Service metric removal not given to sellers in very high category for service metrics?

[midwestmotoring]

So, let me get this straight......

You put in the very fine print that sellers who are very high in service metrics will NOT be allowed to have service metric cases removed.

Thus, the very sellers who have been affected by false INAD claims (who have documentation of these false claims) that put them into the very high category......will not even be able to have these removed still?

The whole point of getting false INADs removed is so one that does not go into the very high category. Am I missing something here?

[mtnbkr96]

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@midwestmotoring wrote:

So, let me get this straight......

You put in the very fine print that sellers who are very high in service metrics will NOT be allowed to have service metric cases removed.

Thus, the very sellers who have been affected by false INAD claims (who have documentation of these false claims) that put them into the very high category......will not even be able to have these removed still?

The whole point of getting false INADs removed is so one that does not go into the very high category. Am I missing something here?

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Hi @midwestmotoring,

Sellers are not Very High in Service Metrics due to false INAD claims from buyers. They are Very High because there is a problem with their business.  Sellers who are very high should not rely on protections to fix the underlying issues in their business.  They should review their business and make the necessary changes to bring them in line with their peers.

[midwestmotoring]

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[bargainbigly]

@mtnbkr96 

Respectfully, your comment to @midwestmotoring  was highly innapropriate. Really, what do you know about his business or any other business which sells here?

The idea that eBay's service metrics determines whether someone's business is good or bad is illogical at best. 

How many warehouses does eBay own? eBay is a website. They own no warehouses, no inventory, and have very little idea of what it actually takes to run a distribution warehouse and actually put physical products into the hands of customers. 

Again, respectfully, please dial back the tone here. Nothing to be gained from throwing accusations at sellers. You have been very helpful with your comments on other threads. 

Based on your comments, half of the year we would also be a bad seller and in need of fixing our business. Our GMV sales are up 100% over the past 12 months. eBay's are down 10%. Honestly, it's eBay that needs to fix their underlying business. 

The "Us Against the Sellers" mindset is what has destroyed your company. 

Best of luck to all

[midwestmotoring]

No, he is right....we obviously have business issues.

After all.......we only have over 51,000 feedback with literally 100% feedback, have been TRS for years, have all 4.9's for DSRs. I see our feedback profile was changed to the new layout today....in which it says under the TRS designation, "one of ebay's most reputable sellers" and "consistently delivers outstanding service."

He is definitely right about one thing.....we need to review our business. sgicinc, like you said in another thread....you sell lots of places. Time to start doing that here, too.

I've been a BIG Ebay cheerleader for a long time, too. No more.

[mtnbkr96]

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@bargainbigly wrote:

@mtnbkr96 

Respectfully, your comment to @midwestmotoring  was highly innapropriate. Really, what do you know about his business or any other business which sells here?

The idea that eBay's service metrics determines whether someone's business is good or bad is illogical at best. 

How many warehouses does eBay own? eBay is a website. They own no warehouses, no inventory, and have very little idea of what it actually takes to run a distribution warehouse and actually put physical products into the hands of customers. 

Again, respectfully, please dial back the tone here. Nothing to be gained from throwing accusations at sellers. You have been very helpful with your comments on other threads. 

Based on your comments, half of the year we would also be a bad seller and in need of fixing our business. Our GMV sales are up 100% over the past 12 months. eBay's are down 10%. Honestly, it's eBay that needs to fix their underlying business. 

The "Us Against the Sellers" mindset is what has destroyed your company. 

Best of luck to all

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@bargainbigly @midwestmotoring 

Apologies if my tone sounded short or inappropriate.  I am certainly not trying to create an us vs. them environment. 

When a seller has very high service metrics it is usually due to a challenge they are having with their business.  It could be a product that has an issue.  It could be shipping challenges.  There are a number of reasons they could be high in their service metrics.  An evaluation of their business is a good place to start.  Being Very High in service metrics is unusual and most sellers do not run into this problem.

@midwestmotoring If this has been a challenge, we can review your account to see if there are any contributing factors.

