Defect rate - from bad to worse

[rosscd57]

For those who have not seen this new eBay fiasco - here it is.

New way to measure performance rewards sellers providing great service

• Starting with the August 20 monthly seller evaluation, a new measure, the transaction defect rate ("defect rate"), will replace the current four individual detailed seller rating requirements in evaluating seller performance. This new rating may impact your status.
• The defect rate is simply the percentage of a seller's successful transactions that have one or more of the following transaction-related defects, the top predictors that a buyer will leave eBay or buy less:
  • Detailed seller rating of 1, 2 or 3 for item as described
  • Detailed seller rating of 1 for shipping time
  • Negative or neutral feedback
  • Return initiated for a reason that indicates the item was not as described
  • eBay Money Back Guarantee (previously known as eBay Buyer Protection) or PayPal Purchase Protection case opened for an item not received or an item not as described
  • Seller-cancelled transactions
• Starting with the August 20 evaluation, to meet eBay's minimum standard, sellers can have up to a maximum 5% of transactions with one or more transaction defects over the most recent evaluation period. A maximum 2% will allow a seller to qualify as an eBay Top Rated Seller. The  same requirements apply both to your Global and US seller performance  standards.
• The defect rate won't affect your status until you have transactions with defects with at least 8 different buyers (at least 5 different buyers to impact Top Rated status) within your evaluation period.
• Just as today, sellers can have a maximum of 0.3% of eBay Money Back Guarantee or PayPal Purchase Protection closed cases without seller resolution over the most recent evaluation period. That means the buyer opened the case, you weren't able to resolve it, the buyer reached out to eBay or PayPal to review it, and eBay found you responsible.
• Just as today, sellers with 400 or more transactions over the past 3 months will be evaluated based on the past 3 months and sellers with fewer than 400 transactions will be evaluated based on the past 12 months.

In general, the lower your defect rate, the better your position in Best Match search results

• By focusing squarely on what matters most to buyers, the new transaction defect rate allows eBay to recognize and reward sellers who consistently deliver the great service buyers expect—and to identify and respond to the experiences that erode confidence and drive buyers away.
• If you maintain a low defect rate, eBay will reward you with an enhanced position in Best Match search results, so your track record for great service can pay off in more visibility and potential sales.

[rainbow71113]

another thing I've done in the past which may give me lower scores is when a buyer buys multiple items and pays the shipping for all of them, I've had to cancel some of the items to recoup some of the fees and include the items for free in the package.  I'm not talking about a couple of dollars here- I'm talking about $84+ in overpayment of postage that I have had to refund and I'm charged fees on them by both ebay and paypal and whenever I have called ebay to ask about refunds and how to recoup the loss of postage fees they say "you should offer free shipping then it won't be an issue"   if anyone can suggest an alternative- I have on my listings to wait for a combined invoice but buyers not on ebay.ca have issues saying it makes them pay before they can purchase another item and one buyer said they had to sign up for ebay.ca and then it reverted back to the US site and made her pay for the first item before she could buy the second.

[nuvistors]

Did you know that ebay allows  about 5 times the defects as amazon before you get restricted.

[rose-dee]

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@isis1313 wrote:

another thing I've done in the past which may give me lower scores is when a buyer buys multiple items and pays the shipping for all of them, I've had to cancel some of the items to recoup some of the fees and include the items for free in the package.

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Yes, this is something that does happen now and then when a buyer doesn't ask for an invoice and just pays for everything immediately.  It's especially important to be able to reverse some of the items if you feel you want to give the buyer some "freebies" in recognition of one good purchase.  Trying to recoup FVFs by cancelling sales in a multiple-sale situation may now seem to be a disastrous choice.  I was concerned about this too, and brought the issue of cancellations up with the eBay.ca staff at this Wednesday's weekly board hour.  I was told the following:

"Out of the list [of cancellation options that pops up when you choose "cancel transaction"], only "I ran out of stock" and "I sold the item to another buyer" would count as defects.  [...] Only the two reasons I stated above are things that drive buyers away from eBay and thus, considered to be defects."  (See post #5 of the April 16th board hour). 

