New Sellers Dashboad

[lukey9]

I finally got the new Seller's Dashboard today and I was  curious to see what more damage the Buyer I had problems with gave me. To my surprise I got 2 late shipment defects from Buyers I sell to allot and both gave me great feed back .I was 100 % on the other fields but 4.65/5.00 on the late  shipping. Since I don't have the Store any more I don't have the volume I used to have and I don't want it any way as it was not worth the hassle toward the end and I was listing more and selling less.. The only thing I care about t loosing the TRS is going down the bottom in listings.

I can see this late shipping defect being a problem  over the Holiday season and I don't really think the Buyers under stand the damage it is going to do to  low volume sellers.

[momcqueen]

You're right. Buyers absolutely will not understand the damage to a seller if they answer No to The Question. When I checked my Seller Dashboard Preview, I was surprised to see this in the text:

If you ship on time and upload validated tracking or your buyers tell us the shipment was on time when they leave feedback, you're all set.

Otherwise, if the tracking details or your buyers indicate that more than 10.00% of your transactions were shipped late, we may follow up with you about the handling time you offer in your listings.

When there's no tracking information available and no response from the buyer, the transaction won't be counted

Was it always ten per cent? And 'follow-up with you about your handling time' doesn't sounds very threatening. Was this what eBay announced when all this began?

[momcqueen]

There's this:

http://community.ebay.com/t5/2015-Fall-Seller-Update/Seller-Dashboard-Previews-are-Now-Available/m-p...

and then this http://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2015/11/1446759651.html for context.

 Early reactions are that Americans are pleased as punch as they have access to TRACKED service that we do not. 

[dutchman48]

What everyone is worried about is that it is not based on transaction, but only on tracked items and if no tracking, how many people answer the question.

example - if you sell 100 items with no tracking, and say 10 answer the big question, and 1 answers No, you are now at 10%. If 5 answer and 1 says NO you are at 20%. The other 90  or 95 transactions per examples are not counted at all as the question was not answered and no tracking.

This is generally what Canadians are concerned about and the US sellers that sell items without tracking.

The US boards are also concerned as the USPS is becoming ver lax with scanning and delivery times.

[dutchman48]

The other issue is the number of buyers leaving feedback has diminished over the last few years so your chances are higher that problem ones will and feedback has to be left as part of the answer to the question. Your percentage goes up as number of feedback reduce every time a bad one shows up.

It is very skewed against the seller from day 1 and the US sellers are also worried about this.

Ebay of course will say it is the greatest and most wonderful thing they have done to help sellers which is an outright lie. It is the forked tongue speaking.

[momcqueen]

---

@dutchman48 wrote:

The other issue is the number of buyers leaving feedback has diminished over the last few years so your chances are higher that problem ones will and feedback has to be left as part of the answer to the question. Your percentage goes up as number of feedback reduce every time a bad one shows up....

I couldn't agree more. 

Most of my buyers are not professional ebayers, they are people who come to ebay looking for one very specific thing, buy it and leave for another three months. Maybe that doesn't make them ideal buyers in ebay's books but they work great for me.

One thing they don't do is bother to leave feedback.

I mean, SERIOUSLY, do I call Kraft to say, 'Hey, great job making my Kraft Dinner taste so delicious!' every time I cook my kids some lunch? Or do I call only if I find live grubs in it? The latter.

People leave feedback if they're unhappy. Or if they're happy but only here to do something else. AZON also encourages people to rate the service they received and have I ever done so to say, 'Great job?' No. But I have when a third-party seller sent my books caked with food sticking the pages together.

Gross. And, yes, I checkled ebay first and none were available of that title here. 

p.s. I've never found grubs in my KD. Organic quinoa is another matter. 

[sylviebee]

mjwl2006, you've been so upset over the changes coming in a few months and have posted extensively about it.

When you look at your dashboard do you have numerous defects due to shipping or time which you wouldn't have with the old method?

Are your defects the same or perhaps even lower?

[momcqueen]

Fair question.

As of the last time I looked at them (yesterday) the new dashboard is exactly the same for defects as the old. None. I have none under either method of evaluation.

That can either be construed as luck. Or luck. I do try very hard however to dispatch as quickly as possible, and to ensure every buyer is always happy with their item and whatever freebie I can find room to include in their package.

[sylviebee]

So perhaps now you an relax a little.

[momcqueen]

I certainly would if I knew how to relax.

