below standard penalty

[keithc2011]

After having an ebay store for 11 years and selling a lot of product, I was put on BELOW STANDARD for having 7returns which I refunded in full which were caused by moving my store to a new address and could not ship for a short period I fully refunded on all 7 items------   7 out of 157 sales and I am being penalized for this .   The BELOW STANDARD penalty forced me to end listing on 134 items which cost me money in lost sales as well as money lost for Ebay.     Now I have to wait a month and request an increase in listings !     Lost time and money !      I FEEL IT IS VERY UNFAIR !

[keithc2011]

ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED.    After having 337 active listings I had to end listings on over 270 listings to get down in to the bracket ebay has put me in .  THEY SAID I cannot have over 125 listings and not to be valued at over $5,000-   I am sitting with 121 active listings, but to  get down to under $5,000- position, I  will have to endlistings on another 52 as my listing average $9.95 per listing.                  This is effectively putting me out of business !            I don't know what to do ??   they state their next evaluation will be in one month.    I have to close my ebay store after 11  wonderful problem free years

[keithc2011]

there was not one complaint from buyers that I refunded to.   Due to weather and goods getting damaged I couldn't ship, so refund was only option.   Should I be put "below standard" for this  ?

[keithc2011]

after 11 years of selling and a great satisfaction rating I don't feel I am qualified to be told I am  below standard and penalized for it.                           Now my  listing have to be dropped from 337 down to 50 listings to fulfill the new lower limits forced on me which cancels out many sales for me and a loss of money for both ebay and myself.

[luckythewinner]

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@keithc2011 wrote:

I was put on BELOW STANDARD for having 7 returns which I refunded in full which were caused by moving my store to a new address and could not ship for a short period I fully refunded on all 7 items------   7 out of 157 sales and I am being penalized for this .   I FEEL IT IS VERY UNFAIR !

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[keithc2011]

I  used out of stock and refunded immediately and not one bad feedback .       

[spark-chaser1]

Hypothetical scenario... As a buyer, I  place an order and then notice it sits in the " awaiting shipment" queue for days, a week, then past the EDD, and then suddenly the seller messages and says " sorry dude, I flaked... I was closing my BandM store and forgot to check my sales here... I will get that right out to you...

Ummm... No. You won't. INR, please. I get extenuating circumstances, but this was a planned move. Therefore, It is unfair to ME to have to gone through that... And had I seen that the hypothetical seller was on " vacation", I wouldn't have had to... Nor would the seller be gigged for being AWOL while having an active store taking sales.

[mam98031]

@keithc2011 

I'm not sure I'm following you.  Ebay restricted the number of listings AND the total sale amount of those listings?  I was unaware that they did both.  Do you have an email from them that told you to do that?  If so, would you please copy and paste it here so we can see exactly what they said.

You have ONE listing that is well above what you are saying Ebay is telling you that your ceiling is.  You really should close that listing.  Besides, if it sells you don't want to pay the additional 6% FVF on it as it would cost you almost $500 in additional fees on top of the regular fees.

Don't over react.  I think you are misunderstanding something.  Close that one expensive listing, then stop closing listings until we try and help you figure out what is going on.

I sincerely hope you will copy the email here so we can further try to help you.

[mam98031]

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@keithc2011 wrote:

there was not one complaint from buyers that I refunded to.   Due to weather and goods getting damaged I couldn't ship, so refund was only option.   Should I be put "below standard" for this  ?

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You actually don't know that.  While they may not have left you negative or neutral feedback, both buyers and sellers have a tool to report a member if they feel the need directly to Ebay.

Have you reviewed your Seller Dashboard?  This is important.  We are flying blind here.  We have still not pin pointed what caused you to fall below standard.  Was it too many Cancellations, too many late shipments, etc.  As explained before, you need to pinpoint the problem before you can ever work towards fixing it.

[robbie31415]

You didn't understand my meaning.

When I referred to out of stock I was talking about the function that keeps your listings alive when inventory hits 0.

So if it's enabled you can change your onhands all to 0, and then when you come back change to actual inventory level and they will be active again.

This prevents orders when you aren't able to ship.

That is only 1 route you could have gone.

Cancellation reason out of stock causes defects on your account which will bring you to below standard. This is completely different.

Now because you didn't do one of the multiple methods I mentioned in my first post YOU put yourself in a position that would bring yourself to below standard.

[keithc2011]

In ebay penalty for being below standard they will not let  me list additional.  so with going from 337 listings down to less than 50- no sales and it is making me close my ebay store after 11 years of trouble free relations on ebay.             Where went distance, time and success go ?   isn't the whole performance picture allowed ? 

[mam98031]

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@keithc2011 wrote:

I  used out of stock and refunded immediately and not one bad feedback .       

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Sellers are evaluated every month on the 20th for the period ending the previous month.

Ebay does NOT use feedback in evaluating sellers anymore.  They stopped that years ago.

[luckythewinner]

I was put on BELOW STANDARD for having 7 returns which I refunded in full which were caused by moving my store to a new address and could not ship for a short period

These were not "returns" - these were Out of Stock defects which is one of only two things that will put you below Standard.

 Lost time and money !

Imagine how your buyers feel, because they were (a) disappointed; (b) inconvenienced at not getting what they ordered, (c) lost time and had to purchase elsewhere; and (d) lost the use of their money for a period of time.  All because you could not be bothered to take down your listings when you knew they were unavailable.

I FEEL IT IS VERY UNFAIR !

The eBay performance standards clearly warn that this will be a huge black mark against you. They know that disappointed buyers tend to leave the site and that affects all sellers. eBay does not want sellers like that, and Below Standard is the tool they use to weed out sellers who do not give priority to the buyer's experience. 

[mam98031]

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@robbie31415 wrote:

You didn't understand my meaning.

When I referred to out of stock I was talking about the function that keeps your listings alive when inventory hits 0.

So if it's enabled you can change your onhands all to 0, and then when you come back change to actual inventory level and they will be active again.

This prevents orders when you aren't able to ship.

That is only 1 route you could have gone.

Cancellation reason out of stock causes defects on your account which will bring you to below standard. This is completely different.

Now because you didn't do one of the multiple methods I mentioned in my first post YOU put yourself in a position that would bring yourself to below standard.

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Alive but not seen.  Only the seller can see the OOS listings that remain active.  Buyers can't see them until they are updated with a quantity.

[spark-chaser1]

As others have stated, refunding does not make up for a lousy experience. I personally have had bad transactions where I was refunded and was completely PO, but chose to not make things worse by feedbacks if it was a mistake.  Silence does not mean acceptance.

But, I did not / do not return to buy from those sellers again, and you lost at least SEVEN potential regular buyers to your own store. 

Fairness? I guess it is subjective from whatever POV you are seeing it from.

[robbie31415]

They can still be seen, but are deprioritized in seach.

People can still view and add to watch list.