eBay

sonoranboutique · ‎05-28-2018

The new policy of requiring top rated sellers to give free returns does not match standard online return policies. Amazon only offers free returns for damaged or defective items. Looking at a couple random companies, GAP charges $5.95 for returns and J. Crew charges $7.50. Best Buy charges for the return label by deducting it from your refund.

There's a reason they don't do what EBay is planning. It's bad math. The amount of sales and customer acquisition you gain doesn't compensate for the money lost. If it did, everyone would be doing it. Many have tried, and reversed their decision. J. Crew used to have free returns, and now they don't. Other companies have tried too and switched back.

If this increases sales and customer acquisition a little bit, but hurts sellers, why does ebay care? Well, ebay is creating an innefficiency in their system. You shouldn't use policies that are proven bad, just because you can leverage them in a way that benefits yourself. This will make your company innefficient, bloated, and increase risk. You don't want to worry about badly designed policies in your system.

Secondly, if your plan is to screw over sellers and increase profits, the smarter move would be to guide the money so that it goes into your pocket rather than in buyer's pockets. I don't want ebay to do this, I am just pointing out that this change is not only awful for sellers, but a (relatively) awful choice for ebay if their motivation is increasing profits.

Is this change good because it is positive for buyers? Buyers don't expect free returns, and they understand why they have to pay for return labels. The industry standard is for them to pay for return shipping. And according to other companies, 100% free returns isn't economically sustainable. So you're going out of your way to give customers something for free, which is nice, but not the best business decision.

Finally (the part that ebay won't care about), it will put a lot of sellers out of business. When I started I sold only shoes, and at $9 per return (shipping was cheap those days) I would have gone out of business pretty fast paying for all those returns.

So this change is unfortunate. It's possible that EBay will keep good metrics on this change and find out that it isn't really paying off. I kind of doubt it, since it only affects a subsection of their sellers. If they do follow the metrics, they'll probably reverse it. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

postingid2017 · ‎05-28-2018

I hear you and feel your anguish, however, I think that eBay is attempting to "brainwash" sellers into believing the hype. I am sure that these same buyers are not remimbursed for gas/tolls/time when they return items to B&M. Not only is it not the industry standard, restocking fees are a part of some businesses return policy. With everything that I have working in the background at the moment, is one of of the main reasons why I stopped selling here. I just cannot deal with the additional stress 😞

Good luck to you and all Sellers that continue to list here.

keziak · ‎05-28-2018

@sonoranboutique wrote:
The new policy of requiring top rated sellers to give free returns does not match standard online return policies. Amazon only offers free returns for damaged or defective items.

That is Amazon itself. For Marketplace sales if a customer wants to return Amazon automatically sends them a return label at the seller's expense, basically no questions asked. I bet ebay looked at that and came up with their free returns rule.

On Amazon once you get the item back and find out the reason for the return you can deduct the shipping from the refund if it's remorse. But you still have to find out what you paid for the label. I am sure it's on the site somewhere but I just call. Oh, and you can charge a restocking fee up to 20% if item returns in the stated condition or up to 50% if the item is clearly damaged.

luckythewinner · ‎05-28-2018

@sonoranboutique wrote:
The new policy of requiring top rated sellers to give free returns does not match standard online return policies.

IMHO it is misleading when eBay claims that free returns is an industry standard - because that is simply not true.

But IMHO it is also misleading when people post here claiming that there is a new policy that requires Top Rated Sellers to offer free returns - because that is simply not true.

freeshipusa1 · ‎05-28-2018

Ebay is a fleamarket,trying to tell its sellers of industry standard is a joke,no one at Ebay understand retailing.

tev4all · ‎05-28-2018

@luckythewinner wrote:
@sonoranboutique wrote:
The new policy of requiring top rated sellers to give free returns does not match standard online return policies.
IMHO it is misleading when eBay claims that free returns is an industry standard - because that is simply not true.

But IMHO it is also misleading when people post here claiming that there is a new policy that requires Top Rated Sellers to offer free returns - because that is simply not true.

I agree IT is misleading when IT seems ebay could be using IT's ebay seller numbers as the "Industry".

Think about IT. IF 20 million+ sellers offer Free returns on ebay, one may construe that to be an "industry" "standard"

m60driver · ‎05-28-2018

@sonoranboutique wrote:
Well, ebay is creating an inefficiency in their system.

Ebay is struggling with a system, a business model that is inheritantly less efficient then that of Amazon. So free, few questions asked returns is simply an attempt to compensate by the corporate types who tend to have a need to compensate for feelings of inadequacy. The term "industry standards" is of couse just corporate nonsense. There is a standard for using UPC codes in retail, there is no standard on return policies. As others have noted above, there is a wide variety of return policies within the online and b&m retail industry. (I used the term "nonsense" instead of a more apt and descriptive term to avoid reprobation.)

grayirongolf · ‎05-28-2018

It is stress. Selling here will give you Eczema. At this point eBay's seller policy's will not only drain your bank account but they are starting to become a health issue.