[pjcdn2005]

Early reactions are that Americans are pleased as punch as they have access to TRACKED service that we do not. 

Really? I think that many U.S. sellers are not happy with the change because USPS does not always scan a package the same day and there have been lots of delivery delays in the past few months.   Sure they have an advantage in that tracking costs less there but that doesn't mean that this new system will work well for everyone.

[momcqueen]

From what I read as to the reaction on the ebytes blog which I included as a link, the sellers who waded into the debate were pretty pleased with themselves. Early reactions, remember. The next 20 people to comment might have felt differently.

[sylviebee]

I'm pleased as punch with the upcoming changes.

However, to me none of it makes sense. 

Of all the things I care about when buying shipping time doesn't even get a nod.

Yet, for some reason eBay has decided to make it so BIG for everyone.   

Am I that different from other buyers?  

[momcqueen]

I don't like to wait a week for any seller to ship my order but I am way more concerned about getting exactly what I ordered. The new system of evaluation never made sense to me.

[sylviebee]

Isn't it also true that a week after you have the item you forget if it took a little longer to get to you, but if you paid too much for shipping you remember.

It the item wasn't as described you never forget that.

So why all the hoopla over shipping time?

[momcqueen]

You've got that right. Spot on.

I'm not sure exactly the purpose behind the emphasis on ship-time. I can only surmise it was ebay's way of curtailing shady merchants from overseas who don't send anything. That's my guess. Or dissuading international transactions altogether. (But that doesn't make much sense.) Or eliminating untracked shipping. Or appealing to the Big Sellers who ship quickly but very inaccurately.

[sylviebee]

Perhaps the logic behind the new system is this:

Buyers are pretty much covered for item not as described with sellers paying return shipping.  Sellers who don't describe items accurately will be penalized when they have to pay return shipping.

In relation to the break on shipping cost defects, that makes sense as well.  How can eBay penalize sellers for high shipping costs now that they've introduced the GSP and are pushing tracked shipping to this extent?

Pushing a shipping method (and profiting from it) with crazy high shipping costs and then penalizing other sellers for high shipping costs may be too contradictory even for eBay.

The only thing left is shipping time and so they've come up with some convoluted system to give us defects for that.

The other one........... penalizing for items being out of stock may be aimed at the largest retailers.

So, in some ways the system does make sense.

[momcqueen]

In some ways, yes. But like I complained from the onset, it now makes more sense from a seller self-preservation standpoint to ship a buyer the wrong item QUICKLY if you find yourself out-of-stock. Out-of-stock cancellations equal defect. Wrong item? No defect but maybe the buyer complains and you pay return shipping (and re-shipping, I guess) but avoid getting into actual trouble with eBay and that's just wrong. It will lead to shenanigans and buyers will still find themselves disappointed. That's my fear. When buyers are left to feel abused, betrayed and deceived, they don't come back to take any more chances. It saddens me that the platform has a not-great reputation now and I still worry the new system of seller evaluation will lead to more trouble down the road.

It remains to be seen. I do try to keep an open mind but.....

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

I just checked my seller's dashboard. It says I got 5 transactions over that month that were rated (I sold around 40 items). 1 of the buyers rated it as late shipment (it's to Poland) and this particular buyer did message me at the 3 weeks mark asking about the item because eBay's overly optimistic delivery estimate date was up (despite I do 5 days handing time...). I told her that I'll refund her if the book doesn't arrive by the 30 days mark (it did arrive). She did give me 5 stars positive feedback but apparently answered "no" to the question despite I explained to her that I have no control over local delivery time...

Needless to say, I have just blocked her and block the whole country lol. This is only my second sale to Poland over the past 5 years so I'm not losing much blocking it. Maybe next time if she decides to buy from me again she can message me via our previous conversation and I'll tell her why I blocked her. 

As much as I dislike this new defect system, I do like how it shows me which transaction was rated "no" so that I can block those buyers accordingly... 

[sylviebee]

mjw2006, it's true that some sellers may opt to ship nothing or a different item, but that has always been true and it's not new.

Those who went that route before will do so after.

A lot of buyers already feel abused and so that's not new either.

Some sellers are looking at looking at their reports and complaining that they have defects for late shipping, but I wonder if they're looking a the whole picture.

Since other defects disappear one has to factor that into the mix and I'm pretty sure that on the whole most will breathe a sigh of relief.