eBay

pierrelebel · ‎09-10-2015

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m09/i10/s05

eBay Changes Seller Defect Rate as Part of Fall Update

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m09/i10/s06

rose-dee · ‎09-11-2015

@zee-chan-jpn-books wrote:

"....that sounds like a workaround people might use."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

That's only effective as a "workaround" as long as the buyer doesn't open a case (ask eBay to step in). Quite frankly, if I had a seller deliberately do this to me, I'd quickly get eBay involved. And I think eBay would quickly determine through looking at messages (or a buyer's upload of a photo of the received item), what had really occurred.

"I think that with the seller-cancelled transactions they should actually give the buyer an opportunity to rate whether or not they are satisfied with the outcome to make it count as a defect...."

Not a bad idea on the face of it, but that would again be leaving the decision (as to defect or not) essentially in the hands of buyers, not all of whom are going to be complete honest or willing to act in good faith. It would go against eBay's current position of wanting to minimize subjective input as a basis for seller evaluation.

I still agree with eBay on principle at least that the onus is on the seller to control their inventory accurately. This is one area where there really isn't any good excuse for slipping up (even if it's an "honest" mistake). I suspect out of stock problems are more common with big volume sellers (especially those who drop-ship), and with new sellers who have not yet learned to properly manage eBay's admittedly rather unwieldy listing system. In that sense, I think it was fair to leave that defect stand as a reminder.

pjcdn2005 · ‎09-11-2015

The seller cancellation defect may also be to prevent sellers from refusing to send an item when the auction price ended lower than what they had hoped for.

I do think that out of stock problems are more prevalent with larger sellers rather than smaller ones. I admit though that there have been a few items over the years that I couldn't send out because it had flaws that I hadn't noticed when it was listed.

pjcdn2005 · ‎09-11-2015

Generally, I'm not a 'sky is falling' kind of guy. I've seen many previous EBay Seller updates which at first glance seemed "onerous", but in practice turned out to be much less threatening...or at least workable in our day to day business on EBay. As a vet Seller, you just learn to roll with these things. I mean, hey, I'm a sport. Most Buyers are still good, decent, fair, and reasonable people. I still believe that, otherwise I could not continue doing this.

I totally agree and I try to be fairly laid back when it comes to changes like this too but I don't always succeed.

As far as your cancellation, if you phone customer service you should be able to get that removed and I would do that just in case it is carried over to the new system. Ask the cs rep to look at the message from the buyer and tell them it was not a seller initiated cancellation.

Normally if you cancel and refund the order through ebay and use the reason that the buyer changed mind, you should not get a defect. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the way you did the cancellation and refund but you definitely shouldn't have a defect.

pjcdn2005 · ‎09-11-2015

Congrats on your 500 transactions!

rose-dee · ‎09-11-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
... although I don't think that this is the same thing as choosing one out of 5 numbers for a shipping time dsr.

I agree with you, 'pj'. The new procedure will be a simple "yes" or "no" question presented to the buyer, who may or may not recall accurately (and may say "no" just in case), or may feel this is an opportunity to retroactively lodge a "survey" complaint about service, especially if the buyer is in the U.S. and accustomed to U.S. domestic shipping times. This procedure will be qualitatively different from a subjective rating of 1 to 5.

The vast majority of my buyers are American. Many often don't recognize that they are buying from a foreign country, and that items will have to go through a change of hands from one postal system to another, and through customs. Add any "weather event" to the mix anywhere along the line, and suddenly you're looking at double the expected domestic U.S. delivery times.

I would feel much more comfortable about these changes if eBay had given Canadians a somewhat higher percentage allowance and had calculated the allowance based on total transactions, especially for sellers on a yearly evaluation.

I don't mind being punished for things I can, or should have control over. However, it's conceivable that many of us will lose TRS over just 2 or 3 mishaps that are completely beyond our control. I could add that eBay would no doubt be happy about that, as they probably regret having handed out TRS like candy to so many so quickly.

zee-chan-jpn-books · ‎09-11-2015

That makes sense from an auction POV, but fixed priced items should be listed at the price the seller wanted unless they listed the wrong price by accident... and well if a seller cancelled a transaction for an item and then relists it at a high price they certainly should be dinged.

