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Besides changing the name there is nothing really new here at all. Sellers not paying return shipping on SNAD claims in the past should have never been allowed in the first place.
@recped wrote:Besides changing the name there is nothing really new here at all. Sellers not paying return shipping on SNAD claims in the past should have never been allowed in the first place.
There are, in my view, some new details (in the fine print, as usual) that are very important for sellers to understand. I also feel that the very change of name is highly significant.
Calling it "Money Back Guarantee" may turn out to be an incentive to buyers, but sellers are going to have to make absolutely sure they come up to the mark. The game is changing, and I think this name signals eBay's determination to make buying easier and appear risk-free (admittedly a good thing to attract buyers), while at the same time making selling more tenuous for smaller sellers through linking this programme to the defects system.
The MBG will certainly have the effect of removing or restricting even more small sellers from eBay. Some might say this is a good thing -- weed out those who can't cut it -- and I would agree, except for the preferential treatment of high volume sellers where the defect system is concerned. Give us all 3 months to erase mistakes, and I might not be so worried about the way these programmes are constructed.
For example, from the "fine print": '...buyers can choose to go through either Paypal Purchase Protection or Money Back Guarantee to resolve a claim..."
Paypal's window for claims is now 180 days (6 months). This alters the buyer/seller relationship quite significantly, and is nowhere near the usual standard in retail returns/refunds.
Here's another significant item: "When a buyer receives a refund under MBG, sellers will be required to reimburse eBay...This reimbursement will be debited from the seller's Paypal account or charged to the seller's monthly selling invoice."
I interpret this to mean that the seller will often have no direct control over the refund process. This raises the question of who the buyer will see as giving great service -- eBay or the seller? With the MBG displayed up front on every listing (as I see it has been for a while on .com), what will the buyer think of first to resolve an issue? Contact the seller to discuss the problem -- I doubt it. Just click the MBG link. And how will that translate in terms of DSRs, FB, etc.? On the rare occasion when I've had to refund a buyer, I made sure to try to make a happy customer -- no, more precisely, a customer happy with my service -- every time, through direct communication. Personally I see this MBG programme as just one more way eBay is taking control over the seller/buyer relationship away from individual sellers.
And this is why I say I object to the breezy, seller-friendly way eBay presents these things to us. What the heck does this mean in the header to the MBG info page for sellers: "eBay Money Back Guarantee means sellers won't be losing potential buyers because someone else let them down". What????
All I can do is laugh at the smoke and mirrors. Why not just give us the honest bad news? Sellers are going to have to be even more careful about precision in listings and photographs, and more concerned about international SNAD claims (as 'pj' pointed out). It's true that sellers should have been obliged to pay return shipping on legitimate SNAD claims before now, but there are many other important changes in the MBG that will impact sellers in a variety of ways. I'd suggest every seller read the Q&A page on the MBG thoroughly and carefully.
Yes, this is all good news, until the defects start to add up for smaller sellers. 
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