" You Still Have Time to Avoid Fees" New fees that kill TRS

[highlido]

So I just got an email from ebay telling me that if I dont act now I am going to be hit with an additional 4% final value fees on ALL my sales because I have high "item not as described" returns.

But this is on the heals of them dropping my 20% discount down to 10% and taking that away if I dont offer free returns. 

Most of these returns are because the buyer does not want to pay the return shipping but I get more returns if I offer free returns. 

The rest of my returns are "not as described" because they were sold AS IS and the only way a buyer can return an item (that they did not read) that was sold AS IS is to open a "item not as described" return.

Earlier this year ebay took away the ability to despute a buyers reason for return, because "they had to many desputes"... Duh!

So what am I to do now? My sales have been steadly dropping they started implementing all this in Feb and now they want to charge me more for less? 

It seams that ebay just wants to get rid of all the small business that have made up the backbone of their bussiness for years

[sonoranboutique]

---

@sonoranboutique wrote:

Yeah I sell used items, and comparing my return rates to the ENTIRE clothing category which is mostly NEW items is ridiculous.

I can see the news articles already.  "EBay Initiates 4% Tariff on Used Items".  If you have to meet an average based on NEW items and you sell USED items, it is essentially a tariff on used items.

Also, the "Free Returns" thing is completely stupid.  In case you guys didn't notice, 99% of online retailers DO NOT offer free returns.  Best Buy, J. Crew, even high end stuff like Ted Baker has return fees.  I think Amazon might not, but they experiment a lot.  They got scammed for millions on their lenient return policy, in the past they've lost money on overly customer-friendly practices and backpedaled aftewards, and they now punish buyers who return too many items.

---

Note that when I say other online retailers have return fees, I mean that the buyer pays for return shipping, or that the cost of return shipping is deducted from the buyer's refund.

[jordiegreenberg]

---

@highlido wrote:

Exactly it has nothing to do with how we are preforming as sellers. It is the same as them taking the 20% TRS discount down to 10% and now taking it away from all but the "big boys" who can afford to do free returns and now are charging extra fees "for the good of the customers" to the rest of us. Who have been obviously taking good care of our customers, so... 

---

@highlido 

For the majority of sellers 'Service Metrics' program will be an insights tool, however, the sellers with very high 'item not as described' returns may subject to additional fees if they don't take action to improve their listings and reduce their 'item not as described' return requests. The intent of this program is to encourage sellers to reduce the number of bad buying experiences on the site.  For clarity, there are minimum thresholds in place to be rated 'high & very high during an evaluation period, so if you have less than 10 "item not as described" returns & less than a 1% "item not as described' return rate in a category then consequences will not apply. If you are above the thresholds, then I encourage you to find way to reduce your 'item not as described' returns.  

[highlido]

As stated by myself and others in this thread if you sell in catagories that are pron to high rates of dishonest and lazy buyers who dont read, no matter what I do to my listings will not change my rates of returns.

If I have an item that clearly stats in the title, condition, condition details, and the descritiption that an item is sold AS IS for parts or repair does not power on, but then have a buyer open a return request saying that it is not at described because it does not power on?!?

I deal with several like this a month 

Or the other most common are the ones that they buyer has changed there mind but does not want to pay the $40 return shipping and so says it is not as described to get a free return. But clearly is since I relist it as soon as I get it back and sell it with a happy buyer.

Again nothing I do will help lower this rate except offering free returns on all my items even the ones that are sold AS IS and that is just insane but I do feel ebay is forceing this to be my only option.

You say that the reason for this system is to make sure that buyers dont have a bad buying experience. But that is the purpose of the unresolved return system. Every return opened I resolve quickly even if it costs me money out of pocket because of dishonest or lazzy buyers, making sure that they have a good buying experiance, but now you want to charge me extra for that.

When you have also changed the whole way to search for items on ebay making it harder for buyers to find what they are looking for and cutting alot of the sales of smaller shops. 

[the_fancy_fox]

So I have very few sales in a  particular catagory. I have had 2 returns in the last year. My percent is 2%

so are my fees going up?

[the_fancy_fox]

---

@the_fancy_fox wrote:

So I have very few sales in a  particular catagory. I have had 2 returns in the last year. My percent is 2%

so are my fees going up?

---

@jordiegreenberg

Clarity please

if someone sells 25 items in a catagory and has 1 return...... it doesnt seem right nor fair to apply the less than 10 returns and less than 1%. 

