eBay

ricarmic · ‎09-11-2015

Well here's another semi-annual update.

As we all do, I read them and try to figure out what impact they have on my business.

(It is worth noting that the online portion of my business currently "lives" on 4 online sites like eBay. 3 of the 4 are undergoing changes that have significant exposure to me, one site is merging into another, somewhat messily for me it appears)

The eBay delivery standards are an exposure for me, probably 90% of my shipments are not tracked.

The boards tend to be depressing during times like this, but there is good information to be gleaned as well....my goal is to mitigate the risk/impact as much as possible on my business.

I am a planning/contingency kinda guy, so here's my thoughts so far: (remember I sell stamps and I choose to be a .COM guy)
- I will continue to watch the boards for other ways/ideas to lessen the impact/risk
- eBay has been collecting information already, I'm assuming they'll give us some sort of advance reporting so we know how we are doing
- the following are on the assumption that my advance reports are bad
- I had considered putting extra information into my buyer communication to ask them to be kind in their shipping delivery answers
- I had considered changing my flat rate "standard shipping" to "economy shipping" which I think increases/extends the delivery estimates
- I hadn't thought to extend my handling time from 2 days to 5 days or whatever (because I already break the 1 day rule, my current is 2 days, I don't think it will make my search results any worse to add a few days anyway - but I will still ship in 2)
- I will increase my efforts on the non-eBay sites and non-online venues (despite the frustrations, eBay to this point remains the easiest and best site for me based on effort/return. If that changes, so will the % of effort I invest in my eBay "product lines" relative to the non-eBay "product lines")
- I will adjust the above as I learn, observe, understand more around the changes

As it has for the last 37 years and 32 (or whatever it actually is) semiannual eBay updates since I joined eBay, I expect my business will survive....

rose-dee · ‎09-11-2015

@ricarmic wrote:

- I had considered putting extra information into my buyer communication to ask them to be kind in their shipping delivery answers

I'm sure we're all thinking hard today. I'm a planner/strategizer by nature as well, and I always try to be on the top of the wave, not drowning under it. However, this is a major shift, not what I expected.

Your comment above got my attention. Currently in the little insert "thank-you" note I put in every outgoing parcel, I say that I'd appreciate positive FB if the buyer is satisfied. I'm now going to remove any reference to feedback entirely.

The way I see it, since negative/neutral FB and DSRs are meaningless in terms of seller evaluation, and could actually spell trouble, I'm not going to encourage them. I figure anybody who does bother to leave FB will be the happiest buyers and will most likely say the item arrived within the delivery estimate anyway.

The most troubling aspect however is the fact that eBay has lowered the allowable threshold for defects for TRS sellers from 2% to a mere 0.5%.

For smaller "boutique" sellers like me, one single failure of Canada Post to deliver on time, or one single customer reporting that an untracked item was late, could mean utter disaster. To give this some sense of reality, it only takes 1 such late delivery in 200 transactions in a year to put a TRS seller at the 0.5% level (or 4 late deliveries in a year for non-TRS sellers). How many times in a typical year does weather/customs clearance changed our delivery expectations?

I am very worried.

pierrelebel · ‎09-11-2015

"To give this some sense of reality, it only takes 1 such late delivery in 200 transactions in a year to put a TRS seller at the 0.5% level"

Actually, it is worse than that (please do not call me paranoid, I am not)

A 'late delivery" is charged to your account even if the item was delivered on time (within schedule) but, in the opinion of the buyer leaving feedback, it was later than expected!

And that is the real problem. eBay could easily eliminate that problem of false late delivery but chose not to. Puzzling.