So, if we can believe this is really the eBay truth (???), what I would do now in such a situation is email or phone the buyer, tell them they'll receive a cancellation request for all but one of the items (for example) with the reason "Buyer purchased item by mistake or changed mind", and ask them to accept the request as quickly as possible.  I'd also tell the buyer to ignore the "Unpaid Item Dispute" subject line that seems to be attached to every cancellation request -- that could spook some buyers.  

This of course will only work if you know your buyer will happily agree to cancel.  It might be wise to send them a note first, telling them what break on price/shipping you are going to give them, before  asking them to agree to the cancellations, so they know you're being honest.  Unfortunately, this new policy does take a lot of the control in a transaction out of a seller's hands. 

There has been some mention from the eBay.ca staff that they might be looking at a way of reversing FVFs on refunded shipping amounts.  We'll see what comes of that -- don't hold your breath. 

[rainbow71113]

Hello Rose-dee

thanks so much for your response, I didn't know if anyone else did this.  I always contact the buyer first, phoning is easy if it's US or Canada however overseas is more problematic.  I do include in the info area that item will be included for free.   Even if they don't cancel it will still automatically cancel out in 7 days anyway, it's only if they refuse then you have to deal with them differently...LOL.  Usually buyers want to save on shipping, and if they cancel the request and seem to be upset about it I ship each item individually.

  I had one lady in Puerto Rico buy a very heavy painting box- then repeatedly send emails asking for cheaper shipping, I kept telling her that the price is US shipping and sent her a cancel request, which she in turn refused...then after waiting 5 days I sent her a payment reminder to which she responded- will pay when shipping is reduced, told her that was not possible- then she says she now wants to cancel the transaction....called ebay and since she had refused the cancel previously I had no recourse on getting my fees back, couldn't cancel the item, didn't want to risk a negative sending it to collection and couldn't relist it because she may have decided to suddenly pay for it and if someone else bought it I was in trouble.  Needless to say, had to get buyer to promise NOT to pay for it...now there's a first!!

[buyzjewelry]

That could be said if eBay customers were as savvy as Amazon customers but eBay has programmed them to scam, play the system, twist the truth, lie, cry wolf, whine, etc, etc etc.

"One man's trash is another man's treasure."

[femmefan1946]

I've had to cancel some of the items to recoup some of the fees and include the items for free in the package.

While that may seem like a good idea to the buyer and the seller, it's not so good for the landlord (eBay). Since the landlord controls who sells and what can be sold, I would be very wary of trying to cheat him out of his rent.

Because that is what it comes down to, doesn't it? The "rent" / fees are stated and by not paying them although the transaction is completed, well...

However, that eBay/Paypal does not refund fees on refunded shipping charges is really unconscionable . This is a programming error (at best) that should be corrected.

[rainbow71113]

I'm not cheating them out of fees, I am only cancelling the amounts as close to the overpayment of shipping that I have to refund.

If the buyer had not prepaid all those shipping charges I would not have had to refund or been charged fees- the buyer  would have paid exact shipping and that's the fees I should be responsible for paying.  It's ebay's fault that the buyers are having to pay for items before purchasing others, until they fix that problem we will keep seeing people overpay shipping and I am not one of those sellers that mails out 15 packages when I can mail out one.

[rose-dee]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

While that may seem like a good idea to the buyer and the seller, it's not so good for the landlord (eBay). Since the landlord controls who sells and what can be sold, I would be very wary of trying to cheat him out of his rent.

Because that is what it comes down to, doesn't it? The "rent" / fees are stated and by not paying them although the transaction is completed, well...

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Yes, in my reply above I was going to say a seller should use this procedure (cancelling transactions to give freebies) with some caution because it could be seen by eBay as fee avoidance. 

Yet I'm not so sure.  Let's say you sell 3 items, the first say for $50, and the other two for $5 a piece, and the buyer pays for everything (including all 3 shipping costs) before you can invoice.  You then decide to cancel the $5 transactions to give the buyer the two $5 items for free.  Is eBay really entitled to their fee on the two $5 items?  I wouldn't think so, since the seller hasn't actually generated any revenue from the two $5 sales.

