eBay

goingfishinguk · ‎28-10-2024

Hope everyone is well. Just received the naughty boy email from eBay saying my INR cases are 'high' even though I've not had one for ages and ages. I decided to take a look at the service metrics to see why. Anyone who was around during the 'we will protect you through the Royal Mail strikes regarding INR cases and forgot' will know about how damaing a high or very high service metric can be even if eBay claim the 'punishments' are not what we all know they are.

Anyhoo my point, my last 'performance' bracket was June 2024 to Aug 2024. That for me has always been the norm, a rolling three month period. However when I now look at current it states the period is from Oct 2023 to Sept 2024 and projected is now Nov 2023 to Oct 2023. Is this now normal, and if so when did it change or is it another eBay *bleep*-up? I find it rather unfair that a performance metric is based on a 12 month period.

Anyone else notice this or like I said is it now the norm? If so another good reason to wind things up here.

sml192 · ‎28-10-2024

The evaluation period used depends on the number of items sold:

How we benchmark seller performance

On the 20th of each month, we take a look at your recent transactions to work out your service metrics and peer benchmark.

To make sure we're getting a fair picture, we'll adjust how far we look back (the "evaluation period") depending on how much you've sold recently:

If you had more than 400 transactions in the past 3 months, we'll count all those transactions
If you had fewer than 400 transactions in the past 3 months, we'll count all your transactions from the last 12 months

rainbowtrax · ‎28-10-2024

The time period has always been determined by number of transactions. Off the top of my head, I think the magic number is 400. If you hit that amount of transactions over the relevant three month period then you're assessed over those three months. If you drop below it then you're assessed over 12 months. I'm guessing your number of transactions has dropped to just below it.

rainbowtrax · ‎28-10-2024

@sml192 beat me to it.

4_bathrooms · ‎28-10-2024

@goingfishinguk wrote:
Anyone who was around during the 'we will protect you through the Royal Mail strikes regarding INR cases and forgot' will know about how damaing a high or very high service metric can be even if eBay claim the 'punishments' are not what we all know they are.

There are two different sticks involved. When eBay "protects" sellers against courier/Royal Mail performance that protection typically only extends to the "late delivery rate" recorded against your seller level. Service metrics are a separate stick; in your service metrics all cases opened are recorded and compared with your "peers".

The good news is being rated "high" or "very high" for the INR service metric doesn't attract a FVF penalty. If you're rated "very high" eBay may extend the EDD shown to buyers, may place funds on hold until tracking indicates items have been despatched and may remove the ability to reduce a buyer's refund if they return an item used or damaged.

@goingfishinguk wrote:

Anyhoo my point, my last 'performance' bracket was June 2024 to Aug 2024. That for me has always been the norm, a rolling three month period. However when I now look at current it states the period is from Oct 2023 to Sept 2024 and projected is now Nov 2023 to Oct 2023. Is this now normal, and if so when did it change or is it another eBay *bleep*-up?

The evaluation period is based on the number of transactions in the last 3 months:

If you had more than 400 transactions in the past 3 months, we'll count all those transactions
If you had fewer than 400 transactions in the past 3 months, we'll count all your transactions from the last 12 months

EDIT: It looks like I took way too long writing all that.

Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

vintagechinashop · ‎28-10-2024

I'm constantly on the naughty step because apparently my peers are not 0.2 % for INR cases. Mine are 2.25 but considered very high. I've given up trying to achieve these ridiculous metrics because even if a buyer opens a case and closes it the same day with a comment like oh it's ok my son took the parcel in or the cat was sitting on it and I didn't see it these inr cases are still held against you. I do add tracking but because I use Royal Mail and eBay can't seem to get their act together to update the tracking from Royal Mail cases still get opened. I currently have 14 that were opened in the last year and have only 5 late delivery marks, 4 of which were opened during the Christmas post period last year short of being Peter Perfect I care little for the naughty step email

wyntersemporium · ‎28-10-2024

Got the same this morning. All mine are sent out via Royal Mail collection the same day.

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

firstgardencity · ‎29-10-2024

Good Morning.......

I have had numerous conversations with eBay re:late delivery calculations and I still think that the calculation is not fair.

As an example If you look at your figures for late delivery it may say 3 out of 199

If you look at number of transactions in the past 3 months it may say 300

So why isn't the late delivery figure based on 3 our of 300

Apparently the reason is that when eBay ask a customer if an item was delivered late because it was not sent tracked and the customer does not answer the transaction is not included in number of transactions.

Please have a look at your figures and see if this is the case - it is and always has been on my screen.

padanpcparts · ‎29-10-2024

From what I remember, it actually works on feedback received! The most ridiculous way of working it out you can possibly imagine. It's one of the many reasons I think E-bay should just get with the program and do away with feedback completely.

goingfishinguk · ‎29-10-2024

The good news is being rated "high" or "very high" for the INR service metric doesn't attract a FVF penalty. If you're rated "very high" eBay may extend the EDD shown to buyers, may place funds on hold until tracking indicates items have been despatched and may remove the ability to reduce a buyer's refund if they return an item used or damaged.

That is indeed what eBay 'tell' you is happening but in reality it's not. If you are in the high or very high service metrics bracket your listings will now have reduced visibility. Hence I said if folk were around during the postal strikes when they said all INR cases would be discounted and forgot to do this. I lost over £35,000 to £40,000 in sales because my visibility became nearly zero as I had a high/very high INR cases due to the strikes. As soon as Chrsitmas that year came and past and eBay had amitted their mistake the service metrics went back to normal as did my visibility and sales. I have all of this in email from the very top brass. That was the beginning of the end for me on eBay.

Thanks for all the answers, I must have dropped below the magical 400 mark. Kind regards.

returns_andexdisplay · ‎29-10-2024

May as well bang your head against a wall when trying to explain to ebay about how unfair service metric defects are when a seller has done nothing wrong.

Have clear examples where buyers are either abusing the returns system or not read the listing and the return reason matches the listing yet still get punished. If a slower part of the year then these defects can last up to 12 months.

As a sellers ebay make you feel like a criminal for a late delivery or not as described return even when you have not done anything wrong. Yet many private sellers break the law and run a business on a private account and get away with it. Yet business who want to do the right thing are the problem.

I sell on Amazon and if something is late the defect stays on your account for a month which is easy to recover from and does not destroy your business. Yet ebay can be up to 12 months which if hitting a seller with higher fees and lower search ranking then many walk away from ebay.