Seller Account Restricted

[iposters]

Hi, 

We have been selling on eBay for 23 Years. We have over 110,000 Positive Feed backs and only 6 unresolved cases in 3,000 Transactions. On average we sell around 1000 items a month and have about 8-10 cases open at a time (Not Received) but they always close in our favour as we sort the issues. 

Anyway last week eBay have now said until ALL Cases care closed for 10 days your account is restricted from selling, payouts and adding new listings. After this is complete there will be regular check-ups on your account, ALL Items must have tracking (even our £2 string we send), funds not available until 3 days after tracking shows delivered. We have been here 23 years with no issues but I am shocked this has happened, 99.9% of our shipments have eBay tracked labels, we have been a great customer for 23+ years, and anytime I try and talk to someone, I just get fobbed off with lies from the agents and telling me how sorry they are and they will fix it with back end manegment, but they never do.

Anyone else had this?

[tressygirl]

Hi again,

What does your seller dashboard tell you,  are you still Above Selling Standard or fallen below ? 

Being members here like yourself we have no access to those details or your account,  but can see from recent and past negatives and neutral feedbacks you have received,  that 99% seems to relate to  late or no deliveries.

  I would imagine  if tracking hadn't shown delivery on time, this resulted in cases opened for item not received,  were these refunded within 3 days?  If not,  then that's where those damaging defects appear and restrictions on accounts happen.

Personally,  I would seriously think of changing the courier you are using.

@iposters 

[vinylscot]

I have to agree with @tressygirl above. Apart from those which actually result in cases, your rating of 4.6 for delivery time is pretty poor. The comments in the neutral feedbacks also suggest this. You obviously have a problem in this area. If you're sending items on time, then the problem must be with your couriers. In your position, I would be changing my courier.

However, you say you're selling 1000 items a month, yet you've only received around 60 feedback comments in the last year, and your sold items shows only 22 items sold in three months. Is there another account which we can't see?

[iposters]

The issue is our items are all Posters / Poster Hangers 61cm - 91cm long. So we need to use EVRI. We cannot physically sell any cheaper. All items are shipped on time using eBay EVRI Labels. With the amount of counterfeit and fake products on eBay (which they allow) we need to keep our prices down to be competitive. We pay £2.97 for postage on a £8.99 item, by the time you take eBays 30% fees and cost price and the tube we send it in, im left with about £1.00 we can't up our prices as we would be far more expensive than anywhere else so its tough. All our items are shipped on time using eBay labels, the issues always stem from delivery not our customer service as the feedbacks show

[iposters]

Also, all item not received cases are closed in OUR FAVOR on the 3rd day as thats when the items are delivered. Once we chase the courier they are usually good at getting it moving

[iposters]

All items are tracked using eBay labels and sent on time. 

60 Feedback comments in a year?? We have had over 750 Positive Feedbacks in a year thats excluding the one's eBay have started automating! 

[3942rick2005]

I am surprised that you haven't realized that Evri are carp, lose parcels , consistently late etc and are hurting your business. Safe and prompt delivery is part of your customer service.

I know that it doesn't help that Evri is one of ebay's favoured couriers but at least you can choose alternatives unlike private sellers.

[vinylscot]

I apologise; I should have written 60 positive feedback per month, which is exceptionally low, if you were selling 1000 items a month, which you certainly don't seem to have been doing recently.

[vinylscot]

If you have no courier alternatives other than Evri (Yodel also cover items of this size, but their reputation is almost as bad), and they can not perform to a satisfactory standard, then you need to consider whether that product is suitable for selling on eBay.

If you're only making £1.00 on each one, and losing some of that to returns and non-deliveries, you really need to work out if you want to keep supplying these items. You could continue selling them as a loss-leader, but you need to realise it's damaging your account.

[xenavsbuffy1]

I would imagine thats about average buyers just aren't bothered with feedback as a whole and Ebay stopped putting any pressure on Buyers decades ago....remember when sellers could send neg feedback to buyers....now they were the days lol

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Sorry, but no.

