In the upcoming months a seller’s overall eBay feedback rating will take on new importance.
Yesterday, in Lessening The Impact Of Detailed Seller Ratings In 2008, I talked about eBay’s plans to use a seller’s DSR in determining how their listings appeared both in search results and in eBay’s regular listings. From the information coming out of eBay, it now sounds as though a seller’s overall eBay feedback rating will be another part of the equation in making those determinations.
There is also a second area where a seller’s eBay feedback rating will come in to play more prominently in the upcoming months. eBay has already begun placing more emphasis on enforcing their Seller Non-Performance Policy. Basically, what can happen is this:
If the total of a seller’s neutral and negative feedback ratings received over the last 90-day period is greater than 5% of the total feedback ratings they received during the same time period, they are subject to temporary 14-day restrictions in the form of selling sanctions or reduced listing volume. If that figure is more than 10% they are now subject to indefinite restrictions until they improve their buyer dissatisfaction rates to less than 5%.
While the most of the impact of this renewed emphasis on Seller Non-Performance will be upon those sellers who list thousands of items a month, both new sellers and those who list only a few items a month may get caught up in the net also.
If a new seller who had received 18 positive feedback ratings received 1 neutral rating it would make them subject to temporary 14-day restrictions. The same could happen to a seller who had been selling on eBay for some time, but only listed a small number of items each month.
The majority of us are running our eBay businesses in a professional manner and shouldn’t have to worry about facing these restrictions. However, for those who are just starting out or who sell very few items each month, there are some things you should concentrate on to insure you don’t run into this problem.
- Make sure you describe all items accurately and include mention of any flaws or problems the item has
- Once payment is received, insure that you ship all purchases quickly
- Package all items so they arrive safely at their destination
- Respond to all buyer questions and concerns quickly and honestly
- If any problem should arise with a transaction be proactive and handle it quickly to the customer’s satisfaction
- Never become argumentative with customers no matter how obnoxious they may be
- If a customer is unhappy with their purchase seriously consider providing them a complete refund and let them keep the item
- If you do receive a negative or neutral feedback that puts you at risk of restrictions, send the customer a full refund immediately. Then begin negotiations with them in hope of agreeing to mutual feedback removal
Photo by James Holloway.
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December 20th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Based on what you’re saying Gary, it seems as if the ’system’ is being tilted against sellers much more than necessary..I’m curious as to what E Bay’s thought process is here..
all the best,
Doc
December 20th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
If a new seller who had received 18 positive feedback ratings received 1 neutral rating it would make them subject to temporary 14-day restrictions.
Sorry Gary, but that’s not correct. You have to receive two negs before you even start to be eligible for suspensions or restrictions under SNP: The Chatter had some details a while back:
http://www.ebaychatter.com/the_chatter/2007/08/lynda-talgo-of-.html
December 20th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Sue,
I stand corrected. The information provided in your link to The Chatter is more detailed than what I had read previously. I wrote the post based on the information provided by Philipp Justus on eBay’s General Announcement board.
Thanks for the clarification.
Gary H.
December 20th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Doc,
I don’t think the actual thought process is to ’tilt’ the system against sellers. Rather, I think it’s more a result of their recent efforts to make eBay more friendly and attractive to buyers.
Gary H.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Hi Gary. Love your site as always. As of this mornings latest “change” email from EBAY, one of the things that disturbs me is about buyers only being able to receive positive feedback. Now, I haven’t had that many bad buyers, but there have been a few so this really bothers me. I understand wanting to make it more attractive to buyers but what about protecting the sellers? I already disagreed with the detailed feedback rating if the sellers couldn’t fill one out also, and now they are leaving us NO way to get the word out to other sellers about deadbeat buyers. There are other things just as bad, if not worse than a buyer who doesn’t pay…….there are the ones who files claims that are unfounded and during the whole process your paypal acct is on hold and who actually try to send items back after they damaged them. I even had one that tried to retract their paypal payment after I shipped their item…..SO my question is this…..Is it my misinterpretation or are they really tying the hands of the sellers to “suck up” to the buyers. I would love to see your opinion on this one. thanks for the great site!
ruthann
January 30th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Hi Ruth,
I think the changes to eBay feedback probably caught everyone by surprise and are the thing that will be debated the most of all the changes.
A lot of people seem to think that once the uproar over this is done eBay will ’see the light’ and go back to letting sellers leave negative and neutral feedback. I’m not so sure that will happen.
My guess is that eBay knew this change would create a lot of negativity, but based on buyer satisfaction surveys felt it was a change that needed to be made to sustain the integrity of the site with buyers.
Nearly all sellers will feel the impact of this change, but how it impacts each of us individually will probably depend on what we sell and our business model. I think those who will feel the most impact will be the large mega-sellers who do little or nothing in terms of customer service and sellers who make buyers jump through hoops to do business with them.
Personally, I expect I will probably see a few more ‘negatives’ or ‘neutrals’ show up in my feedback. I don’t, however, think the increase will be very large. On the plus side, I do business with a lot of repeat customers.
Previously only the first feedback rating they left me was counted in my overall feedback percentage. Now, with the new changes, eBay will be including up to one rating a month from these people. Because of this, even though I expect the number of negatives I receive to increase slightly, I think within a few months, my overall feedback percentage may actually increase slightly.
Ultimately, it’s just another part of doing business on eBay that we will more than likely have to live with and I recommend that, like it or not, people not get caught up in the uproar that’s almost certain to take place over the next few weeks or months. Rather, go about doing business as normal and do what you can to work with any customers that think they have a problem to make their experience as satisfactory as possible.
Good luck,
Gary H.