The seller can of course take the completely safe route and simply refund the buyer for the two $5 items (plus their shipping amounts), absorb the FVFs, avoiding the risks and complications of cancelling the two transactions. 

I just don't think that eBay's multiple purchase facility works very well, at least not for Canadians selling to US buyers, even with automated promotional discounts set up.  There is a big incompatibility between the cart/no cart systems on eBay.com and eBay.ca that causes difficulty for US buyers wanting to make multiple purchases from a Cdn seller.  Until eBay has fixed this, Cdn sellers are going to continue to have to use "manual workarounds" to give their customers a discount (on either shipping or item price) whenever payment is made before an adjusted invoice can be sent. 

So, we may get in trouble with eBay for trying to give great service.  Wonderful -- no good deed goes unpunished...

[rainbow71113]

I should give an example- if the buyer buys 5 books @ $10 each and the shipping is let's say $10 each- resulting in a combined payment of $100- $50 for books $50 for shipping....and has overpaid the shipping by $40 then I refund the payments on 2 of the books and that includes the 2 -$10 shipping charges- which equals $40.  The books are still included but since I have had to refund the payments they are now free to the buyer because they are included in the combined shipping with the other books. 

[rose-dee]

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@isis1313 wrote:

I'm not cheating them out of fees, I am only cancelling the amounts as close to the overpayment of shipping that I have to refund.

If the buyer had not prepaid all those shipping charges I would not have had to refund or been charged fees- the buyer  would have paid exact shipping and that's the fees I should be responsible for paying.  It's ebay's fault that the buyers are having to pay for items before purchasing others, until they fix that problem we will keep seeing people overpay shipping and I am not one of those sellers that mails out 15 packages when I can mail out one.

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I agree, isis, nor am I one of those sellers who wants to cheat customers into paying for 15 shipping charges when they could be paying for one lower charge. 

Personally, I'll probably continue to "eat" the shipping FVFs in these instances unless it is such a large amount that it seems worth the possible risk to cancel. 

Either way, it's still really not a proper solution, is it?  EBay gets a failing grade in my view where multiple purchases with discounts are concerned.

[rainbow71113]

Hello Rose-Dee,

if it is a matter of a few dollars I don't cancel anything either, I just refund and believe me- I do a TON of refunds- about 2 or 3 a week if not more, those small amounts I have no issue with.  It's the ones that overpay by $80+ etc where fees are an issue and like I said I have contacted ebay and was told to just revise all my listings for free shipping.  That's not an option for me.  Currently I have free shipping on a lot of items and with the new postal increases I'm going to have to revise them to charge at least a dollar or two so I don't lose too much money.  Shipping items for free that cost $10.30 to the US is ridiculous when you sell items that are low ticket- most of mine are magazines worth around $10 and it really does not attract buyers to charge $20 for a magazine just to offer free shipping to the US when the Canadians would only pay a quarter of that price and I would lose Canadian sales.  If ebay had an option where the free price to the Canadians would be $10 and free shipping and to the US $20 and free shipping then that might make more sense but we have enough trouble with variation listings that this would not be realistic either. 

[rainbow71113]

speaking of fees, I just notice that I'm being charged an additional $19.50 a month since last May.  Turns out a few years ago Ebay offered a subtitle special for free, and all of a sudden they started charging for the subtitles....without the decency or courtesy of notifying sellers that this option is no longer free- it doesn't matter that you see it charges for the subtitles now...I've never used them because of the ridiculous cost but when they offered something for free and then turn around and charge for it - I would never had used it...honestly the only thing in the subtitle is "English Manga" which would have fit in the title.  That's almost $230 out of my pocket.  Has me a bit worried about the current "free" promotions like EPS photos, 2 or 3 years down the road are we going to be charged for these too?

[rose-dee]

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@isis1313 wrote:

It's the ones that overpay by $80+ etc where fees are an issue and like I said I have contacted ebay and was told to just revise all my listings for free shipping.  That's not an option for me.  

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Yes, "free shipping" seems to be the cure-all mantra from eBay for every problem these days.  However, I don't think most of the CS people who spout such nonsense even consider the different situation we Canadian sellers face -- their pre-programmed advice is intended for American sellers. 