Selling 1000 items per month using a tracked delivery service (on say 50% of orders), then you should be expecting 500 positive feedback every month!  This has changed since automatic feedback was introduced.

It most certainly doesn't equate to only 60.  So there is something seriously amiss here.

[vinylscot]

The OP's story doesn't add up.

There are only 22 items listed under "Completed Items" on that account, and none at all since June 20th. He also has nothing listed at the moment.

So either, the seller has another account, or he's planning to go back to selling in a big way, or there's something else he's not telling us.

I think it's most likely that his much reduced activity has drawn attention to the negatives, as they now seem much higher, proportionally. If he was selling 1,000 items a month, they would barely register.

[xenavsbuffy1]

I would be amazed if 50% of buyers actually gave feedback....also are they your figures or figures that have been published? as for automated feedback, if it works like the others changes Ebay produced it'll be glitchy like anything but I'm sure the member posing the question will clarify if thinks relevant to his question 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

No, you obviously don't understand how it works.
You get automated feedback if the delivery is on time and fully tracked.
It is not glitchy at all, and works fine.  And is nothing to do with actual buyers providing feedback!

The word in that statement that you need to understand is "AUTOMATED"

What the OP has posted, does not add up.  There is something wrong, or something missing.  Certainly it's not the full facts in any way shape or form.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

eBay automated feedback

eBay automated feedback is automatically added to the seller’s account when a transaction is successfully completed. This positive feedback gives other eBay users confidence in this seller and in our marketplace. We only do this if the following criteria are met:

• You didn't leave feedback within 7 days of delivery (as confirmed by tracking)
• We can’t see any indication of an issue with the transaction
• Tracking shows the item was delivered on time

Automated feedback from eBay will remain visible unless there is an indication that there was an issue with the transaction, for example the item was damaged or you opened a return. If this happens, we will remove the automated message.

You can still leave your own feedback within 60 days of delivery, in which case the automated feedback will be replaced with yours.

[xenavsbuffy1]

Ah well thanks for clearing that up

[vinylscot]

Please don't be silly. Nobody has called anybody a liar.

That poster and I have both pointed out that we obviously do not have the whole story, as the OP's original post doesn't really hold together. We have both suggested that there may some other information which the OP has not provided.

He has had an opportunity to clarify this, and has not done so.

[gjalp]

I can see over 700+ feedback in a year. As for the listings, the account is restricted so it will be very difficult to overcome that. I would certainly change my courier however.

[dontlooknowonline]

This is absolutely shocking. From £8.99 paid by customer, you make £1, yet ebay @30% get £2.70.

Who works for who. 

Your the one buying stock and taking all the risk, dealing with possible warehouse/storage fee, laboriously listing your products, dealing with packaging/posting, left to deal with any queries or complaints and returns, having to re-align your prices every few months when they decide to change/amend the terms of one of their policies, yet for all that hassle they get 30%, while you only get about 11%, and you've possibly more expense to come from that too.

I think the problem is there is less buyers than used to be. I saw exactly the same problem years ago where I used to work. A gaming hall where attendance figures went way down due to the smoking ban. The company decided to take more profit from those that were attending, which was noticed by them which in turn led to less attending until they realised their own greed was the problem and was making issues worse.  A new CEO with common sense changed tact, dropped the fees to half of the original amount and hey presto, things turned round, still open to this day.

The moral here is if eBay want to stop scaring buyers away from the platform with fees galore, then they need to be fairer with the sellers. The sellers are buyers too remember, so if sellers are not making much, they are less likely to be buyers.

Wake up eBay please and do it quickly. Be fairer with percentages. This leads to more growth overall.

[vinylscot]

Replying to @gjalp  and @dontlooknowonline 

700+ feedback in a year is equivalent to approximately 60 per month, as has been stated.

I'm sure the OP didn't mean they are left with only £1.00, each time they sell this product. No seller would continue selling a product, were that the case. I'm sure what they meant was that they were left with only £1.00 profit, as they do mention the cost of the item in their calculation. Some may see £1.00 profit per sale as quite acceptable, but it's probably not, if that product is causing you problems and forcing you to make refunds.