Below standard performance question

[gwalkerss1417]

Help please.  I am a small time seller.  I am literally only selling my cards to get money so i can buy my daughter a car on her 16th bday. But  I am getting beat up with the extra 6% fee. I’m selling my sports cards. A .99 card is making me .08 with the fee added. It’s not worth it.  
I have only had 1 negative and 1 neutral feedback score.  I believe that the issue is with loosing items in shipping.  There have been 6-8 lost in shipping.  All were scanned by a post office at least one time.  Why does eBay still fault me for that. They refund the buyer and then charge me more? I don’t understand.. i already lost the card and the sale amount from it. 

What am i doing wrong?  Any advise on pile be helpful. 

[wooden_flower]

@gwalkerss1417 

A missing item would only cause you to go below standard if you do not handle the refund yourself - you are being judged on not handling the issue, not the lost shipment. If a buyer opens a not received, and there is no delivery scan, you need to refund the buyer before they ask eBay to step in. If you do, your fees will be refunded.

If you are using the standard envelope for shipping, you can file claims for your losses. As long as there is at least 1 tracking scan, you will be reimbursed. So at least you can recover some of your losses. See the protections tab here for how to file a claim - 

https://www.ebay.com/sellercenter/shipping/choosing-a-carrier-and-service/ebay-standard-envelope

You will pay the extra 6% as long as you are below standard. Go to your dashboard and open the monthly breakdown to see when the defects will age off at 12 months - you need to get below 2% defects.

https://sellerstandards.ebay.com/dashboard?region=US

There is another measurement for the not received claims that you must also watch, on your service metrics page. Here you are measured against other card sellers, who should be experiencing the same losses. https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/service-metrics?src=filters&metric_type=INR

Besides the defects aging off, the only other way to reduce your defect % is to sell more. This is difficult to do when you do not have a store, and are already selling items for a very low price.

Good luck.