivery went over the weekend. I kept the buyers fully informed as well.

Still, I guess I could just sell, sell, sell to up my stars which would line eBays pockets some more. We have another forum for 'scams', don't we??

I think you may be below standard as your dispatch rating percentage and number of lows exceeds the allowable amount.

DSR % of 1 and 2 ratings Max allowed

Item as described 1% 3
Communication 2% 3
Dispatch time 2% 3
P&P 2% 3

soolin

Mrs Sparrow assuming you are not below standard (and I fear you might be already) and can still use the 99p free listings, you need to get some listings up every day for 99p. Your p and p star isn't a worry, so don't bother with free postage, but get things sold and put them in the post box immediately. For 99p it isn't worth getting proof of posting frankly, and if you can get lots of regular 5* for despatch times you can water down the overall percentage on the stars.

You might be able to turn this around. However, do a full check as well to see when the first lot of low stars falls off the dashboard, sooner rather than later would be better!

List easy things though with relatively cheap postage.

theonlywayisup

As soolin says, selling more can water down the stars. If you don't then although the number of lows (4) will remain constant, the percentage will creep up and up, until ebay suspend you. So, doing nothing makes you liable to being banned.

There does seem to have been a 'cull' recently as this board and the ebay boards are full of stories.

If you want to keep your ebay account, it's the only way.