Message from Sharat Digumarti: Updated Seller Non Performance Policy

[sapana@ebay.com]

Hello everyone…over past few months we have been making various changes on the site to improve the buyer and seller experience to make eBay the most preferred online shopping destination for shoppers.

While improving functionality on the site is critical, a big part of the buyer experience is in our sellers’ hands. We recently launched Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) to give buyers more information about the kind of service they can expect from a seller and help differentiate sellers who deliver a great buyer experience from those who do not. While the vast majority of eBay sellers deliver consistently positive experiences to buyers, a very small minority -- just 1% -- of sellers currently cause fully 35% of bad buying experiences. This small minority not only damage their own reputations, but also indirectly damage all of the good sellers who benefit from a strong and vital eBay marketplace. To address this problem, we have begun enforcing our Seller Non-Performance policy in stricter ways than in the past by considering a seller’s buyer dissatisfaction rate.

What is the updated Seller Non-Performance Policy?
With the updated policy, all sellers who have more than 5% dissatisfied buyers over the past 90 days will be subject to reduced listing volume or temporary 14-day restrictions in the form of selling sanctions. Sellers with dissatisfaction rates that are 10% or greater will be subject to indefinite restrictions until they improve their buyer dissatisfaction rates to less than 5%. The buyer dissatisfaction will be calculated based on the following:

1. Item not received (INR) disputes
2. Item significantly not as described (SNAD) disputes
3. Negative or neutral feedback.

Why neutral feedback?
Some of you have asked why neutral feedback ratings have become a part of measuring buyer dissatisfaction. Through our quantitative research as well as many conversations with community members, we have found that neutral feedback is most often an expression of deep buyer dissatisfaction. Therefore, leaving it out of the calculation would mask a significant part of the issue. Ultimately, only positive feedback is an indication of satisfied customers.

Will DSR’s (Detailed Seller Ratings) be included to calculate Bad dissatisfaction?
Detailed Seller Ratings are not used in our buyer dissatisfaction calculations currently, however, as we gain experience and data, DSRs look very promising. We expect them to eventually become an additional input in our calculation of buyer dissatisfaction. We will keep you updated on adding DSRs as part of our calculations, and how they will impact a dissatisfaction rate.

Helping sellers improve their satisfaction rates and become successful is goal #1
Please know that our goal in restricting or sanctioning sellers is always to drive sellers to resolve their business challenges, improve their satisfaction rates, and remain in the marketplace as successful sellers. Our communication to impacted sellers spells out specific actions they should take to improve their rates, such as settling any open buyer dispute issues, refunding buyers when appropriate, asking for mutual feedback withdrawal when disputes have been resolved, etc.

Please remember that this new enforcement impacts the bottom 1% of current sellers, who cause 35% of the negative buying experiences on the site. The vast majority our sellers provide great buyer experiences by following these and other best practices:
• They accurately represent the condition, size, and quality of the item directly in the listing.
• They accept payment for an item at the end of a successful sale.
• After payment is received, they promptly ship the item with proper packaging.
• They proactively and professionally communicate with the buyer throughout the transaction.

We believe that the initiative to crack down on bad buyer experience in this way will benefit the whole of eBay India, and especially the 99% of our good sellers. If you have a question around this policy, please feel free to post it here. I will try to revert back on them as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Sharat Digumarti
Senior Manager, Trust & Safety

[sapana@ebay.com]

On Sharat's behalf:

Hi veedeedirect,

Allow me to clarify –

The policy is being implemented globally and some countries are taking more stringent action. The examples you have quoted conveys as if certain countries are more lenient which is not true. If they are Top Sellers then the Account Manager is working with the seller on an agreed plan to improve their buyer experience

Hope this clarifies! Please do not hesitate to write back if you have further questions.

Regards,
Sharat

[sapana@ebay.com]

On Sharat's behalf;

Hi cottagestock,

I appreciate your question and will be glad to provide clarification. No, if a sellers dissatisfaction rates in the past 90 days are below 5% then he will not face any restrictions.

Just to reiterate, majority of our sellers are providing good service to buyers, this policy aims at improving those 1% sellers who provide 35% of bad buyer experience. All sellers who are providing good experience to buyers shall be receiving a mail from eBay to assure them of their standing.

Regards,
Sharat

[raymahasay]

Hi!
Indeed a good & professional Policy to assess the performance of us - the Sellers.
I had indicated in my about me Page, rarely, a situation comes, when even after putting best of efforts to make a Buyer happy, the Buyer forgets about the sincere Seller, leave aside any type of feedback also.
But, as for this Policy, I shall try & perform beyond my level best.
sincerely,
Kolkata's raymahasay

[gizmozindia]

Hi,

Just a clarification regarding neutral feedbacks required.

