Monday, May 19th, 2008

Knowing Where You Stand

In an AB Post today regarding changes in eBay Marketplace policies, John McDonald, Sr. Director of US Trust & Safety said the top-line reasoning behind these changes is to “create more choice and selection for buyers and make it easier for them to find what they’re looking for. Second, these policy changes add flexibility, convenience and cost-savings for our sellers.”

And there is some great news here. For instance, the Choice Policy (good name for a policy that actually limited choice), is being eliminated so that sellers can now list items in different sizes, color, etc. in a single listing. This helps buyers with a more convenient shopping experience and provides sellers with relief on insertion fees.

But what I want to focus on here at Ink is the expansion of the Seller Dashboard and Best Match rankings because they are intertwined and very relevant to the issue of transparency. I would go so far as to say that a lack of transparency in the recent past has both pulled us away from our roots and hindered our relationship with the community. However, I’ve been encouraged, since joining the company in January, that the concept of transparency is being so widely embraced. It’s definitely something everyone is trying to get better at doing (how else would we have got this blog up and running with comments to begin with?).

The Dashboard is a significant step forward in making eBay a more transparent company with which to do business. And in the interests of transparency, it seems that we are disclosing some issues with Best Match ranking that were perhaps not made abundantly clear:

Since launch, we’ve been monitoring and making adjustments. Some of our adjustments will result in a larger number of sellers with below average performance scores being lowered in Best Match search results. If either of the following conditions apply to you, the visibility of your listings may be reduced:
- Your shipping cost DSR is 4.5 and below
- Your buyer satisfaction rate (shown on the dashboard) appears as “needs improvement,” “poor” or “unacceptable.”

The good? Sellers with 4.7 and above (on all DSRs) should start to see an additional boost in their search standing in Best Match (yes, the announcement is another outbound communication from eBay hammering home the message that sellers are being rewarded for providing the best possible buying experience at the expense of those sellers that are simply “good” rather than “great”).

What I’m interested in hearing about from you though, when the Seller Dashboard is unveiled later this week, is whether or not it is providing you with the information and transparency you need in order to make your business decisions? Is it really letting you know where you stand in the marketplace?

Here are links to some key docs associated with the news today:
Policy Changes FAQ
Seller Non-Performance Policy
Circumventing Fees
Chance Policy
Links Policy
Tips for Improving DSRs

Cheers,
RBH

Tagged: buyers, dsr, ebay, ecommerce, feedback, john+mcdonald, policy+changes, seller+dashboard, sellers, transparency

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370 Responses on this post. Click to add yours.

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TheBrewsNewsOn 05.22.2008 at 11:32 am Said:

Obviously I have made enemies with somebody. All 3 of my seller ID Dashboards have major problems:

******************
Seller Dashboard - eBay ID #1:

Search Standing: Raised (Green)

Powerseller Discount: 5% (Green)

Policy Compliance: Good (Green) but with a Red
Triangle with exclamation point

Buyer Satisfaction: Good (Green)

Account Status: Current (Green)

When you click on the Red Triangle for Policy Compliance, the following message appears:
Your account is restricted and your attention is required

However, below that it says:
You are doing a good job of selling in line with eBay policies
Be sure to continue to follow eBay rules in your selling. Although your risk of restrictions is low, a policy violation can result in the removal of some of your listings.

****************************

Seller Dashboard - eBay ID #2:

Search Standing: Raised (Green)
Powerseller Discount: 5% (Green)
Policy Compliance: Failing (Red)
Buyer Satisfaction: Good (Green)
Account Status: Current (Green)

When I click on the Policy Compliance, the following message appears:

You have no unread notices of policy violations.

Also:

Violation Date
Shill Bidding $ViolationDate$

*************************************

Seller Dashboard - eBay ID #3:

Actual feedback percentage score showing to the public (correctly reported) at 100% with 13243 feedback

Feedback percentage showing in Dashboard: 99.1%

****************

I guess it’s pretty transparent where I stand.

CrunchyPostingGoodnessOn 05.22.2008 at 11:35 am Said:

Oh. I’m in Michigan, so it was around 2 am or 3 am ish when I wrote my response.

Yep! I believe that is exactly what eBay is doing. Sorry to disappoint.

I sell primarily in the Health and Beauty categories, which can lead to some picky buyers at times. I think most sellers in my category average around 92% to 98%. Most of the negative ratings occur because buyers are a little upset that at times they are paying more than retail price for some of the items which are discontinued, hard-to-find, but they can’ live without. Some mark down sellers because the manufacture switches product packaging, from time to time, and they believe that the sellers are offering old items, just because the packaging doesn’t exactly match the latest product packaging released to the retail stores. A few more sellers receive their items from international suppliers, so the packaging may have other languages beside English on it, and the buyer assumes the item must be a knock-off.

