How Are Below Standard Sellers Supposed to Recover Without Visibility?
Summary: keota-brown expresses frustration with eBay's policy for sellers who fall Below Standard, noting that the removal of Promoted Listings and reduced visibility make recovery difficult. mam98031 advises focusing on increasing sales volume by selling inexpensive items, offering sales, and modifying handling times, without relying solely on Promoted Listings. christworks suggests a strategic approach of engaging in transactions to change evaluation periods, emphasizing the importance of having a backup plan. Several participants agree that it is possible to sell without promotions, while tobaccocardyahoo suggests considering alternate platforms if recovery on eBay seems unattainable. keota-brown considers leveraging other business ventures while reducing eBay involvement.
I genuinely want to hear from other sellers who have experienced this.
When a seller falls Below Standard, eBay tells them they need more successful transactions to raise their percentage and return to good standing. However, eBay also takes away access to Promoted Listings and pushes their listings so far down in search results that buyers are unlikely to see them.
How is anyone realistically supposed to recover under those conditions?
I understand that eBay needs performance standards, and I am not saying sellers should never be held accountable. However, the recovery process should actually give sellers a reasonable opportunity to improve. Right now, it feels like eBay is saying, “You need more sales to fix this,” while simultaneously removing the visibility and advertising tools needed to generate those sales.
There should be a probationary period, a limited advertising option, or another structured recovery program for sellers who are actively correcting their performance. Otherwise, the policy becomes a vicious cycle that seems designed to keep sellers Below Standard rather than help them improve.
Has anyone here successfully recovered from Below Standard? If so, how did you generate enough sales when your listings were buried and you couldn’t promote them? Do other sellers agree that eBay needs a fairer recovery process?
bashort
·2 weeks agoI recently came across a seller that I was looking at to see how they could possibly sell a 12 pack of pop with free shipping for $4.82.
They only had like 4 similar items for sale but their feedback numbers show they must of had many more listings in the recent past. They also had some pretty bad feedback.
I think what they were doing is they shut down normal items and are selling a few way below cost at a loss to try and get out of the hole they were in.
tobaccocardyahoo
·3 weeks agoIMO Ebay does not care if you recover or not.
IMO You need promotion for many of the items you are selling. And some of those items are in categories where Ebay is not a venue of choice for most buyers, and has declining sales each quarter. Walmart is far more attractive for supplements, for example, and you are not priced well enough to compete with them.
Unless you can find enough aggressively priced merchandise in a category which does not require promotion, where demand is high, your time would be better spent in becoming established on another internet marketplace.
Making your way to the shorter evaluation period seems like too far a reach given where your sales are.
Good luck and best wishes on your next selling venue.
mam98031
·2 weeks agoI think that is pretty rough in reality. Ebay is here to make money. These stats that the OP got in trouble for is to make sure that sellers retain a certain standard of care with their businesses. The better sellers do the better Ebay does.
"Making your way to the shorter evaluation period seems like too far a reach given where your sales are." What does that statement mean? Ebay has one evaluation period. All sellers are eval'd on the 20th of each month for the period ending the previous month and the result of the eval is effective on the 1st of the following month.
keota-brown
OP2 weeks agoI appreciate your honest feedback, and I agree with much of what you said. At this point, I don’t plan to add any new listings on eBay. I’m looking into finding a buyer for my remaining inventory, even if that means taking a loss and moving on.
Fortunately, I also own a small cleaning business in Southeast Iowa, so eBay isn’t my only source of income. I’d rather put my time and energy into growing that business than continue pouring effort into a platform where getting back on track feels nearly impossible.
In my opinion, eBay’s fees and the way situations like mine are handled push good sellers away. I’m willing to take responsibility for where I fell short, but there needs to be a realistic path to recovery. Without that, continuing just doesn’t make sense for me.
Thank you for taking the time to look at my listings and offer your perspective. As for eBay, they can keep collecting fees from someone else. I’ve given them enough of my time and money.
keota-brown
OP2 weeks agoI appreciate your honest feedback, and I agree with much of what you said. At this point, I don’t plan to add any new listings on eBay. I’m looking into finding a buyer for my remaining inventory, even if that means taking a loss and moving on.