And eBay thinks they are giving sellers more control! Using less subjective context! Is there anything more subjective than asking a buyer an opinion on delivery time? Could a buyer be wrong one half of one percent of the time?

lukey9 · ‎09-11-2015

I'm waiting to see how they handle the Free Shipping to pass judgement on it. If it is like now the Buyer does not get to judge the speed of delivery as they are not paying for it but if it is a separate rating than free shipping is not going to help much unless you have a large volume of sales to off set the defects. It is going to hurt allot of small sellers including me as I only do it as a hobby now but it could be the end of small sellers which is what E-Bay wants any way.

pierrelebel · ‎09-11-2015

"now the Buyer does not get to judge the speed of delivery as they are not paying for it "

Buyers currently do rate sellers on shipping time even if the seller offers "free shipping".

http://pages.ebay.ca/sellerinformation/tips-for-selling-online/effective-ebay-listings/seller-rating...

rose-dee · ‎09-11-2015

@pierrelebel wrote:

Actually, it is worse than that (please do not call me paranoid, I am not)

A 'late delivery" is charged to your account even if the item was delivered on time (within schedule) but, in the opinion of the buyer leaving feedback, it was later than expected!
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Yes, I think that's what I said above: "...one single failure of Canada Post to deliver on time, or one single customer reporting that an untracked item was late, could mean utter disaster".

And by "reporting", I was referring to buyers' perception (or to be more generous, their recall, which may not always be correct).

ricarmic · ‎09-11-2015

Hi Rose!

I am confused by the 2% vs 0.5% - those defects are for situations where the person ordered but I don't have, or a case is escalated and I lose. So far those are not a problem for me with my current processes.

The one that is a problem for me is the 3% late deliveries for TRS or 7% as non TRS,

The loss of TRS is a concern from two perspectives, cost and exposure.

In my own case, I am not sure what impact losing TRS will have on my exposure. I know I'm dropped somewhat already because I do not have 1 day shipping. How much worse will it be?

The financial impact of losing the 20% off FVFs is a pain of course, but in my own case, at this moment, eBay is my cheapest means of selling! (Because of my lower volume on the other sites I have to use $$ costing things to attract customers which drives up my overall selling rate %, and the "snail mail" selling costs are and always have been higher than any of the online stuff). Losing the FVF will bring eBay to about the same level as the other sites.

I'm more worried about the exposure, but because I really don't know where I stand now, it becomes a wait and see.

Even the 7% may be a problem depending on how bad the customer perspective is, hopefully the advance reporting will give me an idea where I'm at.

It is quite possible that I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say, let me know if I misunderstood!

rose-dee · ‎09-11-2015

@lukey9 wrote:
I'm waiting to see how they handle the Free Shipping to pass judgement on it. If it is like now the Buyer does not get to judge the speed of delivery as they are not paying for it but if it is a separate rating than free shipping is not going to help much unless you have a large volume of sales to off set the defects.

As Pierre mentioned above, currently it's the cost of shipping buyer's don't get to give a rating for in DSRs if the shipping is free.

I agree with you that whether (and where) the question is presented to buyers in a situation where shipping has been free will be important. It would be a valuable recognition by eBay of Canadians' particular shipping issues if they would simply not permit buyers to pass judgment on non-tracked delivery time if the shipping were free! That might be the saving grace for a lot of Canadian sellers.

And incidentally, why would it be so hard for eBay to remove that question (late receipt) for Canadians only in a free shipping situation?

I think I'm going to pose that question myself...

rose-dee · ‎09-11-2015

@ricarmic wrote:
Hi Rose!

I am confused by the 2% vs 0.5% - those defects are for situations where the person ordered but I don't have, or a case is escalated and I lose. So far those are not a problem for me with my current processes.

The one that is a problem for me is the 3% late deliveries for TRS or 7% as non TRS.

Oh yes, you're quite right about the percentages. We're all trying to sift through the mass of verbiage and numbers just released on this policy.

To correct my error in the post above (she says with a red face ), I'll quote from the FAQs on the Seller Update regarding TRS (under the section dealing with Canadian sellers only):

"To meet minimum performance requirements in the Global Standards program, Canadian sellers can have a maximum of 2% of transactions with defects and a maximum of 9% of transactions with late shipments (that do not meet the new on-time shipping requirement).

To meet minimum performance requirements in the US Standards program, the thresholds will be a maximum of 2% of transactions with defects and a maximum of 7% of transactions with late shipments. [...]

