Seller cancelled stating "out of stock"

[echo43]

Long story short I used "buy it now" to purchase a book. Seller had no problems and said he would ship it Monday. Tracking information created but they never send the item. A week later they cancel saying "out of stock".

I assume they regret setting the price low. Is there any repercussions for this or can the seller just do what they want?

[musicyouneed]

Hi I sell CD's and have on occasion not been able to find the CD that sold.  I have spent hours looking for the missing CD but couldn't find it.   Sometimes I have even purchased another one on ebay or another website and sent it to them.  If I can't and can't find the original I explain and apoligize to the buyer what has happened.   When that happens I get a defect on my selling account and my sales suffer because of it, plus I can loose any top seller benefits.

Don't assume that they weren't happy with the price they set.  Might be a large book dealer who thought he has something in stock when he/she didn't.    I am just a small buyer so I am able to answer and deal with individual issues but for some of these large sellers, it might be imposible.  

[femmefan1946 · Accepted solution]

When the seller cancelled as Out Of Stock, he hurt himself much more than you.

You are disappointed and got your money back.

He got a Defect which can restrict the number and value of his listings, increase his selling fees, or even close down his selling account.

If he is a newbie, he might not have known how harsh are the penalties for being "out of stock".

I assume they regret setting the price low.

To avoid this situation, which does occur you have two strategies.

Don't bid on auctions from newbies who have starting prices that are too low. You probably know what the market price is, but a new seller may be cozened into starting low to "build interest".

Auctions are not popular enough for this to work.

Buy from Fixed Price listings, or jump in early and use the Buy It Now option.

[echo43]

It was a but it now, not an auction, but thank you for the advice

[echo43]

They are not a wholesale or large seller. Looks like just someone selling stuff around the house.

[rocketscollectibles]

I cancelled once for being out of stock when i started selling on eBay not knowing it would give me a defect and 4 months later this noob mistake still hurt me because i need 200 transactions instead of 100 to earn a top rated seller badge now. No seller wants to cancel for being out of stock

[rocketscollectibles]

I see you have 0.94% for being out of stock and still top rated seller, don't it needs 0.5% and under? Am i wrong?

[femmefan1946]

https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/selling/seller-levels-performance-standards?id=4080&st=3&pos=1&quer...

To become a Top Rated Seller, you'll need to:

• Have an eBay account that's been active for at least 90 days
• Have at least 100 transactions and $1,000 in sales with Global and/or US buyers over the past 12 months
• Comply with eBay's selling practices policy
• Meet the requirements for transaction defect rate, cases closed without seller resolution and late shipment rate. You'll find the requirements in the table below

If you've met these performance standards requirements, we'll automatically upgrade you to the Top Rated Seller status at your next evaluation. 

Although Canadian sellers do not need to meet the US tracking requirements to be a Top Rated Seller on the US site, they do need to meet all US requirements (including tracking) in order to have the Top Rated Seller seal on their listings. This is to ensure a consistent buyer expectation for US buyers.

[rocketscollectibles]

On the fourth point it says ''meet the requierement for transaction defect rate''

And lower it says it's 0.5%:

 

Number of defect rates that affect your rating

Transaction defect rate
Transactions with one or more of the defects listed below.

Requirements	All Sellers	eBay Top Rated Sellers
Maximum percentage of transactions with defects	2%	0.5%
Maximum number of unique buyers affected before seller status is impacted	4	3

Just wondering how @musicyouneed can have 0.94% and be top rated seller and if those numbers are wrong, or if there's something i'm missing

[teenytrinkets]

I am a seller with stock in in the hundreds, and misplace stock more than I'd like to. I also sell on different platforms and often forget to update some inventory on ebay. In other words, it happens. And it's rarely due to nefarious reasons, as you've assumed. It's seller error, and we're penalized for it.

[pjcdn2005]

@rocketscollectibles 

@femmefan1946 

Both the percentage and the number of defects are taken into account so a seller would have to have more than 3 AND be over .5%

[pjcdn2005]

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@rocketscollectibles wrote:

I cancelled once for being out of stock when i started selling on eBay not knowing it would give me a defect and 4 months later this noob mistake still hurt me because i need 200 transactions instead of 100 to earn a top rated seller badge now. No seller wants to cancel for being out of stock

---

One out of stock defect doesn't hurt and afaik there is no such thing has needing to have 200 transactions to be a trs.  Where do you see that information?

[rocketscollectibles]

I thought it was the opposite than you said and we needed to meet both requierements, not only one. Seems strange to me but if it's true i'll take it. So i thought we needed under 0.5% and less than 3 to be top rated. Not that we could have over 0.5% and less than 3, or under 0.5% and more than 3

So 0.5% = 1 defect per 200 transaction. Since i need 100 transactions to be top rated, but i did a defect, i thought i needed 200 instead

[echo43]

This was not a seller with a stock of hundreds and messaged me personally after I had won the auction. They completely ghosted and canceled the sale a week later. It was pretty clearly a nefarious reason.

[pjcdn2005]

If you go to sellers hub / performance / seller levels and then click on All program details on the left side of the page it shows you under Requirements  "Do not exceed the maximum limits of both percent and count".  So one defect on its own doesnt affect your seller level regardless of your sales.