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.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Featured, Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 21 Comments 

eBay UK hint at more changes to come

July 11, 2008

Following on from yesterday’s announcement on eBay.com, eBay UK have put out their own statement on feedback changes to be implemented later this year.

It’s confirmed that neutrals will no longer be counted as part of the feedback percentage, and that those percentages will be recalculated. This will be effective late August, but in the meantime, no one will lose PowerSeller status because of neutral feedback.

The promised new dispute process which will give buyers the facility to edit feedback, will also roll in the UK in October. More details of this are coming “soon”.

And finally, a hint that change isn’t finished yet:

We’ve also recently received lots of feedback from sellers about the Seller Non-Performance programme. We’ll provide an update on changes to this programme early next week.

Despite many sellers criticising the ‘neutrals as negs’ policy when it was introduced and demanding eBay change it back again, I’m seeing just as many people this morning criticising them for the latest changes. ‘Too little, too late’ seems to be a popular thought: ‘they shouldn’t have done it in the first place’, and ‘it’s an admission of failure’.

But even if the implementation of the policies was wrong (and it was), the desire to clean up the site, to drag it out of the 1990s and make it a better place to shop, was absolutely right. Watching eBay tweak new policies and work towards getting things right is all part of the process: how many of us try things in our own businesses, test, tweak, see if it works, and if it doesn’t, try something else? It’s difficult, for all of us, but the alternative is a site that never moves forward, and none of us can want that.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 15 Comments 

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.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Featured, Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 14 Comments 

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.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under News | 12 Comments 

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.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Featured, Selling Tips | 57 Comments 

eBay need to get dolphin-friendly sooner

May 28, 2008

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 

We want peace of mind too…

May 27, 2008

When eBay banned non-positive feedback for buyers earlier this month, many sellers were understandably worried that this would lead to negative and neutral sprees by buyers, with no right of response. Two weeks after the change rolled out, it’s clear that a few buyers had indeed waited until the changeover to leave their own non-positive feedback. Did they know about the change in advance and wait deliberately, or did eBay’s announcements that buyers can no longer be negged inspire those buyers to leave negative feedback when previously, they’d have said nothing?

eBay did their best to reassure sellers that they were not going to push buyers towards non-positive feedback: the pop-up message informing buyers of the change in policy would, they said, show up a maximum of three times. Sadly, this isn’t true: Chasbert, a PowerSeller and power buyer, has seen the pop-up message when leaving feedback for her sellers more than twenty times. I’ve seen it half a dozen times and counting. Chris saw it when leaving positive feedback for a *buyer*. This “neg your sellers if you want to” message is not going away.

It’s not only there. The little logo people are on eBay’s front page, telling buyers of their new powers:

I want to leave honest feedback


I wonder if using the red person was a coincidence?

And many UK-registered buyers received eBay’s marketing email yesterday, again reminding them - twice! - that they can now leave as many negatives as they want to.

I want to leave honest feedback we want peace of mind

Enough already!

Until now, I’ve largely been in favour of these feedback changes. I think they will give buyers more confidence that the feedback they’re checking is accurate; if buyers have more confidence in the site, we should all have more sales. But eBay have to get the balance right; at the moment, every seller is at the mercy of their buyers. Safeguards for sellers - the hub to report feedback abuse and the removal of negative and neutral feedback from NARU members - keep being promised “soon”, when these should have rolled at exactly the same time as the other changes. Sellers have been penalised first, helped second, and it should not have worked like that.

Don’t stop selling

More problematically, the way that percentages are being calculated does sellers a huge disservice. Seller non-performance seems to be worked out on a rolling 30 day average. If you cut back on your sales, a couple of neutrals, that you thought wouldn’t affect you, may suddenly come to represent a much higher percentage of your feedback, and could leave you with sanctions against your account. Those who are cutting back their eBay sales and closing their Shops may not care, but I predict the sight of eBay sellers returning from holidays to suspended accounts will be more common this year than it’s ever been.

eBay really need to find us a better incentive to keep listing than that!

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Featured | 45 Comments