Seller Transaction Defect Rate

[tewil_4820]

So I canceled several sales over the last year because Ebay ( for almost a year now ) has Parcel Post as an option for the Buyer to chose from, but no longer offers Parcel Post to the seller ( unless I want to travel to the PO an hour away for a label) . The buyer paid a lower rate ( Parcel Post)  for shipping than what I could purchase ( Priority Mail) . Every time I called Ebay regarding this problem I was told by Ebay to cancel the order then. ( the call was recorded for quality assurance - so you can check that) Had I not canceled the sale I would have been making no money from the item and paying overages in shipping costs more than what the buyer paid for shipping and the item. So I am essentially paying money to sell my items, MORE than what I am actually making on the item.  I am losing money, which is why I accepted Ebay's advice and canceled the sales. Only three things can be chosen by the seller when canceling a transaction 1.)Buyer asked to cancel, 2)Insufficient Mailing Address or 3) Out of Stock. Since the first two options would be a lie, I chose Out of Stock.  I used my best judgement on which one to choose - warning to others do not choose this option as a reason for canceling. Now I am being hit with a Below Standard Seller level due to cancelations for being "out of stock". Ebay is now punishing me additionally by taking even more fees from me ( Below Standard Seller Fees) as a penalty ---even though Ebay canceled the Parcel Post option to Sellers, but buyers can still choose it. They also decided to add to my account business shipping rules - which then had a buyer selecting a Regional A box when the dimensions of the item where in the listing and could not possibly fit into the buyer selected shipping rate box - arghhhh, just more of the same. Lose money or cancel. I appealed the defect rate, since one of the reasons Ebay states they will remove a defect is "The defect was the direct result of an eBay site issue or an eBay program error". Hello - Ebay has not fixed the USPS Parcel Post for over a year - their error. Ebay set up my business shipping rates making it even worse of a problem. ( I have since removed those). I only have 1 item in this past year that was actually canceled for being "out of stock" ( it broke). Ebay has set this defect rate set a 2%, which is too low ( they really do want you to have defects so they can get more money),  and has not even considered that in all other areas I have out performed.  I am really considering using other platforms. 

[itscalledapostingid]

They announced that *Parcel Post is no longer sold by Ebay Labels but there are plenty of other online vendors that offer discounted rates on it.

* or whatever it's called now. I never use it.

[tewil_4820]

It is still called Parcel Post, and no there is no online vendors that offer a shipping rate equivalent to that which the Buyer paid, all are more expensive to me as a seller. You would not know this information since you do not know what they paid and offer no solution here. None the less - you missed the point. Ebay told me to cancel the transaction as the solution. I did and then got a defect rate on my account, so they can now take even more selling fees. 

[nobody*s_perfect]

The service formerly known as Parcel Post is now called Parcel Select Ground when purchased online, and as Retail Ground when purchased at the Post Office.

You got bad advice from customer support. Sellers do get penalized for canceling transactions. If you can document this exchange you might be able to get them to reverse those defects that were based on the bad advice.

As noted in the other post, this is not a glitch that you can expect eBay to fix. eBay has decided to phase out access to Parcel Select Ground labels, even though USPS has made no changes in their services or policies, and it's offered by all other online postage sellers at the same price as shown in the shipping calculator in eBay listings, including PayPal, endicia, stamps.com, etc.  You can purchase it  through PayPal at

www.PayPal.com/shipnow

 IMHO Parcel Select ground should only be offered when necessary such as for hazmat or Oversize packages (i.e., length-plus-girth above the Priority limit of 108 inches).

[tewil_4820]

Ebay, since they made the decision to change the shipping rate option needed to tell the seller that they no longer were offering the rate to the seller, and prohibit the buyer from choosing it. 

[nobody*s_perfect]

I agree that eBay should at least alert sellers when they set up a listing with a shipping option that can't be purchased through eBay. There are so many changes large and small that eBay fails to notify sellers about. This one was particularly confusing because it was phased in gradually so some sellers still had it while others did not.

[dbfolks166mt]

      You could have contacted the buyer prior to canceling the sale and let them know that Parcel Post is no longer an eBay option for sellers to ship. I have never had a buyer select a shipping option other than what I had selected when I setup the listing. I have however contacted a number of buyers after the sale and asked them if they would be OK with switching the shipping option because I found a more economical way to ship the item through a shipping method outside of eBay. Pirate Ship for example offers priority mail cubic and Parcel Select Ground which are not options when purchasing a label through eBay. Most of the time the buyer is fine with this and I complete the transaction and refund the excess postage cost. 

     Canceling an order for out of stock is always going to result in a defect to your account regardless of what customer support told you. If you haven't notice some of the postings on this forum the eBay customer support is seriously lacking at the moment. 

[luckythewinner]

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@tewil_4820 wrote:

Ebay ( for almost a year now ) has Parcel Post as an option for the Buyer to chose from

---

As far as I know, eBay only lets the buyer choose from the postage options that a seller has chosen to offer.

Your Murray Pad MU48160 listing only offers First Class postage. 

[sylvercoins]

This is ebay way of ripping us off! They did the same to me without warning! I had to cancel 2 sales because my items were in a different state, and although I notified the buyer that I would hold the item and sell it to them when I returned AND I DID ebay put me Below standard and charges me a total 20% now! If ebay really wanted to punish me they would suspend my account for a month but NO they put more money in there pocket to appease the stock holders. So what I'm doing is suspending my own account for 7 months until the defects expire. 

No way in God's name I'm paying this crooked company 20% on my sales. !!!

Total ripoff 

[gurlcat]

Hey question .  -Did you find this thread right on this first page of the Seller forum, or did you go searching for threads about seller defection rate, and then replied to this one?  
We're trying to figure out why all these old threads are appearing on page 1 all of a sudden. 

[kh-laura]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.