My strategy as far as free shipping is concerned is to offer it on a promotional basis from time to time.  Otherwise, my ordinary flat rate shipping quotes to the US are always below the current, true rates.  Like you, I really can't afford to offer free shipping to the US on lower-value items, so I try to give my multiple-purchase customers a break whenever I can.  I just wish eBay would clean up the multiple-purchase process to make it reasonably workable.

[rainbow71113]

I'm the same, if a buyer buys a lot of items or over $100 I usually pay their shipping.  I had one lady buy a cross stitch chart in a variation listing and complained that it was too much for one chart, she thought she was getting 16 of them for $16.00 not $16 each and I pointed out that her shipping was free and that was over $2.00 so the one chart was actually $2.00 cheaper but they don't seem to notice the shipping.  I use stamps and the buyer can see if there's $10.30 of stamps on the envelope and they paid $10.30 the shipping is exact however I STILL get marked low dsr for excessive shipping...really!?!

[rose-dee]

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@isis1313 wrote:

I use stamps and the buyer can see if there's $10.30 of stamps on the envelope and they paid $10.30 the shipping is exact however I STILL get marked low dsr for excessive shipping...really!?!

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Well, one small bone eBay has thrown us sellers is that the "Shipping Cost" DSR will no longer count toward defects.  It doesn't mean we can ignore it, but at least it will serve to show us where problem areas might be with regard to shipping. 

By the way, remember that we'll also be able to soon see which buyers the DSRs come from, which should help to be able to pinpoint a problem in a particular transaction, rather than having to guess who might have been unhappy. 

[rainbow71113]

sure we can see who they are but what can we do about it?  it's against policy to contact the buyer and ask what was the issue?

we can block them from future sales but won't you love those emails from blocked buyers asking why they can no longer buy? Do we answer with ...."last time you marked me low and I can't afford low scores since this is my only income"....that might smarten them up for the next seller but still leaves me with the low score.

[rose-dee]

Well, I guess I see it from the positive side. 

If a buyer leaves me a poor rating for shipping costs, and I can see what I charged and where the item was sent, it might help me to consider making some changes if I list a similar item again.  Or I might see that a particular issue was a one-off situation that likely wouldn't happen again, so no need to spend time on it. 

When everything was anonymous, it was very hard to pinpoint where the specific problems might be, so in my view, this was a good change (one of the few recently!). 

[rainbow71113]

well considering the hike in international shipping if we see that this is where the problems lie, it still won't help to change anything even if we put in the listing that YES Canada Post is charging this much for shipping-provided of course if they read it.  Many items I have left at the old rates because I had a $1.00 handling charge and so now the shipping is showing cheaper than the actual and hopefully my buyer's will get out a calculator (I use a lot of stamps) and see that the shipping they paid is less than what I had to put on the envelope- no one voluntarily wants to add more stamps than needed ...LOL.  This does open me up to a larger shipping hike next time the prices change....but seriously from $15 to $20 for a 300gr letter overseas!!  The UK can send me the same item for less than $5.00 !!  I've already noticed my international sales reduced and I don't blame them, who wants to pay $20 for a book that's only worth $10.   Although since tracking became an issue to keep US topseller status I'm seeing magazines that I can ship to the US for $5.15 showing as $45 to Canada.  

[pjcdn2005]

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@isis1313 wrote:

sure we can see who they are but what can we do about it?  it's against policy to contact the buyer and ask what was the issue?

we can block them from future sales but won't you love those emails from blocked buyers asking why they can no longer buy? Do we answer with ...."last time you marked me low and I can't afford low scores since this is my only income"....that might smarten them up for the next seller but still leaves me with the low score.

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Easily knowing who left a low DSR could be helpful in some cases when it causes a defect. For example, if a competitor purchases an item of yours and leaves a low DSR, you contact ebay and they might see it as a competitor trying to maliciously lower your DSR's and remove the low mark. There are other examples but of course I can't think of any others right now. 🙂

[rainbow71113]

how would you know if it's a competitor?  I have many times bought items similar to ones I sell.  Sometimes kits, issues I'm missing etc...so would I be considered a competitor?