mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
I think you just misunderstand a few things.
I think the "Free Return Shipping" is a bunch of bull.
When I shop on ebay I look for the best price, closest location so I can get the item ASAP and for the seller to have the least amount of negatives, I dont care if the seller is top rated or not, thats another bunch of bull.
The Free returns [not free shipping] program won't change this any for you.
I will never consider a seller who offers Free Return Shipping because I dont buy something with the intention of returning it.
If you have no intention of returning anything, then why would it even matter to you.
I am already protected by ebays not as described policy so why change it..
Ebay has NOT change the Money Back Guarantee offered to buyers. So you will NOT be experiencing any change.
But if I was one of those buyers who buy something only to find a cheaper price a week later then that policy would be for me as I could return the first item I bought.
Yes, if it were still in the same condition as it was when you purchased it. But buyers can do that now so the Free Return program will not change this either.
Also, for ebay to punish top rated sellers by demoting them for not choosing free return shipping isnt fair,
Well you can stop worrying about this as it is NOT TRUE!
it is just another way for ebay to save that 10% they give top rated sellers off their final value fees.
If a seller that is TRS offers Free Returns, they will not lose their TRS+ [discount]. But if they don't, they can still be TRS, just no discount.
The new Seller Protection Policy remains to be seen if it will help sellers as ebay has always sided with the buyer,
Well this is certainly true and not like to change much.
I wonder if that policy will only protect the sellers who opt in for the Free Return Shipping.
NO
I think ebay should have left the original return policy alone, it was already bad, now it is worse.
The Free Return option is an ADDITION to the other types of return policies a seller can have. It is NOT the only one sellers can have. There isn't much changing with the actual way a return policy is written. All sellers return policies must meet or exceed the Money Back Guarantee that Ebay offers buyers.
Remember, there is no such thing as free, someone has to pay for it, if you are not big enough to absorb the loss you will go out of business,
Free returns isn't free, you are absolutely correct. But the name comes from that it is free return shipping for buyers, the seller pays.
once again, the little guy loses.
They don't have to as they do not have to have a Free Return policy. It is a choice that is right for some and not for others.
Shipping rates seem to go up every year so it is only going to get worse, unless you are in China!
Oh this is a tough subject and I agree something needs to be done about it.
As big as Ebay is they should negotiate better deals with Fedex, USPS and UPS and pass the savings on to the sellers, not keep the savings for themselves (which you know they do).
I use USPS FCP [first class parcel] the most, so I'm most familiar with that one. USPS does NOT allow negotiations of FCP domestic. Ebay like ALL other internet sites that provide postage have the SAME rates. No one has a better price that Ebay, they are all the same. The can't negotiate what USPS does allow to be negotiated.
On the other hand FCP International USPS does allow for negotiations. And Ebay has a much better rate that many other sites to include Amazon.
This year ebay raised my store rate $3.00 a month and cut my 20% TRS refund on my fees to 10%,
They did that on all TRS, not just you and the store rate increase was for everyone with that store level as well. I know it can get hard to swallow and cover all these additional fees. I feel your pain.
now they want me to offer Free Return Shipping.
You just need to decide if the 10% discount on FVFs are important enough to you to offer Free Returns. For myself, I've decided that I will not offer Free Returns on my fragrance listings, but I will give it a try on my other listings. If it doesn't appear to be working well for me, then I'll go to a 30 day return policy on all my listings. We each need to do what is best for ourselves and what we sell and how we sell.
For you, I wouldn't offer Free Returns on your DVDs or Video Games, but you may want to try it on some of your other items. Just give it a test and see how it works. You can always change back to a 30 day policy.
I hope it all works out for you. I know these changes keep coming fast and furious at times and it is just hard to deal with them all. It can get rather over whelming.
I believe this return policy will have to be changed again quickly and not only small sellers will suffer large sellers will suffer too.
That is something the seller has complete control over. NO ONE is forced to use the Free Return policy.
Because if items are coming back after 30 days of use from the buyer do you think it's coming back in the same condition.
What? The Free Return policy did NOT extend the Ebay rule on Claims being filed. Ebay's rule is 30 days. So this concern is a non concern. Unless you are worried about a claim in PP. But then all return or no return policies with PP allows buyers 180 to file a claim. It has nothing to do with this Free Return policy.
Plus ebay says they will monitor buyers with too many return that never happens
You have information I don't have. Are you saying that in the pilot program of this Free Return policy that Ebay did not track these types of buyers? Or are you saying you just don't trust Ebay to really do this?
plus not when you can just create a new account and start all over.
Why would you need to do that. If you decide you are going to give Free Returns a try and it appears not to be working for you because you return rate has increased too much. Then just change your listings and go to a regular 30 day return policy.
And at the End of the day if ebay is flooded with returns they will have to issue a lot of final valur fees back to sellers.
The pilot program did not show that to be the case. But with that said, I think there are some categories that this could be a very dangerous thing to do for sellers. Fashions, Jewelry and Fragrances are just a few. For myself I'm going to give this a try, but only on my craft stuff, not on my fragrance listings.
It is a choice. You just need to decide for yourself. If it makes you too uncomfortable, then just don't do it.
I think when trying to weigh out if this policy would or would not benefit your sales that it is important to keep in mind that we do NOW give free returns, even though our return policies are not labeled as such.
From my point of view this is a simple label change from a return policy to a free return policy. Not to say it isn't an important one, I'm just saying it isn't as complicated as some may like to make it seem.
Under the current rules of Ebay. If a buyer files a SNAD, the seller is responsible to pay the return shipping no matter what your return policy states or even if you have a No return policy. You as the seller are responsible for the return shipping. So you do currently offer free returns, you just don't have your policy called that.
