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 !

[mam98031]

Here’s how the OOS option works:

When your qualifying listing reaches a quantity of zero, we automatically hide it from all buyer’s searches.

In other words, when the OOS option is enabled, the listing will remain live even when all of the items are sold, but buyers will not find it via “search.”

Though hidden, these listings retain their purchase and search history, so that when you replenish your stock, they become available to buyers once again.

You can then edit your listing with the updated quantity once you’ve restocked, and the listing will be accessible to buyers via “search” as before

https://www.ebay.com.sg/sellercentre/manage-your-account/case-resolution/oos#:~:text=Here's%20how%20...

[luvs_shera]

How do I correct below standard for 5 cancled sales? ebay told me they would penalize me for a year, how is that fair? 

[lakefor94]

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@luvs_shera wrote:

How do I correct below standard for 5 cancled sales? ebay told me they would penalize me for a year, how is that fair? 

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You need a lot of successful transactions to dilute the percentages of seller defects.  Check your Seller Level stats in Seller Hub. It will give you the percentages and will update every month.

It does take a year for each defect to fall off.

It is not about being fair. Higher FVF's are what happens to all sellers with too many defects.

Also, keep an eye on Service Metrics as additional fees can also come from that metric.

Good luck

[mam98031]

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@luvs_shera wrote:

How do I correct below standard for 5 cancled sales? ebay told me they would penalize me for a year, how is that fair? 

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I'm sorry they said that to you without giving you a complete description of what that means.

Since you are evaluated on the numbers your accumulate on your Selling account for the previous 12 months, they are correct, those numbers stay with you for 12 months.  However that does NOT mean you can't work out of this issue for 12 months.

Not selling anything won't help either.  You need to think about the numbers.  How do you take the power one number has on your overall.  You dilute it.  You need more sales without any cancellations for seller reasons.  The more sales you get the more that harmful number of cancellations get diluted.

So list and sell things you think will move.  Stay on top of your sales, ship within your stated handling time, package well and provide good customer service if your buyer reaches out to you.  But stop or control whatever was causing you to cancel so many sales for a seller reason.

If a buyer askes you to cancel a transaction via email, that is fine.  Process what they ask for using the reason that the buyer asked and that cancellation does not count against you.  But don't abuse this.  Ebay is watching sellers that abuse the cancellation system.

Ebay re-evaluates ALL sellers on the 20th of every month for the period ending the previous month.  So  you can change what is going on now, just get busy and sell responsibly.  Clean those closets or whatever.  Just list and sell.  Good Luck.

[keithc2011]

The picture needs clarity in your eyes before you judge so harshly.

First, I have had an ebay store for 11 successful years 

Second, up until a year ago, I had never had a bad mark my selling of hundreds of articles has been perfect !

 Third out of the hundreds items I have sold there were 7 bad marks, which I made good in all instances, by

            refunding and not one bad feedback from anyone of them. All were satisfied !

Fourth, I have been a preferred seller for a long period.   On the top notch of ebay evaluation.

            Now to your saying if I cannot follow the rules of ebay I shouldn't be a seller ?  In the total picture,                        everyone  has been satisfied, so ebay to make me "below standard"  is definitely wrong !  Now with 

            their penalties of limiting how many listings I can have  and the value of the listings cannot be over                      $5,000.00    I have had a consistent of 350 plus listings valued at over $8,000.00   Doing well !

Now does the 7 out of the hundreds of sales create this  big of a penalty ?    I ask you ?      I have a store, this is a business and I  tend it well.             Ebay by putting me substandard gets to collect  and additional 5% of every sale.  Making a giant cut in to the profits. The won''t let me promote a listing yet they make  more money on promoting a listing ??     I do feel it is unfair as the bad marks have been repaired were corrected  and 4bay is just taking a cut on every one of my sales and done this for 3 months without remedy in sight and I am continuing to sell. appx. 25 items per month. This seems to be on purpose on their part.   with no resolve in sight.     Enough said .  I do respect and appreciate you replying as it is a touch of reality for all.   

[keithc2011]

they were all refunded in a very timely manner with positive feedbacks from them.   The ongoing for 3 months now, penalty, is very unfair and charging an additional 5% for below standard  makes the small profit on items even smaller.

