Performance Standards
Summary: militaryhistorybooks shared their experience of facing severe penalties from an online platform due to out-of-stock issues after purchasing inventory from a retiring bookseller. They explained how their performance rating significantly dropped, affecting their ability to sell. 4_bathrooms explained the difficulty of improving ratings under imposed restrictions and inquired about the nature of the account. padanpcparts suggested an approach to improve the account status using small, safe sales, though militaryhistorybooks expressed this wasn't feasible under current restrictions. the_book_seekers questioned additional penalties, which militaryhistorybooks confirmed were irrelevant due to no sales. m.j.rodgers critiqued the situation's management, which militaryhistorybooks acknowledged without additional insights.
Last year I bulk-purchased 6,000 specialist books and listed them from the spreadsheet supplied by the vendor, a retiring bookshop owner. He didn't tell me that there were a sizeable number of 'out-of-stocks' listed (he probably didn't know) and consequently I started to receive orders for books I didn't have. So my Seller Metrics started to suffer and before long I sank from Top Rated to Below Standard. eBay claim that the Performance Standard system is designed to illuminate seller areas for improvement and that's good. So, following their advice, I started to check all my stock against listings and to de-list items that did not physically exist. Obviously, with such a large amount of listings it's not something that I could do overnight. So, after receiving more unfulfillable orders from buyers I de-listed all of my books, intending to check them off-line and relist when I had more confidence in my ability to supply.
Out-of-the-blue, eBay sent me a message transferring all my listings to Inactive and reducing my ability to sell to one item at £50 per month! That was 4 months ago and I have sold nothing since and no amount of emails to the top brass have resulted in me feeling that they understand the impact of what they have done. Nor do I understand how this action is supposed to do anything except punish me for transgressing an eBay rule.
The Below Standard rating is measured over the previous 12 months by dividing the total defects by the total transactions. One would expect this calculation to improve my rating the more months I have no transactions. However, it's quite the reverse. 7 (and reducing as time goes by) historic defects in total for the year divided into a reducing number of transactions results in an increasing defect rate. For instance, 650 transaction over the past year divided into 20 defects over the same period results in 3% Defect Rate. and this increases each month as both defects and transactions reduce. Even 2 defects in a year divided into one transaction gives a result of 2% defect rate. It's going to take until Xmas for me to be back to 0 defects over the past year as most of the out-of-stocks happened last December & January, as one would expect.
Having said that, can anyone explain to me how my performance can be Below Standard when I've sold nothing for 3.5 months? It's a stupid and rigid system which does nothing at all for a seller who is trying to follow the rules, as I have done since eBay started in the UK.
m.j.rodgers
·3 weeks agoI just looked at your shop account. You have had this account since 2004.
These standards are not a new thing. You chose to list items without actually putting your hand on the stock. We've all done it. There's a discrepancy between your stock system and the items on the shelf. So for a single item or even the 0.5 % allowed to keep your Top Rated seller that's fair enough. It happens.
How I read your post and your feedback you have received is that you didn't have any useful overview of your stock. You have items not as described and by your own admission you have a lot out of stocks. And it sounds like these problems went from normal day to day issues to a complete mess in a short period of time.
Ebay doesn't only record the absolute number of defects. It also looks at whether a lot of new problems started recently. eg going from 0.5% defects to 3% defects in a couple of months.
I suspect this is why eBay have penalised your account so severely.
militaryhistorybooks
OP3 weeks agoThank you for your comments You've basically re-written my post using different words.
the_book_seekers
·3 weeks agoYou haven't mentioned if ebay has also hit you with the extra 6% they add for being below standard or is it only the selling restrictions.
militaryhistorybooks
OP3 weeks agoIt hasn't been mentioned but then I've had no sales to attract 6% extra.
padanpcparts
·3 weeks agoSo, you are responsible for your listings first of all. That being said, the way E-bays math's work with regards cases/issues/seller standards/etc is incredibly poor and I have fallen foul of it in the past. The usual answer here is to sell something cheap, popular and with a very low chance of problems to bump the numbers up.
militaryhistorybooks
OP3 weeks agoTBH I thought about that approach but being restricted to £50 per month and only 1 item isn't worth the bother IMHP
4_bathrooms
·3 weeks agoCancelling sales for being out of stock is right up there with cases closed without seller resolution when it comes to the worst defects an eBay account can receive. I don't know if you're aware but being rated below standard also means eBay adds 6 percentage points (plus VAT) onto your final value fees.
As you correctly pointed out below a certain level of sales - i.e. 400 sales in the last 3 months - the evaluation period is 12 months. This makes it difficult to dilute the rate with the restrictions eBay applies for being below standard. However, I have never known eBay to restrict a business account for being below standard as severely as they have yours - extreme restrictions on the number of active listings are normally reserved for private sellers who eBay can't apply a final value fee penalty against. Was your account originally a private account that was "upgraded" to a business account or was it a business account from the start?
As things stand the only real way you have out is to wait until the defects fall off to a level where you're no longer rated below standard.
militaryhistorybooks
OP3 weeks agoThanks for the response,
I agree to the need to wait it out and also that the penalty is so severe and doesn't really 'fit the crime'. I've written twice to a manager in the Executive Escalations Dept and the staff there seem to be just a higher level of Customer Service; no empathy and rigid followers of the rules.
I'm 78 years old and have been in senior management retail most of my life and TBH I've never known anything like this approach to a customer.