Very High Not as Described Fee 5%

[affordable_gadgets_llc]

Fellow sellers, this 5% fee is killing me. As most of you are aware, ebay charges an additional 5% fee when you have a high % return rate, but we know the metric is faulty because most buyers will lie in their SNADs. In order to soften the blow, I have started accepting free returns, but the metric runs a 12 month look back and according to this I will keep paying the 5% fee for eternity. See, last year my sales were lower, meaning that the return percentage will be higher in the next months.  What do you guys do? Change category? Increase the amount of sales with less expensive items? I sell around 100 phones a month, so no quite meeting the 400 volume rule in the past 90 days. Any help is appreciated it...getting close to $2k in additional fees, on top of $4k in regular closing costs. 

[mam98031]

All sellers are Evaluated on the 20th of each month.  Whatever that eval turns out to be will not affect your account until the first of the following month.

From Ebay Policy.

How often does eBay calculate these metrics?

Service metrics are evaluated on the 20th of each month.

• Sellers with 400 or more transactions during the last 3 months: You're evaluated on your transactions during the previous 3-month period
• Sellers with fewer than 400 transactions during the last 3 months: You're evaluated on your transactions over the previous 12-month period

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/seller-performance-policy/service-metrics-policy...

[budgetcues]

right ... so this evaluation is 12 days late!

[mam98031]

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@budgetcues wrote:

right ... so this evaluation is 12 days late!

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NO, it happened on August 20th.  Look at your Seller Dashboard.  The eval for it is done at the same time every month.

[budgetcues]

I forgot to share this:

Below is an ACTUAL peer, who contacted me in Billiards. This seller who has FREE RETURNS only selling HIGH VALUE items (as I did)... and look here, his metrics are identical. Isn't that a kawinkidink? 

Folks on here seem to think Free Returns reduce "not as described" returns, but it is my belief that Sellers attract buyers who are predisposed to returns. They look for sellers who offer free returns with the intent of returning (either buying multiple similar items wanting to chose only 1) and being on the fence (aka tire kicker)...especially when it is a high dollar volume. They then chose "not as described" to be SURE they get the full refund.

[mam98031]

@budgetcues 

The two are not the same.  You need to look closer.  The numbers are different, the percentages are similar, but that just has to do with simple math.

10 / 493 = 2.03%

23 / 1128 = 2.04%

[budgetcues]

No kidding ... the percentages are the same. That is the point. My peer who offers Free Shipping with similar dollar value of billiard cues has almost identical PERCENTAGE of returns. 

[mam98031]

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@budgetcues wrote:

No kidding ... the percentages are the same. That is the point. My peer who offers Free Shipping with similar dollar value of billiard cues has almost identical PERCENTAGE of returns. 

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I don't understand your point.  It is all about the math.  Your percentage being the same as someone else's is just because of the math.  Thousands and thousands of sellers can have the same percentages based on their numbers.  That has nothing to do with yours.  If you think you are the only seller that should have a 2.4% rate, you are just looking at it wrong.

The other seller you are comparing had less than half your INADS and had less than half your sales.