[bargainbigly]

@mtnbkr96 

Thanks for that, and thanks for taking the time to answer so many questions today. Your responses have been very helpful. 

The problem I have with this whole issue, is that Amazon say's we're doing great, millions of dollars sold on that platform. 

Walmart say's we're doing great, and we do bigger volume there than eBay. 

Google seems to think we're doing great too. We're one of only 2,000 merchants worldwide to have been accepted to sell on their newly created "Google Shopping Actions" platform with reduced commissions. 

eBay say's we need to improve our business and provide a "better buyer experience"?

Doesn't add up. 

I'm a strong believer in free market economics. I'm confident this will all work itself out. 

Best of luck to all. 

[bargainbigly]

@midwestmotoring 

You are an automotive seller. You need to get on Facebook marketplace. 

A marketplace rep from Facebook is currently helping us get setup there. If you shoot them a message, they'll assign an account rep to help you get your listings up. 

We didn't ask for an account rep. They solicited us. Seems like they're reaching out to online sellers with the type of listings they are looking for. It's probably a matter of time before they reach out to you give your strong history and diverse high quality listings.

Automotive sellers are doing well there from what I hear. 

Facebook is using the Google backend, so if you're already listed on Google Shopping, you just need to push your feed to Facebook. That easy. 

Sales there are lower than eBay right now, but give it time and I'm confident you can replace your eBay revenue within a couple years. 

Facebook is a sleeping giant in the e-commerce space. 

[albany_sellers]

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@mtnbkr96 wrote:

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@bargainbigly wrote:

@mtnbkr96 

Respectfully, your comment to @midwestmotoring  was highly innapropriate. Really, what do you know about his business or any other business which sells here?

The idea that eBay's service metrics determines whether someone's business is good or bad is illogical at best. 

How many warehouses does eBay own? eBay is a website. They own no warehouses, no inventory, and have very little idea of what it actually takes to run a distribution warehouse and actually put physical products into the hands of customers. 

Again, respectfully, please dial back the tone here. Nothing to be gained from throwing accusations at sellers. You have been very helpful with your comments on other threads. 

Based on your comments, half of the year we would also be a bad seller and in need of fixing our business. Our GMV sales are up 100% over the past 12 months. eBay's are down 10%. Honestly, it's eBay that needs to fix their underlying business. 

The "Us Against the Sellers" mindset is what has destroyed your company. 

Best of luck to all

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@bargainbigly @midwestmotoring 

Apologies if my tone sounded short or inappropriate.  I am certainly not trying to create an us vs. them environment. 

When a seller has very high service metrics it is usually due to a challenge they are having with their business.  It could be a product that has an issue.  It could be shipping challenges.  There are a number of reasons they could be high in their service metrics.  An evaluation of their business is a good place to start.  Being Very High in service metrics is unusual and most sellers do not run into this problem.

@midwestmotoring If this has been a challenge, we can review your account to see if there are any contributing factors.

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It could also be that bad buyers have opened false INAD cases to get out of return shipping, and eBay has decided to not do anything about it. Just saying.

[midwestmotoring]

I'm not one of those who feels like "buyers lie on returns on purpose to get a free shipping label" (at least with our returns). Plus, our items are light.....this isn't worth it for buyers to do this over a $3 label normally.

Rather, it's simply a matter of buyers not reading the item description or viewing pics. I don't think they are maliciously doing this. HOWEVER, that does not take away the fact that 90% of these INADS opened are actually buyer-faulted returns and you aren't giving me a way to get these de-scored.

sgicinc is NOT kidding when they say literally 90% of the returns for INAD opened against sellers in these categories, in reality, buyer errors. I'm not just guessing, I have actual evidence (whether it be from the buyer in the message when they open the return or in follow-up messages) proving the return reason was incorrect.

I don't buy the whole level playing field thing, either. All sellers get undeserved negs....yet Ebay removes those with proof, do they not? They don't say "well, we don't remove feedback because you all are on a level playing field". Service metrics is a money grab, plain and simple. I wouldn't care if this were like $50 a month....but this is literally THOUSANDS per month we are having to pay because of this penalty.

