SNP: 1 month grace before suspension introduced for eBay UK
July 18, 2008
eBay have just officially announced a one month grace period for any seller falling foul of the seller non-performance (SNP) policy for the first time.
Rather than face an immediate site suspension they will be informed that they’re in breach of the policy and given a month to bring their account back into good standing. This is great news and hopefully will keep the dolphins out of the eBay nets. It also means that one upset customer can no longer threaten your eBay business - by the end of the 1 month warning period their feedback will have dropped out of the 30 day feedback and DSRs used in the SNP calculation.
If a seller breaches the policy for a second time within a six month period then they will still face an instant selling restriction or suspension.
eBay have also expanded the Seller Dashboard to include a new Buyer Satisfaction Rating (BDR) to enable sellers to track their performance. This includes negative feedback, neutral feedback, low DSR scores (1 or 2 star ratings) and any buyer protection claims closed in favour of the buyer.
BDR is important not only for SNP but also can affect your standing in search - sellers with low BDR will be disadvantaged under the new Best Match search results. Sellers will be considered in breach of SNP if their BDR drops to “poor” or “unacceptable”.
The only part of BDR that is hidden from sellers are the DSR ratings, sellers should be aware of any other factors that could affect their standing. If eBay would change from anonymous ratings and enable sellers to see where they’re falling down it would be a valuable tool to assist seller increase customer satisfaction.
By keeping DSRs anonymous sellers have no clear understanding which transactions or which buyers are marking them down and sellers are unable to target specific areas or product lines for improvement.
Overall it’s a welcome change though - removing the fear and uncertainty sellers have felt with the knowledge just one or two buyers could earn them an instant 30 day suspension is great news.
eBay UK “tweak” Seller Non-Performance Policy
June 14, 2008
Could this be a glimmer of hope for “dolphin” sellers caught in the net of eBay’s Seller Non-Performance Policy? Pink Richard Ambrose posted on the Q and A forum:
On the subject of SNP, the first sellers who were restricted as part of the tougher sanctions are coming to the end of their restriction period. Some have been suspended permanently, some have had their restrictions lifted. Having studied this first ‘wave’ we’ll make some tweaks to the way the programme works - most importantly, we’ll re-introduce a warning period rather than continuing with immediate restrictions.
While it’s always dangerous to extrapolate entire eBay policies from what Pinks post on message boards, in the absence of any official announcement on recent changes to SNP, that’s about all we can do.
This looks, in fact, like a great improvement to the policy. If the new criteria for warnings are the same as the old criteria for suspension, sellers with just one or two problem transactions may get a warning, but they shouldn’t go on to get a suspension. If warning period and SNP calculation period are both thirty days (which is a reasonable assumption), bad feedback and DSRs will have rolled beyond the radar, and PayPal disputes should have been dealt with.
Sellers will also have the opportunity to increase their numbers of positive feedbacks by selling more while they’re on a warning; though some will question why they should give more money to a company that’s threatening their account, others will welcome the opportunity to save the account by any means necessary.
As always, more details when we get them; if you’re one of the affected sellers, please leave us a comment.
Thanks to Dave in the forum for the heads up.
Why SNP restrictions need reviewing
June 4, 2008
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.
I have no reason to give great service on eBay
June 2, 2008
Today I received a totally justified negative feedback from a buyer. He stated in the neg that the item I supplied was not fully working with an intermittent fault.
Sadly the buyer never contacted me or he would have received a full refund or a replacement (or possibly both!). I’d have actually preferred that he open an INR dispute for SNAD (Significantly Not As Described) prior to leaving feedback, as than I’d at least have had an opportunity to rectify the situation.
I should point out I’m not that fussed about a neg per se. It’s not the first and it almost certainly won’t be the last that I receive in my eBay selling career. The problem is that it could spell the start of the end of my eBay business. The Seller Non-Performance criteria are an unknown quantity, both the exact criteria and the visibilty of a sellers standing. It may only take a couple more negative or neutral feedbacks combined with a few low scoring DSRs or maybe a buyer dispute opened, and my account could be suspended.
Having already received the neg I can see no reason why I should help an unhappy customer. If it led to a suspension I certainly couldn’t afford to be magnanimous and assist in spite of receiving poor feedback, which is what I have done in the past.
Recent eBay changes such as business seller registration, highlighting the Distance Selling Regulations and Sale of Goods Act and insisting on returns policies haven’t helped this buyer in the slightest. eBay has put me in the position where I have zero incentive to give great service and plenty of reasons to simply not bother.
But of course I did, this evening I telephoned the buyer and it was an interesting conversation. First I simply said I saw he had left negative feedback, sorry about the problem, would you like a replacement or a refund. A pleasantly surprised buyer asked what about the return postage costs and, when I said he wouldn’t have to pay any, there was a stunned silence followed by “What’s the catch?”
