Ebay's New Fall Seller Update

[ponylady]

I just received an email with EBay's new updates for fall. I thought it would be beneficial to post for both buyers and sellers alike. It seems they are trying to make the playing field a bit more fair for everyone, especially sellers.

Top Rated Seller grace period helps stabilize your status and benefits

 Your proven track record for great service and your excellent ratings from buyers have earned you the important status and benefits that come with being an eBay Top Rated Seller. We know this is important to your business, and that sometimes factors not related to your performance can impact your sales and ability to upload tracking.

 So starting August 20, as long as you continue to meet the performance requirements and have been a Top Rated seller for three consecutive months, if you temporarily dip below the program's sales and/or tracking requirements you'll have a grace period of two monthly evaluation cycles—time to get back on track without losing your status, discounts or benefits.

Highlights•Starting August 20, you'll have a grace period—time to get back on track without losing your status, discounts or benefits—if your annual transaction count falls below 100 transactions, your annual sales fall below $1,000, or the tracking information uploaded to eBay within your stated handling time falls below the required 90% of transactions (but no lower than 85%).
•Sellers are evaluated on the 20th of each month for compliance with the requirements to be a Top Rated Seller. If you don't meet the sales and/or tracking requirements at the time of evaluation, the grace period will give you two full evaluation cycles to get back on track. During this grace period, your listings will continue to be eligible for Top Rated Plus discounts and other benefits, as long as you continue to meet all other Top Rated Seller performance requirements.
•You'll be entitled to a grace period as long as you've been a Top Rated Seller for three consecutive months immediately preceding the evaluation, you've uploaded tracking information on at least 85% of transactions to US buyers within your stated handling time, and you meet all other performance requirements of the Top Rated Seller program.
•Coupled with all the ways eBay protects your seller ratings, including removing negative feedback and low DSRs when they come from just a few buyers and automatically awarding
5-star ratings when your performance is a matter of record, this new grace period will help give you the stability and backing you need for continued success.


Added safeguards for your hard-earned feedback

 Today, thanks to the increased amount of objective information available about transactions through member-to-member communications, uploaded tracking, item specifics, and other advances, eBay is able to remove negative and neutral feedback and low ratings from your record in many more situations than ever before. A new expanded Feedback Removal policy now clearly defines these situations, including when the feedback is removed automatically and when and how you can request removal from eBay customer support.

Highlights

Automatic safeguards

The new Feedback Removal policy clearly outlines when eBay will automatically remove feedback and low ratings or award 5-star ratings. In general:
•Negative or neutral feedback and low ratings are removed automatically when our information shows that the feedback was left by a buyer who, for example, didn't pay, was suspended, or shows a pattern of leaving low feedback.
•Feedback and low ratings are also removed automatically when they are the result of a major event out of your control such as a weather-related delay, postal strike, or natural disaster.
•In some cases, 5-star detailed seller ratings are automatically awarded when we have information that you followed best practices such as shipping within one day and offering free shipping.

Feedback removed on request

The new policy also outlines specific situations when you can contact eBay Customer Support and ask for feedback and low ratings to be removed. In general, feedback and low ratings are eligible for removal when:
•The feedback comment contains inappropriate content, for example, the buyer posts an obscenity or leaves comments not related to the transaction, such as political or religious commentary.
•The feedback and low ratings are unrelated to your performance or inconsistent with the information contained in the specific fields for that data provided by eBay in the listing form. For example, you chose "used" as the item condition and the buyer left negative feedback and a low rating for item description because the item was used.
•The buyer made an error. For example, he left feedback for the wrong seller or the wrong item.
•eBay determines that removing the feedback and low ratings is the right thing to do, for example, when it results from an eBay system issue or if PayPal puts a hold on the buyer's payment and advises you not to ship.


NEW in eBay managed returns

 eBay managed returns makes it easy to boost sales by offering the confidence-inspiring return policies buyers want—especially holiday buyers. Recent and coming updates make managed returns even easier: support for replacements as well as refunds, the ability to issue a refund without requiring the buyer to physically return the item, and a guarantee that return shipping will never cost more than original shipping when you use eBay Labels. And if you suspect that a buyer may be taking unfair advantage, eBay will step in and help: when you "report a return issue" from the link in My eBay, an eBay customer support agent will investigate and get back to you promptly. When an issue is found in your favor, eBay will credit your account.

Highlights

What's new in eBay managed returns:
•When you use eBay Labels to ship an item, eBay guarantees your return shipping costs will never be more than what it cost you to ship the item to your buyer originally.
•Starting in August, you can offer your buyers replacements as an alternative to refunds.
•For items you decide are not worth the cost of return shipping, you can now set it up to issue a refund but inform the buyer not to return the item.
•You can now give buyers different return shipping addresses based on your pre-set conditions. For example, you may use a third party fulfillment center that processes returns for items they ship on your behalf, but you might also process your own returns for items you send out directly. Now you can create rules to send returns to these two different locations.
•When initiating a return, buyers are now presented with a detailed list of reasons for returning items. This gives you a more precise reason for the return, and helps reduce the instances of buyers choosing your item description as the reason for the return.
•In some situations, eBay will pick up the tab for return shipping. For example, if a buyer chooses your item description as the reason for the return to avoid paying for return shipping, just click the "report a return issue" link in My eBay. An eBay customer support agent will investigate and get back to you promptly. If it's found in your favor, eBay will pay for the return shipping.


 

[achab1984]

Thank you for posting this, I have not read this yet. Looks like some good stuff

[lovesbabysquirmy]

So it looks like people will be able to file a return case, get a refund, and still keep the ponies, if I read that correctly.    Hmmmm... 

[MikeysGrrrl]

I read this before work this morning, it's about time ebay helped us sellers out a little

[ponylady]

So it looks like people will be able to file a return case, get a refund, and still keep the ponies, if I read that correctly.    Hmmmm... 

It's only if your seller has it set up that way.

•For items you decide are not worth the cost of return shipping, you can now set it up to issue a refund but inform the buyer not to return the item.

[Ringlets]

Thanks for posting this Ponylady