Just saying, you are NOT trending in the right direction when sellers consider Amazon to be more seller friendly than Ebay.

@mtnbkr96

By all means.....if you actually have some pull to do something, feel free to contact me and go over our returns so you can see the actual proof of this on our account. I'd be cool with the whole level playing field explanation if, like, we were over the limit due to 2 or 3 cases where the buyer lied.....because that would signal an issue still with the rest. However, when we are talking NINETY PERCENT......then we aren't the issue. Our "peers" in the auto category says 0.92 or something is normal (which tells you right there the problems with the auto category as that's really high compared to other Ebay categories).....we, in reality, should be 1/4 of that. There is a reason free returns are not a requirement for sellers on Motors (which might be one of the two or three exempted categories for free returns on the entire site).

[midwestmotoring]

@bargainbigly

No doubt......there are definitely other places to sell. Most of those sites suck....but there are 3 or 4 legit sites now where you will get ridiculous traffic.

However, we started with Ebay. I've been partial to them and, for lack of a better term, I've been an Ebay fanboy for a long time. Most of the anchor reps are AWESOME...like legit fix issues easily and quickly. However, I can't deal with devoting my time to a site anymore that isn't going to simply make decisions based on merit when those decisions are wrongfully taking a ridiculous amount of money from me. They say our TRS track record is important....but it's not because they are deeming us **bleep** sellers to where they won't even take our reports under this new policy.

If I have 35 returns for INADS and only 7 are valid...then I want 28 removed when I've provided you proof for those 28 being wrongfully filed. Not one more...not one less. I want FAIRNESS.

[dasarock]

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@mtnbkr96 wrote:

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@midwestmotoring wrote:

So, let me get this straight......

You put in the very fine print that sellers who are very high in service metrics will NOT be allowed to have service metric cases removed.

Thus, the very sellers who have been affected by false INAD claims (who have documentation of these false claims) that put them into the very high category......will not even be able to have these removed still?

The whole point of getting false INADs removed is so one that does not go into the very high category. Am I missing something here?

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Hi @midwestmotoring,

Sellers are not Very High in Service Metrics due to false INAD claims from buyers. They are Very High because there is a problem with their business.  Sellers who are very high should not rely on protections to fix the underlying issues in their business.  They should review their business and make the necessary changes to bring them in line with their peers.

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this is a very ebay like political answer … what you are telling me in effect is that service metrics are fostered by ebay who wants them higher so they can charge more fees.  I have 1 ONE hit in metrics due to a well packaged parcel damaged by usps and totally out of my control, yet ebay can't and or won't remove it.  I am a fairly small seller, but even I know that the number of similar cases rises in proportion to sales, pushing metrics higher.  

[mam98031]

This is a really tough subject.  I've been against the Service Metrics since they announced it and I don't like it any more today than I did then.  Not because it has a negative impact on me, because it hasn't.  At least not yet.  But because I think having two different ways to eval your sellers in inherently wrong.

Selling on Ebay among the complex and ever changing rules is a hard road to navigate safely.  Not to mention how much time it takes to learn, know and understand all the rules and the constant changes.  The there is once we get a handle on what we are doing, things change again and the cycle starts all over again.

But this policy in particular is very vexing.  Two main reasons from my point of view.  One is that back when Ebay changed how and what sellers are eval'd on with the Seller Dashboard items, they PROMISED us at that time that Return requests that were resolved while in the request stage [no asking Ebay to step in], would NOT be held against us in our stats.  Yet here we are and they now count against us.  The mere fact one gets opened counts.  Even if it is an honest mistake by the buyer in opening the darn thing, it counts against us.

So that is my first pet peeve about this policy.  The other is the lack of transparency on who is chosen as our peers.  For some sellers, sub categories are everything.  These sub categories can change all kinds of things in the return arena.  But we have no idea who we are being compared to and if it is even accurate.