 Is there a minimum amount of sales for this to apply? 

[jordiegreenberg]

---

@the_fancy_fox wrote:

---

@the_fancy_fox wrote:

So I have very few sales in a  particular catagory. I have had 2 returns in the last year. My percent is 2%

so are my fees going up?

---

@jordiegreenberg

Clarity please

if someone sells 25 items in a catagory and has 1 return...... it doesnt seem right nor fair to apply the less than 10 returns and less than 1%. 

 Is there a minimum amount of sales for this to apply? 

---

@highlido @the_fancy_fox

The only way a seller could be rated high/very high is if they have over 10 "item not as described" returns in a particular category and over a 1% return rate in that category.  Keep in mind, all sellers experience a similar amout of false "item not as described' returns so if you were rated vey high there's something different about your item(s) that did not meet the buyer expectation as promised in the listing.  See our tips & guidance page on how to reduce "item not as described" returns. HERE

[highlido]

It sounds almost like you just copied your first respons

Your tips dont help the issue I have

Anyone who sells anything used or parts is going to have more returns (espesially faulse ones) than people who sell new plain and simple.

So what this new system is doing is punishing people that sell used and parts items.

The only way buyers who are to lazy to read and buy an item that is for parts to return that item is to say it is not as described. As stated in my previous examples I have sold items that are clearly listed what is wrong with them and that issue is what the buyer says is wrong with it when they opened a return.

Up until the policy changed about disputing returns I had almost none that were not closed in my favor becuase of these faulty requests.

I cant describe it any when the issue is listed every possible place on the listing

[cash4rc]

This is exactly correct.  highlido, thank you for writing this out for eBay staff to consider.  jordiegreenberg, you'd better stop treating us like we just don't understand the policy and start forwarding this criticism to the higher-ups.  This one is supremely, supremely flawed.  If you're going to compare our return rates to our peers, you need to factor in the percentage of items that we sell that are used.  I'm in the "very high" category by the new metrics (though, like others have states, at least half of my returns are a result of buyers who didn't read the description or look at the pictures - promelgated, I suspect, by the eBay mobile app which requires them to manually tap "description" to even SEE it), but if you compare my return rate to other sellers in my category whose items are also almost all used, I guarantee I will be near the top of the class.  This is a massively flawed policy with a devastating impact on your small businesses.  You need to stop for a moment and do the math on just how penalizing a 4% fee hike is.  It will cost many eBay businesses HALF THEIR PROFIT or MORE.  If I can't figure out how to get around this, or the policy doesn't change, I fear this will be the end of my eBay career.  Is that what you want?  

[swappart]

---

@jordiegreenberg wrote:

---

@highlido wrote:

Exactly it has nothing to do with how we are preforming as sellers. It is the same as them taking the 20% TRS discount down to 10% and now taking it away from all but the "big boys" who can afford to do free returns and now are charging extra fees "for the good of the customers" to the rest of us. Who have been obviously taking good care of our customers, so... 

---

@highlido 

For the majority of sellers 'Service Metrics' program will be an insights tool, however, the sellers with very high 'item not as described' returns may subject to additional fees if they don't take action to improve their listings and reduce their 'item not as described' return requests. The intent of this program is to encourage sellers to reduce the number of bad buying experiences on the site.  For clarity, there are minimum thresholds in place to be rated 'high & very high during an evaluation period, so if you have less than 10 "item not as described" returns & less than a 1% "item not as described' return rate in a category then consequences will not apply. If you are above the thresholds, then I encourage you to find way to reduce your 'item not as described' returns.  

---

What you seem to not understand is that it's not always the seller's fault. I have around an 8% not as described return rate. I sell used TV parts. I know for a fact that my parts work because I test them. I have a lot of buyers who guess and when the part doesn't fix their TV, they claim it's defective to get a free return. Most of my buyers probably don't have proper test equipment, or even understand how their TV works. They guess, and about 90% must get it right or I'd have an even higher return rate. In most cases, I know you will take the buyer's word over mine, so I just accept the returns and relist the items. When you had the defect system a couple years ago, I had to fight almost every return just to keep my business. I'm still here only because I became very good at getting buyers to state facts which would cast doubt on their claim, such as getting them to state that their TV was doing the exact same thing with my part as with their own. That worked, but it cost me about 5 hours a week on the phone with eBay and I'm sure the buyer's weren't happy when I won and they had to pay the return shipping. When you did away with the defects, I just adopted the policy of promptly accepting every return regardless of stated reason. Fighting was never about the return shipping, it was about the defects which cost many of my peers to lose their businesses. What do you really want? Do you want a marketplace where buyers can easily and quickly return items and get prompt refunds, or do you want a marketplace where sellers have to fight returns resulting in buyers having to wait several days for refunds? That's what this is going to cause. And for the record, If you compare me to the average sellers in consumer electronics, my return rate seems extremely high, but if you compare me to other sellers in my subcategory (TV boards, parts, and components), my return rate is probably average or below average. You can't compare apples to oranges. 

