03-24-2024 03:53 AM
First of all it is truly upsetting when I call customer service and they say thank you for all your years of service. My account has been setting at below standard for 5 months for 3 disputes because of eBay Standard Shipping. I have sold thousands of cards using this service and at least 5 to 6 hundred tracking never updated. I never looked at it being any big deal because I always refunded a buyer who said item as not received. The problem with this is when your account is below standard eBay will not try to sell your items. The reason why is you are unable to pay the added pimping fee, proper wording Promoted Listing fee. I am a disable person and I really use a lot of energy to put items up for auction. If you are not going to help sell my item tell me. You are charging me $50 a month for a store and I can not even sell $20 of items each month.
03-24-2024 05:37 AM
And why would you pay for a store when you don't even have 250 items listed? eBay gives you 250 free listings a month without a store. There is no benefit for someone like you to pay for a store. You have 14 solds in the last 3 months. Not much more than that even listed now.
IF you are paying for a store, you are choosing to throw away the money. That's on you.
03-24-2024 05:57 AM
Why would anyone expect love from any corporation? Despite what some corrupt failed railroad CEO Supreme Court clerk ruled in the late 19th century in a header to a legal opinion (the justices never did rule on the question) corporations are not people, they have no feelings of any sort.
03-24-2024 06:23 AM
Are you referring to eBay Standard Shipping -- or the eBay Standard Envelope (ESE), which are two different shipping services?
If the ESE is the issue, the solution may be as simple as the method in which it is mailed: The most secure method (which nearly always provides an initial "scan" within a few days) is to physically drop the ESEs into the "Metered Mail" slot, located in most post office lobbies.
Since USPS considers the ESE to simply be yet another piece of contracted business metered mail, the ESE dropped into the "Metered Mail" slot will be mixed with other business contracted metered mail. At the end of the day, that "Metered Mail" container will be delivered to the USPS Distribution Center associated with your post office, where it will be immediately added to the sorting machines, receiving its initial acceptance scan.
Your ESEs may NOT receive that initial scan if you simply hand the ESEs to a USPS counter employee, or a USPS delivery driver. Additionally, the ESEs may NOT receive that initial scan if they are dropped in a USPS "blue-box," or a residential mail-box, or an office mailing system. Because the ESE is metered mail, all these alternative mailing methods may delay the initial scan -- or there may be NO initial scan whatsoever.
Some sellers may find it inconvenient to mail the ESEs in the "Metered Mail" slot in the post office lobby; but it seems to be the answer for getting that initial scan -- I've been mailing all my ESEs in this manner for the last few years, without any problems, and no buyer complaints.
Good luck.
03-24-2024 09:46 AM
@1packofsportscards wrote:First of all it is truly upsetting when I call customer service and they say thank you for all your years of service. My account has been setting at below standard for 5 months for 3 disputes because of eBay Standard Shipping. I have sold thousands of cards using this service and at least 5 to 6 hundred tracking never updated. I never looked at it being any big deal because I always refunded a buyer who said item as not received. The problem with this is when your account is below standard eBay will not try to sell your items. The reason why is you are unable to pay the added pimping fee, proper wording Promoted Listing fee. I am a disable person and I really use a lot of energy to put items up for auction. If you are not going to help sell my item tell me. You are charging me $50 a month for a store and I can not even sell $20 of items each month.
The writing is on the wall...
Wow - It's scary to think how many sellers are in this EXACT SAME position - Making less, as much, or barely over what they are paying in ebay fees (fvf, store fees, promoted listing fees, etc). I see people posting similar situations on these boards and I see many other posters with 1500 or more listings selling 10 to 20 items a month saying how they love it here. It just absolutely boggles my mind that people can be so careless with their time and the earning value of that time...
03-24-2024 10:09 AM
You are a card seller, you could pull yourself back up to top rated in one month.
Forget sports cards for this.
Go get yourself about 50 Magic the gathering cards that are worth at least 4 or 5 dollars each.
List each one of them $1 under tcgplayer low.
They will sell out fast. You will be back to top rated next time you get assessed.
You aren't going to climb out of below standard with a 27 item card store.