And thanks

Back on the shipping time topic, I think if eBay is gonna ding us for "slow/late" shipment, they should reaaaaally give us to option to input our OWN shipping estimate time. eBay's default delivery estimate time is overly optimistic half of the time.

rose-dee · ‎09-11-2015

@doc_scribe wrote:
So my question to other Sellers (and our hosts if they're lurking) is this: "Under EBay's new evaluation standards, is there a mechanism for handling a Cancellation Request due to the Buyer's mistake or change of mind that won't result in such defects?" If not, this is a very questionable metric to be pegging our selling reps on.

I'm surprised that you would have received a defect for a cancellation in the situation you describe. Keep in mind that the new policies haven't yet actually been implemented*, so a buyer-initiated cancellation request like this will still follow the current policies.

I'm wondering if the automated system recorded a defect in a sort of robotic knee-jerk reaction to the full refund, but that once the cancellation is fully processed (i.e. the buyer has accepted it), the defect will be removed? I suspect this may be the case, although perhaps someone else who has actually had this happen may be able to answer this question with certainty.

I would hold off and check your Dashboard in a few days once you know the cancellation has been closed off. If the defect hasn't disappeared, you may want to contact Customer Service, especially since you have eBay messaging to back up your position.

Best of luck with this!

* The FAQ on this Seller Update indicates the new seller standards go into effect Feb. 20, 2016, so I imagine that applies to any other changes as well.

doc_scribe · ‎09-12-2015

According to EBay, it's already closed, and I'm [sic] "all set". This was the message I received:

"You canceled an order from --------, and we already notified them. You already refunded the buyer for this order, so you're all set. Thanks for canceling this order for the buyer.

You'll get a final value fee credit in your account that you can apply toward listing more items to sell on eBay. Please note that it can take up to 24 hours to post the Final Value Fee credit to your account."

Acknowledged was the fee reversal, but no mention whatsoever about any impact on my Seller defect rate.

I certainly agree that a call to CS is in order, but why should that mutual time- and resource-wasting activity even be necessary in such cases? I mean, the Cancellation webform already cited "At Buyer's request" as the reason for cancellation, further acknowledged via EBay's boilerplate message.

So clearly the system-level awareness of the reason for this cancellation is already there. I don't understand why that didn't also automatically prevent or deep-six the defect.

rose-dee · ‎09-12-2015

Yes, this really makes no sense at all, does it? I'd either wait a day or two to see if the "bots" on the other side of the equation remove the defect automatically, or you can try calling eBay Disservice.

It's unfortunate that we have to waste time and effort on the phone with eBay over such things, but for sellers without massive volumes of transactions every month, every defect can be critical. I'd do what I could to get it removed. As 'pj' said, eBay really should be able to recognize that this defect needs to be taken off your record under the circumstances.

I wish you the best! Perhaps come back and let us know the outcome. It would be interesting to know whether my theory about the robotic lag is correct (left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing in other words!).

doc_scribe · ‎09-12-2015

Will do. Thanks for your input.

gemaddict · ‎09-12-2015

I too am a bit worried about the shipping time question. I often have queries about orders that are only a few days out. I had an angry Russian buyer message me after a week because PayPal sent him a notice saying the shipping time was 4-7 business days! I have now gone from being tired of the mostly unrealistic shipping estimates that CP gives to being extremely worried.

I recently received two defects under the requests "item not received" because the buyers used the resolution center that they were steered to by eBay instead of just messaging me. They only wanted to ask about their orders. Neither were upset but both were mortified when they found out how using the resolution center for questions can impact a seller. Ebay has since removed these defects at my request.

I do everything I can to be a good seller. I ship within one business day..often the same day. I rarely use tracking for the same reason others don't. Most of what I sell is worth less then the tracked shipping cost. Only more expensive items ship with tracking. I would say well over 90% of my buyers are from the U.S. So yes I am worried. I even had one lady say that she keeps forgetting we are not part of the U.S. when I told her she needs to consider her order has to go through customs! I just had one order take four weeks to go to the U.S. which is extremely rare but does happen. Totally beyond my control. So we are to be penalized for the postal/customs services screw ups. Wonderful....

triber · ‎09-12-2015

Like a lot of other sellers here, most of my shipping is letter mail or light package. A check of my feedback shows that most of my buyers are very happy with delivery times. I let buyers know when they pay that shipping to the US can take up to 17 days to arrive, so I hope most of them are not disappointed with the delivery time.

I have 4 defects, 3 are for items that got lost in the mail, and I refunded, but still got a defect, at least that won't happen in the future. However good a seller we are, we are at the mercy of the mailing system, or unscrupulous buyers, which I think I have had a few of.

sylviebee · ‎09-12-2015

I'm surprised that posts about the upcoming changes aren't extremely positive and excited about being rid of the current horrid system.