[keithc2011]

I have continued to sell and have the below standard  penalty of an additional 5% charge by ebay continue for the last 3 months, with no end in sight.  They say we will evaluate on the 20th of next month  - Now it is November 20th  before they re evaluate.       I  have sold 18 items since the penalties for  below standard started, with a value of $1,120.00.   It hasn't changed a thing ?       They won't tell me what to do to resolve this ? 

[keithc2011]

Yes, taking care of business - I resolved the 7 problems by doing a timely refund all gave a good feedback to me.   11 years of sales and an Ebay store and now this ?     Hundreds of sales and not one problem until as of late ?  

[keithc2011]

Out of 100's of sales and an Ebay store plus being an Ebay seller for 11 years- the defect rate is less than 3% --

[mam98031]

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@keithc2011 wrote:

I have continued to sell and have the below standard  penalty of an additional 5% charge by ebay continue for the last 3 months, with no end in sight.  They say we will evaluate on the 20th of next month  - Now it is November 20th  before they re evaluate.       I  have sold 18 items since the penalties for  below standard started, with a value of $1,120.00.   It hasn't changed a thing ?       They won't tell me what to do to resolve this ? 

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Ebay evaluates all sellers on the 20th of EACH month for the period ending the previous month.  Whatever the evaluation comes up with is the status of each seller on the first day of the following month.

So on October 20th we were all evaluated on the period ending Sept. 30th.  Whatever the findings of the evaluation were becomes effective on November 1st.

It isn't your dollar amount of sales that will help you work out of this issue.  It is number of transactions.  You need to dilute your numbers and you can only do that by increasing your number of transactions.  That along with stopping whatever it is that got you into this position to begin with.  I don't think we ever came to a conclusion on what exactly caused this issue for you.

The defects that are causing you to be in this position drop off after 12 months.  A long time to be sure.  Same if your problem is the Service Metrics, the dings fall off after 12 months.  Which is why, whatever it is that got you to this place you need to get a better control of and stop if at all possible.

[mam98031]

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@keithc2011 wrote:

Out of 100's of sales and an Ebay store plus being an Ebay seller for 11 years- the defect rate is less than 3% --

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Defect rate for what?  The Seller Dashboard has several components to it.  FYI, the numbers on the Seller Dashboard is for your previous 12 months, NOT since the beginning of your selling career here.

https://sellerstandards.ebay.com/dashboard?region=US

Same with the Service Metrics.  Those numbers are also from the last 12 months for you.

https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/service-metrics

As I have said before, it is hard to fix a problem if you don't know what the source of the problem is.  You need to figure out in what area did you get in trouble with.  From there you can move forward to try and resolve things.  Until then it is guesses.

[fern*wood]

Unfortunately, eBay expects this performance to be consistent.  It’s not easy to build up a buffer for problems, especially that many at once.  I’ve has one out of stock defect, but luckily never two, and especially not at the same time.  The math will kill you.  

You can see the defects and their percentage on your dashboard.  It may take a full year to fix this by having the defects age off your record.

[lepke1979]

Here's the thing. At this point, eBay doesn't really care if you continue to sell here at this point. At the same time, they're giving you a chance to try and improve. Possibly at a penalty (fewer listings and selling fee).

It doesn't feel like it. But consider yourself lucky. Other places (particularly Amazon), would outright ban you from selling on their platform probably by the time you got your third or so out of stock.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@keithc2011 wrote: ... out of the hundreds items I have sold there were 7 bad marks, which I made good in all instances, by

            refunding ... Now does the 7 out of the hundreds of sales create this  big of a penalty ?    I ask you ?      I have a store, this is a business and I  tend it well.....   

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Unfortunately, you did not "tend it well" since, as you explained in the original post, "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 . "  

In eBay's eyes, refunding rather than shipping is a defect.  It's basic math, it's just percentages and 7 "out of stock" defects is a lot. Your monthly evaluation is based on the past 12 months, not on the past 11 years. It's going to take a lot more than 4 months to get your defect percentage rate low enough to escape "Below Standard" status.

You could have avoided this by using the "Time away" option to block sales during the interval when you could not ship due to your move.  

[dhbookds]

‎09-29-2023 02:50 PM

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

I'm surprised Ebay didn't boot you permanently if you had 7 out of stocks..........  Not too many years ago, that would have happened.......and no appeal EVER.....

The very fact that you have been here 11 years makes it worse......that, as experienced seller, you didn't plan well enough to avoid the problems........