What happens in these cases of neutral feedback.

1. Responding very late, Delivered in 22 days Buyer: baazeesatya ( 0 ) 24-Jul-2007 13:07
Reply by gizmozindia (24-Jul-2007 15:30):
Parcel was lost in transit and you were duly informed about the same


2. original & 1st replacemt defective. 2nd replacement satisfactory but good seller Buyer: mukesh_55 ( 2 ) 18-Jul-2007 21:53

3. laser pointer is not working. i send the mail to seller . no response. Buyer: dbcrajan ( 14) 16-Jul-2007 13:26
Reply by gizmozindia (24-Jul-2007 18:35):
Sir, Please replace the batteries and the laser will work again

4. except that th product u sent me first was not good rest all ok Buyer: pulugurthashanthi ( 12) 23-Apr-2007 19:12
Reply by gizmozindia (24-Apr-2007 11:49):
We have given you replacement of product within 2 days still a neutral rating???

What kind of resolution has to be done in these kind of neutral ratings wherein the buyers concerns have been resolved and quoted by them in the rating itself.

please let us know if anything else has to be done.

Regards

GizmozIndia

[cochinmall]

Hello Folks.

I was expecting ebay to do something like this as there a lot of sellers and picking the fair sellers would be dealt with in the future.I was having quite a fair feedback until i heard this new policy from ebay.

I received a negative feedback on 16th august and a very unjustified one.All because of the paisapay team.The item number was 320142629924 with the paisapay id 19993851845. It had choices of local and national s&h.The local s&h is free.

Once the auction got over,i was really shocked!! The s&h and the taxes were not calculated in the final bill even though the buyer was from outside my city!! How can this ever be possible?? I contacted the live help and they told they would help.They also told not to the send the item unless the issue is resolved with the buyer.I waited for a reply from the buyer,but the reply what the buyer gave was a negative feedback!!!

I know that the ebay team is just for a name sake and wont do anything.Sapana ji,if you are reading this scrap,i just have to ask you one thing,does ebay ever fix the bugs which occur frequently?? I cant clear my negative feedback and your team would never do it,will you? It was a clear fault from your side(paisapay) and the seller is sufferring for it.You can clarify it with the paisapay team too.Can you do some help,sapana ji or anyone??

Regards
Rahul
cochinmall

[guptazmall]

Hello All,
This is a good news for buyers but not for all the sellers. Sellers wok very hard just for every single rating and not everyone would be benefiited. I have recd neutral ratings saying" good service good seller " and still a neutral. So what do you have to say about such buyers who donot even check that their foolish mistake can ruin a seller's reputation??
One more thing I would like to ask is that how do u actually calculate this percentage of 5 or 10% dissatisfaction

Nidhi

[maevesaravasti]

Dear Sharatji, I noticed that Cottagestock asked on 17th August 2007 "Can a seller face SNP restriction even if the dissatisfaction rate is low than 5%?", claiming that "I am asking same so that we be careful,keep our accounts in good standing and keep on going along well with eBay". Unfortunately I am very distressed to report that I am one of the latest of a long line of buyers who have left negative feedback because no goods were received despite (in my case) immediate payment. Most distressing is the fact that despite many polite e-mails from me, no reply was ever sent about my queries, and no reply given to my subsequent requests for refund. I have lodged a dispute through paypal and cottagestock are ignoring them too. My experience is not unique (see all feedback for this company) When all the neutral feedback is considered,and taken into account with the negatives posted, it is a very worrying situation. May I respectfully suggest that this company is investigated by customer services? This matter has caused me so much on-going distress. It is my first negative experience of ebay and it has, frankly made me very wary. Respectfully yours. Maevesaravasti

[raymahasay]

Hi!
In the recent past, I had posted a humble reply that I honor this decision & shall try & improve on the same.
Honestly, I do not understand much of calcutions or rules & regulations in details & depth, but I know about my own self as a Seller.
But, what does one do, even if, with all sincerity & good intensions, tries to perform better to get out of the label of Non Performing Sellers, & gear up their performance, & say, as an example, - from 98.3% improves to 98.5%, with a Feedback Score of 189, as of date, taking into account that 9 days are left for a completion of 30 days, without a single neutral or negetive feedback?
Further, if one is restricted to relist or sell similar benefits of atleast their present items which would be ending one by one in next few days, & there would not be a single item to sell, & thus even if the question of improvement performance is left aside, the question of existence remains in a state of utter confusion?
My question may appear to be very very SILLY, as, either I could'nt understand the implications of the rigidity, & it may be considered that if one does not know anything about anything in eBay, what does one do? - WRAP UP WITH ALL IGNORANCE, WHATSOEVER?
sincereky,
Kolkata's raymahasay

[raymahasay]

Hi Everybody!
This has reference to my earlier posting on the Non Performance Of Seller Policy.