Note: In addition to meeting the requirements for the new defect rate and on-time shipping, all sellers will still be required to maintain a maximum of 0.3% of closed cases without seller resolution."

So this means, for a seller with 200 transactions in a year, a threshold of 18 late shipments for Global TRS and 14 for US TRS (not US TRS Plus, which has additional requirements). That seems stringent but not terrible, unless the seller is using non-tracked shipping almost all the time and his/her buyers regularly leave feedback.

rose-dee · ‎09-11-2015

OK, one more time! I picked up the wording from the FAQs for the regular performance standards. Here are the Canadian TRS standards:

"To qualify for Top Rated seller status in the Global Standards program, Canadian sellers can have a maximum of 0.5% of transactions with defects and a maximum of 5% of transactions with late shipments.

To qualify for Top Rated seller status in the US Standards program, the threshold will be a maximum of 0.5% of transactions with defects and a maximum of 3% of transactions with late shipments."

So yes, for Global TRS, we're looking at 5 late shipments allowed in 100, for US TRS only 3 in 100. That's pretty difficult for a Canadian seller to maintain.

Here's the link to the page -- look under the "Highlights" section, under "What's Changing", near the bottom of the FAQs list.

http://pages.ebay.ca/sellerinformation/news/fallupdate2015/seller-standards.html#faq=faq-7

lukey9 · ‎09-11-2015

It must be the fog here today my brain has gone to sleep, either way I think we are screwed this time.

momcqueen · ‎09-11-2015

I've been up all night trying to see this Update for what it truly is and my initial reaction is that it is a huge step backwards for ebay. The current use of Defects was the only thing that kept the really awful, really BIG sellers in line. Under the new policy, a seller can ship the wrong item or a busted item and get piles of negative feedback for it and none of that matters in ebay's eyes as long as tracking shows it was delivered on time. That is terrible news for buyers.

So let's look at this like an unethical seller that provides poor service: buyer places an order. Seller realizes they already sold it. Does the seller cancel the purchase and gain a defect? Nope, the seller sends the buyer any old piece of junk that they've got laying around and they do it fast, with tracking. Does the buyer return it? Maybe? Leave the seller negative feedback? Maybe. But who cares? The seller doesn't have any defects for this and, therefore, nothing is wrong.

Compare and contrast to an ethical seller offering a low-cost untraced service. Right item, mailed right on time. Held at Customs. Delayed by storm. Wrong 'estimated arrival' on the listing (which we know is a reality). Buyer leaves feedback. Did it arrive by xxx date? Who knows, they don't remember, and who cares anyway? Defect.

I can't do anything better as a seller than I already do. I have been one hundred per cent faithful to ebay and ebay alone. In the past three years, I've brought several dozens of new users to the platform because I won't entertain orders outside of ebay even for local pickups.

This aspect of the update is all wrong.

pocomocomputing · ‎09-11-2015

@lukey9 wrote:
It must be the fog here today my brain has gone to sleep, either way I think we are screwed this time.

Add in the expected Canada Post rate increases and/or changes to services (like Light Packet price doubling in 2 years, last year Expedited Parcel USA volumetric weight rate sneaky increase in price), early 2016 with new eBay policies also starting in Feb are going to hurt Canadian eBay Sellers a lot.

Canadian Sellers are a resilient bunch and many will overcome the challenges ahead.

momcqueen · ‎09-11-2015

@pocomocomputing wrote:
@lukey9 wrote:
It must be the fog here today my brain has gone to sleep, either way I think we are screwed this time.
Add in the expected Canada Post rate increases and/or changes to services (like Light Packet price doubling in 2 years, last year Expedited Parcel USA volumetric weight rate sneaky increase in price), early 2016 with new eBay policies also starting in Feb are going to hurt Canadian eBay Sellers a lot.

Canadian Sellers are a resilient bunch and many will overcome the challenges ahead.

You're right, they will. Canadians in general are resilient. How else would we survive and thrive in this hostile environment?

I mean environment like climate in the sense of weather, by the way. Hahaha.