Why SNP restrictions need reviewing

June 4, 2008

This post was written in June 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

Looking back over the years eBay have on numerous occasions been hammered in the press for the conduct of sellers on the site. Watchdog in particular have an almost annual pop at them (watch out for another program in the Autumn or early Winter, they’ve had one for the last two years running at that time of year).

eBay have had to take steps to clean up their site, and those steps have inevitably involved setting a bar for acceptable seller behaviour.

eBay had to set the bar somewhere, and no matter how high or low it might be there would always be some borderline cases or “dolphins“. Lower or raise the bar and it’ll simply result in a different set of sellers being borderline.

The big question shouldn’t be “Are the wrong sellers getting caught in the net”, it should be “How should eBay handle borderline cases”.

I have no problem at all with eBay taking action against accounts which are blatantly giving abysmal service and removing them from the site. However being an innocent victim of an over-enthusiastically applied policy and having your income removed for 30 days seems more than a little harsh to say the least.

It would appear fairer if borderline cases could be handled more gently by applying an alternative “speed bump”. Some eBay sites still use different penalties such as a 14 day listing restriction without cancelling any live listings already running, so there are options that could be considered.

I’m aware of the argument that in the past sellers undergoing a selling restriction may have abused the grace period, making as many sales as possible and in some cases giving even worse service than before. Borderline cases such as those with non-positive feedback from a single buyer, or those with only neutrals and no negatives in the last 30 days are the ones most likely to take positive action in my opinion.

eBay have to take a stand to protect buyers and the future of the site for the thousands of sellers giving superb service, but eBay must protect good sellers from becoming victims of the maths of their new policies, especially low-volume sellers who can easily be damaged by one random, rogue bidder.

We spoke to eBay and they have this message for sellers: “We appreciate the situation you’re in. Firstly we’d emphasise that many of the changes are geared towards offering great customer service and resolution of issues up front so that buyers have no need to even consider a neg or dispute in the first place. And we’re doing what we can to encourage buyers to communicate with sellers at the point of giving potential negative Feedback.”

It’s impossible to attain the flawless service eBay aim for all of the time - even a brand new product can be faulty, or a delivery go missing en route. Whilst sellers aim for perfection, sometimes they (myself included) fall short.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though, eBay also said: “With regards to the new criteria for account restrictions we’re well aware of the uncertainty some sellers are feeling and are continuously fine tuning our policies to be ever more effective in targeting the right sellers. We’re also reviewing the nature of some of these restrictions and how best we communicate the policies.”

Hopefully that will also include reviewing those sellers already classed as borderline and unable to currently trade.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under News | 12 Comments 

I know I can’t neg buyers so why bother telling me?

June 2, 2008

This post was written in June 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

“Yes we are using the pop up. This is simply a way of letting buyers know the ‘new news’ that they shouldn’t be afraid to speak their minds if they have a bad experience.

They’ll see it a maximum of three times and if you’re providing good service there is nothing to fear from this. In contrast we’re asking buyers to go through a three-part checklist if they intend to leave a neg encouraging them to make contact with sellers before leaving feedback.”
James (eBay Pink) on the PowerSeller board (log in required)

eBay are constantly bombarding buyers with the message that they are immune from non-positive feedback from sellers. But why are they telling me as a seller? Firstly I’m sick to death of seeing this pop up and I’ve seen it a lot more than the stated three times. (You might ask why I’ve not ticked the box so that I don’t see it again and the answer is out of perverse interest to see just how long it’ll be displayed for). Secondly as a seller I only have the option to leave positive feedback anyway as can be seen from the greyed out section of the image.

Just how long is it going to be appearing for and how many times (certainly a lot more than three) will it be shown to each user?

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under News | 30 Comments 

eBay need to get dolphin-friendly sooner

May 28, 2008

This post was written in May 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.
Spettatori
Creative Commons License photo credit: Roby Ferrari

There’s no nice way to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it: one single pissed-off buyer can spell the end of your eBay account. eBay have previously assured sellers that neutral feedback, or one single negative would never, could never, get your account suspended. But with more recent changes on eBay UK, this is no longer the case. We’re hearing of more and more sellers who are being suspended for - frankly - the flimsiest of reasons. Here are just a few of them.

Gareth from saversoftware posted about his problems in our forum. He’d received just three neutral feedbacks, with no other problems, no negs, no PayPal disputes, but had been told his account was being suspended for 30 days for non-performance. Claire from imagineallthat received three neutral feedbacks over the last month. With 83 positives in the same period, you’d think she was a good seller, but under eBay UK’s new regime, she was suspended for 30 days.

Luciano, who sells as malpastrade has just one negative feedback. But balanced with 27 positives over the last 30 days, that puts him on 3.7% non-positive feedback, which according to eBay, makes him a bad seller. Sarah from just-toys-online also has just one negative feedback. She says she also has one item not received which she’s replaced and is just waiting for the buyer to close the dispute. A buyer who’s a bit slow to close an INR dispute can now get your selling account suspended too. Both Sarah and Luciano are also on a thirty day suspension.

None of these sellers deserves censure. None of them should have been suspended, and when their cases came to light, eBay should have admitted that their policy had hit people it was never intended to hit, and reinstated their accounts.

Even eBay’s own ex-employees have fallen foul of these new rules. Vzaar were selling off some of their eBay swag a couple of weeks ago, and one damaged parcel has earned them a negative, a positive and two neutrals from the same buyer. Result? They’re taking a month’s enforced eBay leave too. Jamie told me, “I have to give the guy credit because he even initiated a conversation before leaving the comments. I like buyers like that. In the end I even agreed to meet for a beer at eBay Live this June! Sadly though in receiving these mixed comments from the buyer our account has now been suspended for 30 days from buying and selling with immediate effect. It feels that with one bad transaction (the items were posted as one) against our name, we have fallen foul to the new changes that were introduced to penalise consistent sloppy seller standards.”

So what are eBay doing to resolve these problems, to ensure that changes that were meant to affect bad sellers don’t inadvertantly affect unlucky ones too? On the face of it, absolutely nothing. eBay staff on message boards have consistantly refused to acknowledge any problems with what has happened to these sellers. They’ve been referred to as “dolphins caught up in the nets”; hardly reassuring when your business, your bank account, your family’s living is what’s on the line. Every one of these accidental victims of this policy is a real person, not an eBay seller statistic. Every one of them is having their livelihood damaged by this month’s suspension. eBay need to acknowledge and do something about that.

eBay must immediately introduce a proper appeals procedure for those caught up in this policy. Human beings must be made available to look at accounts which have been suspended, human beings who have the authority to make a reasoned judgement call as to whether a seller really deserves to have their account suspended or not. And they must change this wretched policy that says that one buyer’s feedback can cause an account to be suspended.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Featured, Selling Tips | 165 Comments