Out of Curiosity, I had gone throgh my Feedbacks, wherein, I noted,that I have not a single Neutal or, Negetive Feedbacks are there in last 3 months.

Howver, it may please be noted that, I only have, in my entire history of 6 or 12 months, only 3 red marks.

I had mentioned clearly earlier also that, apart from Selling, I do buy items from eBay, & I am not ashamed to do so.

In my Blog, if you get time, do browse, when & how I got these negetive/neutral feedbacks. It was during the tenure of th recent promotion:- "road to success", wherein I could not manage to increase the bidding history, as, I am not at all in the ball game of selling items in AUCTION, & sell them either through Buy It Now or Easy To Buy mode, as I find these to be more tension free. & that, to my eyes is not a criminal offence.

Now, after, I posted my 1st reply on this particular issue, I had asked, 2 or 3 of my co sellers, as to what may I do, if I cant find out 90 day old history of both buying & selling??

Please help !!!!
Kolkata's raymahasay

[shreelaptop]

Dear all,

I would like to share my views about some of the facts I have in my mind. I will appreciate other community members's thoughts about these facts.

Listing and promotions :

Ebay promotion charges are very high. for homepage, there is no logic to charge double promotion when number of items in a single listing are more then one because the item is promoted only as a single listing then why charge double?

Unpaid item concerns :
Unpaid items for the listings that were promoted or in auction formats, are a great loss to sellers. FVF is reversed but still promotion charges are not reversed. I would like to suggest the following to avoid this.
1. For auction format, The bidder should first open his/ her account with paisapay and should deposit some money into it. when he/ she wins the auction, this amount should be transfered to sellers paisapay account immediately after the seller sends invoice for the item.
2. if the bidder bids for Rs 1000 and he has less then 1000 amount in his paisapay account, he should not be allowed to bid and should be asked to deposit that amount in his own paisapay account to qualify for a bid.
3. The buyer should get clear warning that the item is still available to other buyers untill you pay for this.
4 The item listing BIN should not end untill it is paid by the buyer.


Genuinity of sellers :

Ebay never verifies its sellers. Anyone with smuggled, stolen items, can offer for sale.
There are sellers with multiple ebay ids with fake addresses and contact mobile nos. Even if some of them have good feedback but why they are stealing their actual contact address ?
If ebay make it necessary to have atleast one landline number in the sellers name, then many fraud sellers can be avoided as having a landline phone estiblishes some genuinity of address.
Before any seller starts selling, ebay should personally call him/ her and should verify all the related details.

Feedback Issues :

No need to say that Feedback system is very important part of ebay. Every buyer or seller has full right to express his view whatever he feels about the other transacting partner.
But when this view affects negatively one's reputation when he/ she does not deserves it, then really something should be positively done to stop it.
I would like to share my views with the community about this.

I believe that the disputes between the buyer and the seller, can arise due to any of three reasons :

1. buyer is at fault or
2. Seller is at fault or
3. None of them is at fault but a situation beyond their control has created a confusion between them.

For all the three reasons above, the suffering party may give negative feedback to opposite party if they are unable to reach any mutual acceptable solution but actually who is at fault,
the disputed parties can not always decide it because it is human tendency to assume that I am right and the other person is wrong, hence need of an impartial mediator.

ODR is here an impartial mediator but I would like to say one more thing here.

I believe that ebay, buyers and sellers can be assumed as parents and children, ebay being parents and buyers n sellers its children.
When children are fighting with each other with or without sufficient reason,
will any responsible parents let them fight and will say nothing to any of them? Or will they say that go to any third person to get your dispute resolved?
If both the buyers and sellers, are part of one ebay community, then why should we look towards an outsider to help us incase any dispute?
Are we not compitent enough to resolve our disputes ourselves? Is our ebay community so weak? or
Are we falsely assuming ourselves as part of ebay community but actually we are not?



Ebay should take moral responsibility to resolve feedback issues rather then passing it to ODR like expensive systems.
Ebay has everything to support all its system then why pass feedback disputes to third party ? If Ebay says that it wants to be impartial at this point
but this is something similar to two children fighting with each other in presence of their parents and the parents let them fight.

Justice and honesty will not allow this then why ebay is allowing?