The only possible place I can see that the new system could be problematic is when and untracked item arrives after the estimated date of delivery provided by the CPO.

In those cases, buyers who are actually taking the time to leave ratings might also take the time to read the question closely and also check the calendar before they tick a date. How many buyers leave FB on the date of arrival, and who really remembers when the item arrived?

So many ifs...

Possibly, maybe, could happen.......... but by far outweighed by the positives of the new system.

I'm still not quite sure if increasing handling time reflects negatively on the seller, but there's always that option if someone is really worried about this. So maybe that's an easy fix even if not 100% honest. It's a forgivable lie.

rose-dee · ‎09-12-2015

sylviebee wrote:

I'm surprised that posts about the upcoming changes aren't extremely positive and excited about being rid of the current horrid system.

Consider for a moment what the effect will be of removing almost all of the current defect factors from millions of sellers who were otherwise held in check or removed from the site as a result of the defect system. All they really have to do now is use tracking, keep their items in stock, and avoid cases they can't win.

As much as I was always concerned about getting a defect and disliked the draconian nature of the system, it prevented a good deal of bad behaviour and very effectively cleaned up eBay's site.

I would have much preferred that eBay had simply left things as they were for another year, and given sellers with a proven track record an occasional free pass on defects. For Canadian sellers who can't regularly afford tracking, the new system will be a tough slog, based primarily on good luck, knock on wood, and fingers crossed. EBay says it's going to be judging us only on factors we can control -- what nonsense!

I'm sure you are right where American sellers are concerned -- they will be very excited and extremely positive about this overhaul because reasonably priced tracking is available to them and they have an enormous domestic market.

Buyers however will not be quite so happy once they have to deal with the consequences of eBay's removal of most of the defect-generating factors.

momcqueen · ‎09-12-2015

My thoughts exactly. This is a raw deal for most Canadian sellers and a terrible one for buyers everywhere.

sylviebee · ‎09-12-2015

rose, As you know, eBay recently introduced a system where sellers have to pay return shipping costs when buyers file a claim for INADed.

To me it looks as if they waited a while for that to sink in before they announced the up-coming changes to the rating system.

I mean, really: Could there be a more stringent control than having to shell out return shipping costs which include tracking to keep sellers in line?

I can't think of anything, and that's probably why they now deem the old rating system unnecessary.

To me these things combined feel like a huge step in the right direction for buyers and sellers alike.

tobyshitzu · ‎09-12-2015

.com board already specualting on how to avoid the the low "cancel for out of stock" tolerance. Just send *something* tracked and resolve the buyers SNAD and not get a defect. Tell the buyer right away and cancel for out of stock, defect. Of course that wont work for most of us with CP rates the way it does with cheap USPS rates. Doesnt make any sense you can be left better off to intentionally let the buyer think their item is coming, but thats the way it is.

rose-dee · ‎09-12-2015

Yup, case in point. Let the games begin.

sylviebee · ‎09-12-2015

@toby**bleep**zu wrote:
.com board already specualting on how to avoid the the low "cancel for out of stock" tolerance. Just send *something* tracked and resolve the buyers SNAD and not get a defect. Tell the buyer right away and cancel for out of stock, defect. Of course that wont work for most of us with CP rates the way it does with cheap USPS rates. Doesnt make any sense you can be left better off to intentionally let the buyer think their item is coming, but thats the way it is.

How often have you actually had an item "out of stock"?

Most posters here don't have an issue with that because we either list one of a kind items, or we don't have thousands upon thousands of listings to keep track of.

It seems to me that this particular "defect" is aimed at larger scale sellers.

Rose, you have often complained that eBay favours large sellers and perhaps this suggests otherwise as it stands out as one the few ways left to get a defect and larger sellers are much more likely to be the ones to get hit with this defect.

Anonymous · ‎09-12-2015

It is HIGH TIME that we contact Canada Post to ask them to please add tracking number to all mail service like USPS does.

I noticed with small packet air to International, it has a code but with "No Delivery Scan" with Ur 086 365 907 CA, so I am sure that Canada Post can offer tracking number on small packet air. There is no excuse for Canada Post not to offer tracking number on any mail service as they have tracking machine to scan them at any time

Again it is HIGH TIME that we should contact Canada Post, if not, it is not going to happen. I have contacted them so many time and I am sure that when they receive your calls about tracking number, they will start to consider to start to offer tracking number, so please do it. Thanks.

If you don't do it, then don't whine.