03-24-2024 10:14 AM
It just goes to show, most people do not value their own time. And then they wonder why they get in bad financial situations. Every month, ever seller needs to evaluate the time they put in (real, HONEST time) and how much the end of the month, they brought it. If those numbers suck like a minimum wage job or even worse, then cut your losses and find something else to do. Investing more time and money probably is not going to get you better results. It will just dig the hole bigger.
People make bad decisions. We all have made them. But at some point, people need to get smarter, evaluate the situation, and make changes. Why is it that most people can do all that when it's a job and your employer is treating you poorly, they can see it and look for another job. But when you are doing something for yourself, people just let it go on until you are bankrupt?
Financial education is sorely lacking through ALL of America. "Street smarts" is more than something hooligans should have.
03-24-2024 10:35 AM
ESE is an attempt by USPS to gerryrig a new service to utilize excess First Class Letter capacity by repurposing the routing bar code to tracking.
The motivation of the USPS and sellers using it is primarily financial, and it is an inferior service.
Ebay's motivation appears to have been to allow sellers of very inexpensive items to avoid the penalties associated with shipping untracked, or deciding not to offer very cheap product which cannot stand the costs of a proper tracked service.
You have discovered that you get what you pay for, and ESE is no bargain when you have to pay the fee for Below Standard performance.
I tried it, decided I was playing Russian Roulette and stopped before creating the problem you have.
Ebay cannot fix, this service. USPS cannot fix this service. You might be able to fix it by changing how you package the cards in the envelope, but every seller who uses it successfully has a different recommendation.
As a seller with a significant number of low ticket items sold, you were in a tight spot. Looks like your current limited offerings are aimed at a ticket which is more realistic for a proper shipping service, but obviously cannot reach the volume you had. And, of course, make the effort to get out from under the Below Standard penalty almost impossible for many months.
Of course, Ebay has recently increased the categories which can use ESE hoping they will find some products which behave well using it.
If someone can sell something which is a lot like a letter, they can probably safely use it.
03-24-2024 11:22 AM
Thank you for the reply, but doesn't this mean I will be losing more money to eBay. You do know when your account sets at below standard you pay eBay's standard selling fee and an extra 6 percent. I already try to list some cards lower than every other seller, why do I need to bend over anymore. I am a honest seller and eBay knows that.
03-24-2024 11:33 AM
Why are you paying for a $50. level store or any store?
03-24-2024 11:55 AM
Thank you for your reply, all my items are shipped via the post office mailbox. I even started adding Please Scan for tracking on the front of the envelope to to avoid problems. Plenty still would not get scanned and some that got scanned would stop at out for delivery. All I trying to say is that eBay knows I am a honest seller, why hurt my account for USPS not doing there job. This is out of my control I do not work for USPS. The buyer gets a refund from me ever time. I do not know why eBay would think I would ship out items to these 500 buyers and not to these 3 buyers. How are you ever to become above standard seller if they are not selling any of your items.
03-24-2024 12:02 PM
Remember Ebay is not our friend just business, keep that in mind if you want to sell anything on ebay.
03-24-2024 12:30 PM
Thank you for the reply, All my feedback is from selling an that is why I have a eBay store and wrote the post. Also I had just renewed my yearly subscription and if you cancel it there is still a big penalty fee. I had no ideal my account would be held for ransom this long. Why leave 2000 items listed when absolutely nothing was selling. Without above standard account you cannot Promote (pimp fee) without Promoting you cannot sell. I call it pimp fees because since this introduced on eBay I notice I was paying more in fees than what I was taking home. So why I was trying to sell an item cheaper then the next seller I was hurting my take home. My take home is not eBay fought that's all me for not paying attention.
03-24-2024 12:38 PM
Please Scan
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as explained in post #4...............ESE is not a "scan the tracking # " service.
03-24-2024 12:41 PM - edited 03-24-2024 12:47 PM
Why leave 2000 items listed when absolutely nothing was selling.
_______________________________________
Because you most likely cannot get to "above standard" without selling unless the defect can age off. When the defects are aging off, the good sales also age off. Selling more generally works out better than "aging off" when trying to climb out of that hole.
What is the %age shown on your seller dashboard? Sales #'s.... defect #'s?
If you do not improve the %age............................ the account may be shut down.
You are locked into a "store". Use it.🙂
As another posted................ selling quickly at a loss can sometimes be the solution to get you out of that 6% hole.