Above-Standard PSs launch 16th January
by Sue Bailey
The last posting date has passed, and all good eBay sellers ought to be sitting down with a glass of sherry and a mince pie. But don’t relax too much – there’s an eBay fee change on the cards!
Remember back in July when the Top-Rated Seller program was announced? Part of that announcement was that the currently-existing PowerSeller discounts would be phased out, to end in January – and yes, to be replaced with a new and still more confusing discount system.
As of January, there will be three classes of seller on eBay UK: TRS, the new Above-Standard PowerSeller, and ordinary mortals. Here are the FVF discounts they will receive:
| PS level | Top-Rated | Above-Standard |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze/Silver | 20% | 5% |
| Gold/Platinum | 25% | 10% |
| Titanium | 30% | 15% |
Sellers who do not qualify as either TRS or ASPS will no longer receive any discounts on their FVFs.
So if you haven’t made it to the heady heights of TRS – or you are, like so many sellers, dipping in and out of that program on a monthly basis depending on whether you’ve had a couple of grumpy buyers or not – will you qualify as an ASPS? You’ll need:
- All DSRs to average 4.6 or higher
- Item as described DSRs: no higher than 1% (or 3 total if that’s higher) 1 and 2 scores
- All other DSRs: no higher than 2% (or 3 total if that’s higher) 1 and 2 scores
(As with TRS, DSRs scores are looked at over 3 months if you’ve completed more than 400 transactions in that period, and over 12 months if you haven’t.)
ASPSs are not boosted in search, nor can they use Featured First. They don’t even have a spiffy badge like Top-Rated Sellers, so as far as buyers are concerned, they look just the same as ordinary sellers. The FVF discount is the only advantage.
Even at Christmas, it would be wrong of me to start a rumour that Below-Standard PowerSellers are getting a badge all of their own, so I won’t…
23 Responses on "Above-Standard PSs launch 16th January"
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I can’t help being reminded of that famous sketch on the Frost Report.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mYY1QGK0jQ
Its all well and good ebay having a matrix of different discounts, but you have got to have sales in order to receive any discount regardless of your ebay status.
This is where it all falls down.
Until ebay start supporting business sellers i.e. those most likely to achieve TSR & PS then it’s all a bit meaningless.
5% to 25% discount is poor recompense for a series of badly implemented changes to the platform.
As far as I’m concerned you can keep all the discounts – just give me a platform I can sell on without jumping through different coloured hoops every other week.
Even by eBay’s standards, this is complicated.
Either way you dress it up, it’s a fee increase. And it’s not a great way to run a business when your fees are determined by a small number of disgruntled, and anonymous, buyers.
we dont care ,
we are TRS at the moment and as soon as we are not
20p will be added to every postage cost
Lol!@entire article!
Once I was a powerseller and got no discount and ebay was cheap.
Ebay speaketh and I received a discount and ebay was cheap.
ebay speaketh again ( oh forked tongued charlatain that it is) and my discount was reduced and ebay is cheap.
so no change really.
I quite like the new BSPS badge, and will be aiming for that
See – I consulted the community and they liked the idea
What difference does it all make; the buyers are going; any sellers that have not already donned their life jackets and jumped overboard are simply going to slowly starve to death as the old tub, under the command of the latter-day Captain Queeg, spins around and around in ever diminishing circles until eventually …
Let’s face it people the horse has been seriously ill for the past year or so now, and it is obviously approaching its final death throes—as your Xmas sales will confirm—but the idiot jockey, ‘Noise’ Donahoe, is still beating it mercilessly with his whip, still trying to find his lost performance bonuses; thinking that he can forever keep increasing the fees to offset the reductions in revenue: this man is a fool!
Why is ‘Noise’ Donahoe trying to destroy eBay? Because ‘Could be an Evil Monster’ Meg left him the instructions on how to do so. Good luck California!
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6502877
PS: At least ‘Meg2010’ has found a local web designer with a sense of style and an understanding of visual communications (but programming in India is cheaper).
As far as I am concerned eBay made their first biggest mistake by introducing discounts!
Now no matter what they do everyone’s going to grumble.
They should have decreased listing fees and commission rates instead.
But i guess it does work in making sellers improve service … like it did to us!
Sincerely thanks to eBay …
Well, we had TRS for a month, but due to a few manipulative “buyers” we’ve now lost our badge, so we are now demoted. The next blow will be a hike in fees, we think we’ll have to pay an extra 20%. If only some nice big ‘Richard Branson’ type could launch a viable alternative
I never priced my sales or worked my strategy on the assumption I would earn any discounts, and have never factored the discount as anything more than a performance bonus.
I’d hate to build and rely on an ebay business that depended upon a variable fee reduction/bonus payment.
eBay only wants big sellers and will increase costs to make profit on the smaller boys or it pushes them out but in anycase ebay won’t care.
The ebay full or buyers that are upset about the way they are being treated but as soon as they give out hard facts then they face the risk of posts being deleted and dirt tricks from eBay.
Oh what a surprise, another fee increase.
Actually we’ve been calling ourself (and our friends) ASS es for weeks now as the acronmym for ebay’s phrase Above Standard Seller – Should make it easier to make a badge
I’ll take one please!
I don’t price based on getting their discount. I don’t expect to ever get their discount. I just try to provide good customer service and the oneofakind items that lil ol “Johnboy” hates.
He’s gonna have to personally throw me off this boat to get rid of me. I will not give him the satisfaction of leaaving and letting him do whatever he wants with no one complaining. So join me on the “poop” deck of the titanic ship of USS EBay if you will and let’s make a ruckus. (He hates noise you know)
Elizabeth
Heheh. That would be why eBay are calling them “Above Standard Power Sellers”, of course. I’ll make a badge later
I always refer to eBay users as “users”, for to refer to them as “members”, as eBay does, is to imply that the organisation is run for some benefit of those “members”—it is not: No action taken (or not taken) by eBay management has anything to do with benefiting or protecting eBay users (buyers or sellers); eBay’s every action (or lack thereof) is purposed solely towards benefitting eBay—and by whatever means, no matter how unscrupulous—undoubtedly more to do with the recovery of those “lost” executive performance bonuses than with any direct consideration for stockholders—and if at any time there appears to be some benefit to eBay “users”, that will be purely coincidental.
‘I always refer to eBay users as “users”, for to refer to them as “members”, as eBay does, is to imply that the organisation is run for some benefit of those “members”—it is not’
Oh right, so how come I paid myself 6 figures last year via eBay, did the tooth fairy pay me Phillip?
And you are going to surpass that figure this year?
Absolutely, without any shadow of a doubt.
You do know that counting the 2 figures after the decimal point is kinda cheating??
Now there is a confident man: doing better than even eBay itself. Not wanting to offend you Whirly, but you wouldn’t be in the employ of eBay would you?