So the question will be, with the name change, will buyers be different. They could do it now if they wanted, but will the simple name change be a factor in their behavior. I personally think it will have some affects. More in certain categories than others. But there are plenty of categories that it should work fine in. So you just need to look at this logically and figure out if you sell stuff that someone might by several of because of color variations, sizing, smell, etc. Then pick what they want to keep and ship the rest back.
Now that can certainly hurt some sellers if a buyers do that too often. But it is also something to consider that the buyer does have to pay for all this stuff up front. So they would have to have the cash flow to allow their money to be tied up for a few weeks while any return they may do gets all sorted out.
There are pros and cons to this renaming of the policy. Just try to look at it from many directions instead of one direction so that you can make an informed decision of what is best for YOU!
I don’t have any one single seller around happy with the free return policy to keep TRS.
Those are two separate issues.
It is important to understand the nature of people. Typically they don't come to the threads to tell positive stories, they come here to vent, get advice, learn or give advice. Also it is a fraction of a fraction of sellers that are represented on or in the discussion boards.
I have heard of some people that like the Free Return policy. Not to be mistaken with my support of the policy as I have mixed feelings about it.
As to TRS. This policy poses NO risk to ANY sellers TR status. NONE, ZERO, ZIP. It is important to understand what the policy does and doesn't do when you are trying to make a decision to be part of it or not. But TRS do NOT have ANY risk of losing their TR status if they CHOOSE not to participate in the policy.
Now if you want the discount afforded to TR sellers that meet certain requirements, then yes you need to participate in the program. TRS+ is a listing by listing rating for those listings that meet certain requirements. You MUST be a TRS before you are eligible for TRS+, but you do NOT have to have TRS+ listings to remain a TRS.
As well as with eliminating restocking fee.
Well sort of. They just moved in into the Free Returns program in a different way. I'm sure to encourage sellers to participate in the program. Sellers offering Free Returns have the ability to give partial refunds up to 50% if the item comes back in used condition or other issues that may arrise. Starting June, Ebay is suppose to be protecting sellers that give partial refunds under the Free Shippping policy. I have no idea what that means or how that will actually be applied. But it is what they have said.
People discussing it all over: on FB, different forums.
Yes and many are making assumption about the policy without actually reading what Ebay has announced. So there is lots and lots of bad information out there.
And there are no single happy seller!
That is your opinion and NOT a fact. I understand why you say that, but you nor I can speak for MILLIONS of sellers. Your basing this on some opinions you have read on the discussion boards, not some survey that all or most seller's participated in.
There are thousands of UNHAPPY sellers!
Maybe so, but thousands of sellers are NOT posting on the threads regarding this subject, but 100's are. And there are MILLIONS of sellers. The last number I saw was 25 million.
People scary to post here as they worried to have problems with their stores!
I have no knowledge of that being true, but I'm aware there are many paronoid people out there that fear the threads. I personally have never seen any proof of these acqusations only the fears and assumptsions expressed. But no facts.
Open your FB and read!
What??? What's wrong with my FB? What am I missing?
@allforjoy12 wrote:
Noting about your private FB. Forums on FB. No worries about your privacy. Don’t paranoid. Lol
Thank you for your concern, but I'm not paranoid, I'm not sure how from your comment you thought I should have known to go to the FB forum.
I mostly agree with you. It really shouldn't have any real impact on sellers as we are currently under this kind of system with Ebay anyway. But there is something about renaming it Free Returns which will affect some buyers.
For example. I got into a really enlightening chat with a seller in fashions about a week or so ago. She was having problems with buyers buying several sizes in items she sold. Then once they received them, apparently they tried them on to see which one fit best and put in for a Request for return on the rest. That can snowball into a real issue for a seller.
For myself, I have concerns about the fragrances I sell. Everything I sell is new and sealed. Yet Ebay will allow a return for full refund on an item that gets opened and tried out. Which of course once opened and the seal broken I can't sell it as new. There are health laws to prevent that. But Ebay will allow the return as if it were new. Now of course with fragrance sales on the internet, no one can guarantee a buyer will like the scent. But since Ebay allows the use of these items, there would be nothing to prevent a buyer from purchasing a few different fragrances. Trying them all. Decide which one they like best and then return the rest.
I'm a small seller, so too much of that could put me out of business. Yes, Ebay says they are going to track buyers abusing the system, but they haven't released any details on that. Does that mean if they do this twice they will warn the buyer. Three times, 4 times, 10 times, what? What is that magic number?
So for myself I won't offer Free Shipping on my fragrances. But I'm willing to try it on the craft stuff I sell. I think it is less likely someone would abuse it for these items. But if I find that my return rate increases, I'll take everything I sell to a regular 30 day policy. As I said, I'm a small seller, so losing the TRS discount is not that big of a deal to me, especially since they cut it in half recently.
Like you, I don't understand why some our outraged by a reasonable price increase in fees each year. Ebay is a for profit company. They has as much right to earn money as any seller on Ebay. So I agree with you.
But I think part of the outrage over increases has to do with the lack of stability on the platform and the lack of training for CSRs in the call center. We pay our fees so that the site can function properly and that people paid to explain policies and help us when there are issues know what the heck they are talking about. All too often this is just not the case. I can not even tell you how many times I've called into Ebay and gotten bad advice or the CSR didn't even know what they heck to say.
There is always at least two sides to everything. So for some this new policy may work very well for and others it won't. Each seller just needs to figure out for themselves what is best.
But THANK YOU for being a thoughtful and responsible buyer on Ebay.