I’m lucky in a way because I currently have a 100% in both the 30 day and 60 day time frame and 98% overall in the past 365 days. The majority of the items I offer are only manufactured and packaged inside of the US, so I also seem to avoid claims that the item I sell are knock-offs.

So generally speaking and all other things being equal, I would imagine that an Amazon buyer would wish to purchase from a seller that has the highest feedback. My main point is that on Amazon 98% is not considered as bad as a 98% on eBay.
————

Urbankat, I appreciate your desire to review my items and possibly become a valued customer. However my business partner and I have a rule of not revealing our selling id on any public forum / blog. I’m sorry, but it is simply a protection that we have in place for our business. We do this both to avoid lurkers who may not like what we post and try to affect our business negatively and to prevent our potential competition from benefiting from our success on our selling venue. Please understand that I do not believe you would do either of these things, but I must abide by the promise I made to my business partner.

TWOn 05.22.2008 at 11:37 am Said:

@ Tony

I am not blaming my buyers. Buyers do not know that a 4 which they read as good is bad when eBay reads it. It is similar to a neutral being the same as a negative. The system is a total joke.

I agree with Dawn that the dashboard is just pretty little graphs which tell us nothing we do not already know.

CrunchyPostingGoodnessOn 05.22.2008 at 11:40 am Said:

Brews, how can your ID#1 show “Your account is restricted and your attention is required”, but also say “You are doing a good job of selling in line with eBay policies”?

I hope you were being sarcastic when you wrote: “I guess it’s pretty transparent where I stand.”

It isn’t very transparent or reliable when eBay’s ratings contradict one another on the same ID.

SharonOn 05.22.2008 at 11:48 am Said:

My seller dashboard is not calculated correctly. I have 1900+ feedback, 100%, no negatives, 1 neutral mutually withdrawn. Stars are 4.8, 4.9, 4.8, 4.7.

My dashboard tells me I am lowered in search and my customer service needs work??????????

Was going to start listing again but not under those circumstances.

CrunchyPostingGoodnessOn 05.22.2008 at 11:49 am Said:

My dashboard shows the following:

- 100% feedback
- Search Standing: Standard
- Policy compliance: Good
- Buyer Satisfaction: Good

Item as Described: my 12 mth avg 4.9 / eBay’s 4.7
Communication: my 12 mth avg 4.9 / eBay’s 4.7
shipping Time: my 12 mth avg 4.8 / eBay’s 4.6
S&H Charges: my 12 mth avg 4.6 / eBay’s 4.6

So I suppose as a seller I’m doing on equal with one criteria and above on all the others, from what eBay expects of me. I suppose the reason why my search standing is simply “Standard” is because my S&H charges are only equal and do not exceed eBay’s expectations.

If I was ever to sell on eBay again, I guess the only way to make sure the S&H exceeds 4.6 is to not sell internationally and to ship for free or less than cost. Since I not prepared to do either, I’ll wait till eBay makes the weight of this rating more realistic.

TheBrewsNewsOn 05.22.2008 at 11:59 am Said:

@Crunchy

Yes I was being sarcastic.

My Powerseller rep told me that:

first ID - known problem that is being worked on and I should see that red danger triangle removed soon

second ID - regarding shill bidding - the failing red warning shows because I was reported for Shill Bidding in October 2007 and eBay investigated and found that the allegation was false but because someone reported me and FALSELY accused me, it shows that I am failing the policy

third ID - couldn’t explain the discrepancy and didn’t know of anyone else reporting the problem; they will look into it

DawnOn 05.22.2008 at 12:04 pm Said:

Brews, I don’t see a feedback percentage on the Dashboard. Can you tell me where to find it?

TheBrewsNewsOn 05.22.2008 at 12:06 pm Said:

@Dawn,

In the Seller Dashboard, there is a Powerseller status section. Click on the “Check your status” and one of the metrics is your percentage.

DawnOn 05.22.2008 at 12:13 pm Said:

Thanks, Brews!

MistyOn 05.22.2008 at 12:15 pm Said:

I still can not find the new dashboard in my eBay???

TheBrewsNewsOn 05.22.2008 at 12:16 pm Said:

@Dawn

BTW… they are working on fixing the Shill Bidding Policy Violation FAILING as they admit that it is an error on their part. According to the rep “It is a high priority to get that issue resolved”.