[paudoh-16]

---

@jordiegreenberg wrote:

---

@highlido wrote:

Exactly it has nothing to do with how we are preforming as sellers. It is the same as them taking the 20% TRS discount down to 10% and now taking it away from all but the "big boys" who can afford to do free returns and now are charging extra fees "for the good of the customers" to the rest of us. Who have been obviously taking good care of our customers, so... 

---

@highlido 

For the majority of sellers 'Service Metrics' program will be an insights tool, however, the sellers with very high 'item not as described' returns may subject to additional fees if they don't take action to improve their listings and reduce their 'item not as described' return requests. The intent of this program is to encourage sellers to reduce the number of bad buying experiences on the site.  For clarity, there are minimum thresholds in place to be rated 'high & very high during an evaluation period, so if you have less than 10 "item not as described" returns & less than a 1% "item not as described' return rate in a category then consequences will not apply. If you are above the thresholds, then I encourage you to find way to reduce your 'item not as described' returns.  

---

Being sellers we chose to offer free returns at the beginning of the year.  Our return rates went up. For most who do switch, it will happen to you. Then if your sales drop, instead of being measured every three months it will be once a year and your averages will be even worse. Most everyone will be stung with increased fees except the favorites and the select few.

Bottom line is the money has to come from somewhere and since the sellers they can grab our money, well easy peasy.

 As for your final remark. You won't be able to improve your statistics because of lower performance your visibility will be limited. 

[fuestor0]

This looks like the best thread to keep alive, so i am bumping, because ebay needs to know how flawed this is. 

[terrycanarsky]

@jordiegreenberg

The only way a seller could be rated high/very high is if they have over 10 "item not as described" returns in a particular category and over a 1% return rate in that category. 

This does not seem to be correct, however.  We just received our second "You still have time to avoid fees" message.  "Business & Industrial: 1.76% of your items were returned, citing “item not as described”  which was high compared to our "peers" of 1.01%. 

- We still have no idea who our "peers" are so we can assess the accuracy of the standard we're being held against. 

- In that time period we had 552 completed sales and an  additional 43 sales which were either cancelled, unpaid, or returned (11 returns in total).   Of the 5 NAD returns, three were false and this was clearly evident in the messages the buyers provided when they opened the cases but because of recent policy changes, the fraudulent reasons stayed on the record and we are penalized.  FIVE "item not as described" out of 595 sales does not equal nearly 2%.  The only way to reach that percentile is to include all the returns, not just the NAD, which is not what the report (and policy) says.

- I cannot do the mathematics to arrive at 1.76% with the known formula and numbers, but perhaps someone a lot smarter than me can explain. 

- Thus eBay policy has fundamentally changed without notice or reason -OR- the system has been coded incorrectly and is miscounting the data in such a way as to pull in more revenue at the expense of the sellers.  Again.

So.  The metrics are off.  Significantly.  Am I missing something?

~M

[fuestor0]

My worry isn't necessarily the 4% just wait till the forced internet tax goes, ecommerce overall is going to get hammered, and that'll be 4-7% probably too. What i am concerned about is, have you ever had a friend or ahem.... another account that went below standard? If you have... Not only does your fees increase 4% you're essentially like a mob informant... you're either gone, or they gonna get you gone.

Your listings rarely are in search... that's what i mean

[owerstokdeel]

Start using more and more Craiglist and Offer Up!This is great help.My buyers lined about "the item is not as described "even before receiving the packages.I show that to eBay staff.NO HELPED. They just wanna more of your money.

[owerstokdeel]

Of course its about the making more revenue!Buyers always lie about returning items.I had buyers opened case before receiving the item.Ebay is not your friend.