Fortunately, I also own a small cleaning business in Southeast Iowa, so eBay isn’t my only source of income. I’d rather put my time and energy into growing that business than continue pouring effort into a platform where getting back on track feels nearly impossible.
In my opinion, eBay’s fees and the way situations like mine are handled push good sellers away. I’m willing to take responsibility for where I fell short, but there needs to be a realistic path to recovery. Without that, continuing just doesn’t make sense for me.
Thank you for taking the time to look at my listings and offer your perspective. As for eBay, they can keep collecting fees from someone else. I’ve given them enough of my time and money.
gloryglorygifts
·3 weeks ago · EditedI promote my items on my social media accounts (Facebook & Twitter). That does help. I also send coupons to listing followers and very often get sales from them too.
BTW, you shouldn't have your wesbite link in your community profile banner. That's a big ebay policy violation, so you should take it off before they close you down. It's promoting sales off the site.
Peace and good health to you.
christworks
·3 weeks ago@keota-brown I'm sorry you fell below standard. I read that it was health issues. I get it. You can recover from it and I agree with the others, you don't need promoted listings. It does not mean it won't cost you some money if you want to dig out of the hole faster.
You need to generate sales to dig out of the Below Standard hole. It does not matter whether it is $1 sales or $100 sales. You need enough unique sales so your evaluation period is 90 days not 365 days. Right now you have 36 sales over the past 90-days. You need 400 over a 90-day period after your last late shipment. If you really want to do this, you need to find something cheap that people want and can offer at a below market price. If you find a ton of a certain widget, only list it as a quantity of one. Don't do a multi-quantity listing because you do not want one person buying all of whatever widget you find to do this with. It will take work. It will take you shipping on-time. It will take you not messing up in another metric area. It isn't impossible though.
Or, you can ride it out until the late shipments fall off. Keep doing your best. Get a back-up plan in place so that if something happens to you, your car, or whatever, you can get shipments out on-time. Worse case pull your listings down until you are able to ship on-time. Just don't forget if it is an extended period you may need to relist and save as drafts so the ended listings are not automatically deleted.
keota-brown
OP3 weeks agoThank you so much for taking the time to look at my numbers and explain this so clearly. I honestly did not understand the difference between the 90-day and 365-day evaluation periods or that reaching 400 unique transactions within 90 days could change how my account is evaluated. That information is extremely helpful.
Finding an inexpensive, in-demand item and listing each one separately is a strategy I can actually explore. At the same time, 400 transactions is a significant jump from my current 36, so I may need to balance that approach with carefully continuing to sell while allowing the late shipments to age out.
I also appreciate your advice about creating a backup plan and temporarily ending listings if another emergency happens. This is exactly the kind of specific, constructive guidance I was hoping to receive. Thank you for explaining the options without making me feel like recovery is impossible.
christworks
·3 weeks agoYou are welcome.
No matter which way you go, you'll get back on track!
gurlcat
·3 weeks ago@christworks Can you explain where you got the 400 number? That seems like an insanely high amount to try to sell in 90 days. For huge stores, no, but for most of us, it would be impossible.
christworks
·3 weeks ago@gurlcat
You are correct that 400 transactions in a 3 month period is a hard ask. I make it there during Q4, and then fall back. I am trying to get where I'm there all year.
inhawaii
·3 weeks agoIf your access to promoted listing is taken away, no problem. Your listings are not hidden. Many of us here (including myself) don't use promoted listings. People are still able to find and buy our items just fine. This may be a blessing in disguise.
keota-brown
OP3 weeks agoThank you—that is reassuring to hear. Several experienced sellers have now told me that they generate sales without using Promoted Listings, so I may have been giving that tool more credit than it deserves.
I’m going to focus on improving my listings, sending offers, running markdown sales, pricing competitively, and shipping everything on time. Hopefully this really does turn out to be a blessing in disguise. I appreciate the encouragement!
gurlcat
·3 weeks agoOf course any Above Standard seller may not need promotion, but a Below Standard one is even more disadvantaged because that status causes their listings to be placed lower in search results. Sure, people may able to find the OP's listings, but I wouldn't say "just fine." It would be more of a deep dig to find them.
keota-brown
OP2 weeks agoAgreed!
janet9988
·3 weeks agoIf the item shows up in your sold listings for 200.00 then it should be a valid sale.
