Advise regarding limits on account

[becomingrentable]

I have been selling in Ebay for years.  

In the last few month my listings were drastically reduced due to a below average seller level report. 94.94% performance level due to three return request.

I pay for a premium account paying $59.95 a month to have more items in my account. 

Current active listing 623

Ended listing over 2,000

My sells have been drastically lower than they have been in 10 years. I am looking for advice and suggestions in how to regain the number of listings I can have so that my sales increase. 

[714ricki]

The best way would be to find a few items that sell quickly where you do everything perfectly over a few month time span. Once you show the algorithm trust that you just had a slight seller hiccup & are now trending upwards, they will probably slowly but surely increase your limits again. Just remember, it takes a bit of time!

Good luck!

[reallynicestamps]

Off topic-- but I noticed a couple of duplicated listings. Do you have two Mrs Butterworth bottles and two handblown pitchers with bubbles or is this an error?

EBay is known to duplicate listings from time to time and we have to watch out.

As those returns age off , your rating will repair itself, but this does take 12 months.

Was there a problem with giving those a prompt refund when the items were returned? Normally that does not lead to Defects since you provide customer satisfaction.

[duncanvr]

You'll be lowered in all the search results. The first step is from here on in to improve your metrics and feedback score. It takes months but you can't afford anymore dings. You then need to consider higher promoted listing ad rate to try to get seen. You also need to heavily discount your items. Its not good news and you may lose money doing it. But the long run you can build you account back to top rated. What ever you have been doing that got you below standard needs to stop. Some how you need to avoid getting to many returns. And no neutral feedbacks. Have you been canceling orders as out of stock or having late shipments??? I don't think three returns is what got your account below standard. Also you need to get more listings up daily consistently for the next three months. The ended 2000 you put up 10 a day using sell similar and delete the unsolds as you put them back up. No defects no out of stock etc. Make sure every transaction goes 100% from here on in.

[duncanvr]

agree they can't have duplicate listings either, I have a feeling they may have been canceling sales with out of stock option which is more likely to hurt metrics than a few returns. They need to go through their inventory and make sure they have everything that is listed.

[reallynicestamps]

I disagree with lowering prices.

I believe that, especially with collectibles and decorative items which may not have many comps, that higher PL rates, which lead to a higher visibility in Search may be more useful.

The problems most people have with this are first, that we small sellers tend to think like buyers and buyers love discounts and that everyone hates to pay the landlord.

If you discount by 10% that is a paltry amount compared to the slashed prices in B&M shops just now.

But a 10% PL fee is high (and painful to pay to eBay) and really, doesn't lower the profit any more than the discount.

Again, we all hate paying fees.

[aprilmoviebuf2000]

Return requests did not make your account fall to below standard.   Ignoring too many of them would though.  
You also may have defects for seller initiated cancellations.  
This is not something that happens overnight, but it could very well happen within one evaluation period.  If you have been selling for a while, you should be well aware of what causes defects on your account.  Buyers simply making a return request is not one of those things....it is how you handled that request.  
Have you been checking your seller dashboard?  That will tell you exactly what is going on, and what has caused the account to take a downturn.  
Not really much you can do except to not let it get any worse until that lookback period is over (12 months from the first evaluation where you went below standard).  You can't use promoted listings, and the number of items you will be allowed to list may be restricted.  Your store level may be downgraded to basic as well.  
Sorry we can't sugarcoat this more for you.  Truly wishing you the best of luck.  This is not impossible to climb out of, just difficult.  Keep pushing and believe in yourself.  

[ms.rodriguez*]

I would suggest that you iron the shirts that you listed. Also, the way you photographed the Bauman's shirt shows a door as the background. Then I can see a living room or den. You do not people to look elsewhere but the item that you are selling.  I suggest that you iron the shirts.  Then close that door and put a hook on the fall behind it.  It looks like there is nothing else hanging there.  Then take the photo of the clothing with the plain back wall.  Crop your photo if necessary to just show the item being sold.  IF that wall is not big wide enough, find another wall.  Get rid of whatever is hanging in your best wall for photographing.   You can always hang the photo or art somewhere.   

Remember, when you look at a shirt in a catalog, do you see a partial room with furniture ?  No you don't.

Get rid of the duplicate listings. There is a tool on Google that can help you. I always forget the name but if you google EBAY DUPLICATE LISTING SCANNER, you will find it.  Type USA and your Ebay name and in less than a minute , the tool will show you all of your duplicate listings.   Ebay will suspend you a few days if you have several duplicate listings violations.  I can tell that they did that to me once a years ago in my selling account.