Well there really is no catch but he couldn’t believe that I was willing to simply replace the product, that’s why he hadn’t bothered to contact me in the first place. It turns out he’s new to eBay and one of his other purchases, significantly higher value than the one from me, had gone wrong. He explained “I’m really sorry but I’d just about given up on eBay, there was a problem with the last item I bought and you just got the brunt of it.”
My buyer has asked how he can erase the feedback (his suggestion, not mine) but of course he can’t – a great argument for editable feedback or the return of feedback withdrawal. eBay emphasise that many of the recent 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, also they’re doing what they can to encourage buyers to communicate with sellers at the point of giving potential negative feedback. Unfortunately neither happened in this case.
I have a happy customer and one that will probably go on to trade on eBay in the future. It’s just a shame I caught the tail end of another seller’s poor service and now have a neg on my account for the next year.
The question is what would you do? Once the feedback is left there’s no possible benefit to you so would you ignore the neg and still look after the customer? Although I did in this case, I’m not so sure I would if it was the neg that got me suspended.
eBay need to get dolphin-friendly sooner
May 28, 2008
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.
Seller non-performance slashed from 90 to 30 days
May 20, 2008
It was only a couple of weeks ago that sellers were recieving emails from their Account Managers advising of unnanounced changes to the Seller Non-Performance Policy (SNP). Today we’ve discovered another significant change courtesy of Eddie from AuctionTrax
The emails sent out at the end of last month advised sellers “If you have any negative or neutral feedback in the last 90 days, I urge you to file a Mutual Feedback Withdrawal form” (My emphasis) as there is now no grace period with a warning if sellers fall foul of SNP.
Now in an unannounced change the time frame has reduced from 90 days, and sellers are assessed over the recent 30 day period. This should be good news for high volume sellers who may have the occaisional awkward customer as the previous two month period of feedback will no longer be counted, but for low volume sellers just one or two negative or neutral feedback could be one too many.
A seller’s Buyer Dissatisfaction Rate (BDR) is measured by negative/neutral feedback, low detailed seller ratings and/or Item Not Received complaints. If your BDR rises above 5% in the previous 30 day period it’s likely that you’ll face sanctions, which are likely to include a 30 day suspension.
No more ‘grace period’ to sort out poor feedback
April 29, 2008
eBay UK sellers are receiving emails from Account Managers this morning advising them of unannounced changes to the rules regarding seller non-performance:
- there will be no more 30 day grace period for sellers whose buyer dissatisfaction rate falls below 95%.
- if your BDR falls below 95% over a 90 day period, you will immediately have your account suspended from selling for 30 days and all listings will be removed.
- if after 30 days, your account has not shown “a significant improvement”, you will be indefinitely suspended.
- if you are indefinitely suspended, you will not be able to use any other accounts, or to open new ones. (The implication here is that the accounts will be completely suspended from all activity, not just selling, but the email doesn’t explicitly say this.)
Sellers who had fallen foul of the seller non-performance policy previously had the opportunity to trade their way out of trouble, perhaps by selling a lot of cheap items quickly to try to increase their feedback percentages. This will no longer be an option.
To be a victim of the Seller Non-Performance Policy, sellers must have 5% or more of their buyers unhappy, as evidenced by neutral feedback, negative feedback or item not received complaints, over a 90 day period. While this would be difficult for most eBay sellers to achieve, as we’ve seen with DSRs, it’s likely to be the high-value, low-volume sellers who are hit hardest. The DSRs themselves are not currently taken into account for this score, though eBay have said that this may change in the future.
eBay do offer some tips on how to improve your chances of staying registered on the site:
- sellers who have received any non-positive feedback are encouraged to file for mutual feedback withdrawal
- sellers who have filed for MFW and had no response are encouraged to email AMs to see if the feedback can be removed under any eBay policies.
I am exceedingly concerned at the effect this will have on the eBay buyer experience. It’s likely to lead to *much* more bullying of buyers by sellers who no longer have anything to lose by harrassing people into feedback withdrawals.
And of course, for sellers, it means that you can’t trade your way out of a bad spot. 30 days sitting there with nothing for sale is unlikely to improve anyone’s score much - indeed, when sellers seem to have disappeared from the site, they’re much less likely to be given the benefit of the doubt by buyers who will naturally assume they’ve done a runner.
Worse still, if you’ve had a flurry of negative feedback - maybe because of a faulty batch of stock or a missing mailbag - then selling nothing for a month will give you 60 days worth of feedback as previous good ones drop off, and you’ll probably be down to 90% by the time your suspension is up. In other words, if you get to a 30 day suspension, you can probably wave goodbye to your eBay account.
But the thing that shocks me more than anything is that this change is not being officially announced. “Although it has not been announced…” begins the AM email. Frankly, this isn’t good enough. There should have been a post on the Announcements Board, not a sneaky little email to those of us lucky enough to have an Account Manager.
Updated to add Just to clarify: sellers need a minimum of two negative feedbacks to be sanctioned under the SNP policy (or they did last time eBay actually revealed any details of that policy). So one negative cannot get your account suspended (or so I understand).
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