eBay

psalms*22 · ‎10-30-2019

How can a 3.33% rate of return be considered high? - From the research I've done, the industry standard for returning clothing/shoes is at least 10%, and depending on the source, upwards of 30% on average.

I have a 3.33% Return Rate of which only 1 has been a legitimate return - The rest were returned for reasons that would have made the buyer have to pay for the shipping, so they used "not as described" as the reason(One of which was heavily worn and requested to be returned on the 30th day, effectively making the item not fit for resale).

According to my "PEERS", I should only have a 0.88 return rate, which surely is ABSOLUTELY, UNEQUIVOCALLY impossible on this, or any venue - especially here, where policies give a buyer nothing but easy, ill-intended options to insure they do not have to pay for a return on an item they just didn't like.

So basically, my question is how can a seller possibly be expected to maintain a "peer average" 0.88% return rate when the overall clothing/shoes industry average for returns is at least 10%? Something is VERY wrong with this picture when you consider that my numbers could railroad me into having to pay an additional 40% on final value fees. In my opinion, based on some substantial research, there is something VERY fishy with these numbers.

tamaralea · ‎10-30-2019

Wow! Well said. Maybe they don't want clothing sellers, or as some people are suspecting, maybe we will all end up at this higher rate eventually.

papermoneyforme · ‎10-30-2019

Ebay has been known to fudge numbers so they can charge sellers more or force them to go away!

dogsrus3 · ‎10-30-2019

Mine is 2% which is also very high this period; 12 returns on over 700+ sales with 3 being legitimate issues I overlooked. I reported 3 of the buyers for abuse and they all were suspended. The other ones were returned under false pretenses and I had back-up emails from the buyer saying items didn't fit, they didn't like them, etc but they still opened a NAD. Ebay will remove those from your seller defects but I have been told several times by several supervisors that they can not remove the defects in your service metrics. (And why do we need several different metrics for the same thing?!?!?)

And of course with sales being the worst I've had in many years after being on here since 1999, the % just moves higher because the returns never change; only the number of sales.

Secondly, all the other metrics use 3 months, this uses 12 months and as you noted, my peers have a 0.81% return rate in the clothing section. Again, after talking to several supervisors, no one can tell me how they come up with this peer metric and it never changes (from 0.80 - 0.84 in the last 6 months). That return rate is simply put, wrong. I think the return rate is much higher than the 10% you quoted if you talk to retailers.

Feeling that it's a money grab; but I call ever month to see if maybe I can get someone to change something. Probably more like beating my head.......

gwzcomps · ‎10-30-2019

Seller metrics is nothing more than a cash grab. It has nothing to do with improving the site. If they wanted to use it as a tool to improve the site they would implement some sort of "stop class" you could go through to get a temporary exemption and improve your numbers. Just find some Chinese junk that is low risk and sells well to pad your numbers with.