NEVER reply on emails or messages.
hartungcards
·3 weeks agoThis is quite possibly the oddest response to an OP that I've ever seen on here.
gurlcat
·3 weeks ago@janet9988 What are you talking about? Did you mean to reply to a different post?
hartungcards
·3 weeks agoWhen a seller falls Below Standard and eBay takes away their access to Promoted Listings, the seller should just consider it their lucky day.
mam98031
·3 weeks agoPromoted listings is NOT the be all end all of the ways to sell. Over half the sellers on Ebay don't use them at all and they still get sales.
You are on the right track. You need to dilute the numbers as quickly as possible while avoiding whatever it is that brought you to being Below Standard. Too many Cancellation, INADs, or whatever got you here, try hard not to have any more of these things happen. It isn't always in your control, but do whatever you can to avoid them.
Have a sale, lower prices, try to sell a bunch of inexpensive stuff, etc. Do whatever you can to list and sell more stuff. Price matters to you, but not to getting out of this situation. By diluting the numbers it will help you get out of the penalty box so to speak.
Let us know what got you here and we can also try to give you tips to avoid that.
keota-brown
OP3 weeks agoThank you—I appreciate the advice. What brought me Below Standard was late shipping. I went through a difficult period involving health issues, and my partner needed nearly full-time care for a while. Unfortunately, I fell behind and shipped some orders late.
I understand that the orders were still my responsibility, and I’m not trying to avoid accountability. However, it was a temporary situation and not representative of my overall history on eBay. I was previously a Top Rated Seller, have generated approximately $51,000 in sales over roughly the past two years, and still maintain 99% positive feedback.
My frustration is that now that I’m trying to correct the problem, eBay has taken away Promoted Listings while also reducing my visibility. I understand that advertising is not the only way to sell, but losing that tool makes it much harder to generate the additional successful transactions needed to dilute the late-shipment percentage.
I have addressed the circumstances that caused the delays, and I am being very careful not to take on more than I can ship on time. I’m also looking at listing lower-priced items and running sales, as you suggested. If you have any other specific advice for recovering from late-shipment defects, I would genuinely appreciate it.
mam98031
·3 weeks agoLife does get in our way sometimes, I completely understand.
You seem to be relying on Promoted Listings a bit more than I would advise. They may not be doing as much for you as you think they are. Lots of us don't use them at all. So this actually may be a chance for you to realize you don't need them as much as you think you do or that they aren't worth as much as you think they are.
I disagree, I send offers out every Sunday or so, that can be a transaction generator. I run mark down sales. I offer Combined shipping. All of which bring me sales, but I don't use Promoted Listings.
Change your handling time to about 3 days. Ship faster, but just in case change them with the Bulk Editor. It will not hurt your search returns either. Ebay doesn't downgrade us unless we have 5+ days as a handling time. This may help you dig out of this hole too.
keota-brown
OP3 weeks agoThank you—this is genuinely helpful advice, and I appreciate the way you explained it. I may have placed more value on Promoted Listings than I should have, so it is encouraging to hear that you are generating sales without using them.
I am going to try sending offers regularly, running markdown sales, offering combined shipping, and changing my handling time to three days through the Bulk Editor. Those are concrete steps I can take immediately, which is exactly the kind of guidance I was hoping to receive.
I sincerely appreciate you acknowledging that life sometimes gets in the way while still offering practical ways for me to move forward. Thank you!
mam98031
·3 weeks agoI'm very glad I could lend a helping hand. Keep in mind to NOT get too aggressive with sending out offers. I don't suggest doing them any more than once a week or twice a month. I do mine every Sunday or every other Sunday. Seems to work better that way for me anyway. Good Luck, I'm confident you are going to work out of this in short order.
Just don't get depressed about this and remember HOW Ebay evals us. Tomorrow, Sept. 20th Ebay will eval all sellers for the period ending August 31st and the results of that eval will be effective as of October 1st. Similarly on Oct. 20th we get eval'd for the period ending Sept 30th and effective November 1st.