Now I know that privacy rules could come into play here.  But I don't think that this reason dismisses the concerns.  I do respect that in the current policy it could come into play.  But I say the policy needs to be redesigned so this isn't an issue.  

Sellers will NEVER accept being blindly compared to others.  Who would or who should??  It isn't realistic to expect seller just to accept this, and it certainly isn't going to happen as is clearly seen here and on other threads.

If this is something Ebay is set on doing, they need to come up with a better way.  Some categories are absolutely HIGH RISK in and of themselves.  Fashions, Jewelry, Electronics, Auto parts are just a few that jump out at me as having high returns.

When you get a TRS seller in the highest of standings falling prey to the Service Metrics and the penalty phase, that is a head scratcher for many.  

Just some thoughts.  Believe me I could and have gone on and on about this subject.  I do believe Ebay's intentions are good, I just think this policy is bad.  For what that is worth.

[midwestmotoring]

I think the service metrics idea is a good one but Ebay does not correctly calculate it. Again, like feedback.....EVERYONE should be able to call in and get these removed if found to be false because it is COSTING PEOPLE MONEY.

How about the INR service metric.....that is another horribly administered metric. We have never been "really high" for the INR one....but we definitely are 3-4 INR's away each month from being really high.

Why is that? Want to know the breakdown for the 7 INR's we have counting against us right now in service metrics? ALL SEVEN orders were shipped on time, tracking uploaded/scanned on time, and delivered within the estimated delivery date. ALL SEVEN. In each case, the buyer opened an INR AFTER tracking had already showed delivery as the buyer claimed they had not received it. All seven cases were closed in our favor. Again, this exact scenario has happened probably 95% of the time on INR's (as opposed to the 90% false INADs). Also, no, none of these buyers contacted us before the INR was opened so it's not like we failed to provide basic customer service that could have prevented it from being opened.

So what would happen if we got 3-4 more like this? Ebay's sanctions would add 5 business days onto our shipping time meaning no one would buy anything from us. So, tell me, how would adding 5 business days onto a seller's shipping time stop this exact scenario of a buyer opening an INR AFTER the tracking was scanned delivered? Exactly....nothing.

This is NOT the type of seller the INR service metric is designed to punish. They are designed to stop people who ship late, don't upload tracking on time, use poor shipping carriers that take days past the delivery date to arrive, etc. Yet, I'm sure some sellers have been nailed on that. It just makes zero sense.

[go-bad-chicken]

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@mtnbkr96 wrote:

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@bargainbigly wrote:

@mtnbkr96 

Respectfully, your comment to @midwestmotoring  was highly innapropriate. Really, what do you know about his business or any other business which sells here?

The idea that eBay's service metrics determines whether someone's business is good or bad is illogical at best. 

How many warehouses does eBay own? eBay is a website. They own no warehouses, no inventory, and have very little idea of what it actually takes to run a distribution warehouse and actually put physical products into the hands of customers. 

Again, respectfully, please dial back the tone here. Nothing to be gained from throwing accusations at sellers. You have been very helpful with your comments on other threads. 

Based on your comments, half of the year we would also be a bad seller and in need of fixing our business. Our GMV sales are up 100% over the past 12 months. eBay's are down 10%. Honestly, it's eBay that needs to fix their underlying business. 

The "Us Against the Sellers" mindset is what has destroyed your company. 

Best of luck to all

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@bargainbigly @midwestmotoring 

Apologies if my tone sounded short or inappropriate.  I am certainly not trying to create an us vs. them environment. 

When a seller has very high service metrics it is usually due to a challenge they are having with their business.  It could be a product that has an issue.  It could be shipping challenges.  There are a number of reasons they could be high in their service metrics.  An evaluation of their business is a good place to start.  Being Very High in service metrics is unusual and most sellers do not run into this.

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 Or it could be as simple as eBay's seller peer sampling is skewed to benefit eBay.

As sellers we have no idea, because our buisness partner wants to hide the posted speed limit signs while it simultaneously hands out speeding tickets.