In today’s Seller Release, eBay announced that for below standard sellers, there will be an additional 4% fee added to the standard final value fees at the time the item sells. This will be in addition to other sanctions for below standard sellers such as lower search placement, fund holds and the loss of Featured and Anchor Shop privileges.
When eBay announced surcharges for below standard sellers on eBay.com, they said it was to “to be reflective of the friction that it brings to the marketplace“. Putting this very plainly, if you don’t meet the minimum standards then it’s quite likely that you’re contributing to an old view of eBay that it’s a flea market with buyers taking their chances on products being as described, delivered on time and sellers providing after support service. That’s not eBay today.
No sellers should fall foul of getting resolutions resolved before they are escalated to eBay, so in general it’s just the defect rate and late delivery rate that you should be concerned about.
If your seller level is not Below Standard, you will not be affected by the additional fee. You can track your seller performance level in your seller performance dashboard to avoid your seller level falling Below Standard, according to the following criteria:
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|---|---|
| Defect rate | |
| Maximum percentage of transactions with defects | |
| Maximum number of unique buyers affected before seller status may be impacted | |
| Late delivery rate | |
| Maximum percentage of transactions dispatched late | |
| Maximum number of transactions dispatched late | |
| eBay Money Back Guarantee or PayPal Buyer Protection cases closed by eBay without seller resolution | |
| Maximum percentage of cases closed without seller resolution. Applies after account has exceeded maximum number of cases below | |
| Maximum number of cases closed without seller resolution | |
How below standard sellers surcharge works
As an example, if the normal final value fee is 8% and your account is below standard then the final value fee would increase to 12%.
Above Standard and eBay Top-rated Sellers will not be affected by this change.
19 Responses
Good.
Makes the bad sellers less price-competitive – eventually killing them off
Isn’t there possibly a legal problem for Ebay here?
When I look at our stats for the Global region we have a lot of late deliveries. Nearly all of them are down to Ebay estimating economy shipping to places like Spain or Russia would only take 2-3 days.
Ebay’s policies state they will remove defects if the inaccurate estimate was caused by a fault in their system. However I’ve never actually successfully had one removed – they always state the seller is in control of the estimate which just isn’t true for international shipping.
So the end result is Ebay can specify impossible estimates and then fine you for not meeting them.
tyler – how does forcing bad sellers off give the market place a bad name?
There is extremely worse changes for Ebay Toprated sellers and sellers with a shop/store. Ebay are bleeding us dry. No wonder there has been a hugh increase in sellers creating Ecrater shops. Maximum fee for any sale is approx 8%, compared to Ebay UK where in Pet supplies it is 12% + Paypal fee 4% = 16%
Not standing for it Ebay
Will – when you leave ebay can I have your customers?
This is really quite clever — it means that the marketplace isn’t in the business of throwing sellers out — which means that it isn’t in the business of banning dolphins too.
Businesses that have an operational hiccup and stray into this area will cost them money but they get to trade out of it, rather than the nightmare that sellers have faced by having sales restricted when on the naughty-step and consequently being unable to get off it again.
I’m pretty sure there’s a point where they will look at consistently poor sellers — those who break rules and don’t even try to keep up with good service standards and show them the door.
It seems to me that some of the bad sellers have very cheap prices with a small margin but because they are so busy they dont have their stock in place when they sell it and instead mark it as dispatched but dont send it. Hopefully it will discourage busy fools making 5p an item.
Im more upset about the loss of the 14 days return policy. I used to be top rated with a discount and 30 days policy but I was doing £300 of refunds a month for a ebay top rated discount which was a fraction of that cost. I changed to 14 days and refunds are now £50 a month and Im busier than ever.
@tyler Its ladies clothing, 30 days is for TRS but I knocked it on the head and changed back to 14 days. Its been less hassle. Less repacking due to less returns and lower monetary losses of postage which is refunded with returns. What do you sell? I would love less returns.
I understand that good sellers want to see bad sellers punished, but eBay have removed automatic seller protection so each DSR has to be appealed manually.
They also give buyers unrealistic delivery dates which do not match those given by the post office.
Also, if sales slow, the period over which you are judged increases from 30 days to 365 days.
Looks like eBay are setting people up to fail, and profiteering in the short term.
Can you imagine the workload of eBay seller support having to deal with each DSR related call? Hundreds of thousands of man hours,,,, talk about making things difficult for yourself. Just do away with discounts and make it a level playing field with transparent fees,,,, but that’s too obvious I suppose.
“Can you imagine the workload of eBay seller support having to deal with each DSR related call? Hundreds of thousands of man hours,,,, talk about making things difficult for yourself…..”
Sounds like a plan to get it changed over time?
Really wish eBay would get a grip on ebay International Delivery estimates.
Had a customer last week order late Thursday afternoon in Norway. Delivery estimate Saturday – Sunday?
How possibly?
It couldn’t even be dispatched until Friday so thats less than one business day delivery? Even a UK next day service would be Monday?
You’d think the customers might understand but no, they genuinely do chase up after 3 days wondering where the item is because its missed the estimate…
Then we get a late delivery marker. 🙁