Last night, President of Global Marketplaces , which are very good news for sellers.
Seller Dashboard Lite to launch next week
The rolling 30-day average should now be visible for .com sellers. The full DSR console is to launch in May.
Several UK Pinks have said that the 30-day average will be visible to UK sellers by the end of March. In the meantime, PowerSellers can call PS Support for their figures. Frankly, this isn’t good enough. If they’re basing my discounts on these figures, my DSR averages should have been visible on the site from the same moment that discounts were linked to them.
1 out of 5 for dispatch time
Feedback Extortion
One of the most incomprehensible eBay policies to date has been the feedback extortion one. This has, til now, said that buyers who use the threat of negative feedback to force unreasonable terms on sellers (“gimme free P&P or I’ll neg you”) were at risk of having their eBay account sanctioned, but that feedback extortion was not grounds for feedback removal.
Well, no longer. Sellers are now invited to report feedback extortion, and if the buyer has a pattern of this behaviour, or “if the evidence is clear”, the feedback will be removed. Sellers are invited to . (The page still says that extortion isn’t grounds for removal, but I’m assuming that’ll be updated PDQ.)
4 out of 5 for finally communicating a policy that makes sense
Negative Feedback from NPBs to be removed
Currently, feedback from non-paying bidders is descored if they have not responded to the unpaid item dispute. This is to be expanded so that non-paying bidders’ feedback will be removed “if the buyer does not specifically call out poor seller performance, item condition or transaction problems during the UPI process”. In other words, just clicking the button to say “I’m going to pay” and then not paying, will no longer be good enough.
Of course, there’s nothing to stop buyers maliciously making up problems to post on the unpaid item dispute thread. But I think very few of them will actually bother to go this far; this policy change should kill off most negs left because the buyer is angry at being given a strike.
5 out of 5 for shipping this policy and handling NPBs the way they should be.
It’s currently not clear how these feedback policies relate to sellers outside North America. There has been no corresponding announcement from eBay UK, but then it is a holiday weekend.
PayPal Expanded Seller Protection
Finally, eligible sellers will have PayPal’s seller protection on all deliveries, whether to confirmed addresses or not, and have unlimited coverage rather than the current $5k limit.
Lorrie’s announcement says that this is for US and Canadian PowerSellers only, but PayPal’s guidelines offer it to “eBay PowerSellers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong, Canada, and Franceâ€. And UK and French PowerSellers are most definitely able to sign up now.
5 out of 5 for item as described: a payment now *is* a payment
“I look forward to the continuing dialogue”
Let me close by saying that we’re pushing hard on these and other changes because of how much eBay means to you (and to us) but we expect to be judged by our actions, not our words. It is my intention to earn your trust and respect by making eBay a more responsive organization that is unafraid to take some risks and move more aggressively while always striving to do right by you, our customers.
I don’t have any issue with most of the changes eBay have made recently: I think that holding sellers to higher standards can only make eBay a better place to trade for those of us who choose to remain. But we do need eBay’s support to get to where we all want to be. Too often over the last couple of years, it’s seemed like eBay and sellers were different sides in a war. Now, it feels like things may be starting to change.
13 Responses
great words and a great ethos,
though will all this filter down to the troops in the trenches ,will ebay support staff be as clear cut and precise or will your report or problem depend on how each support rep sees things
Paypal extended seller protection:
well, although the eligibility guidelines said that I had to be invited by email, and in the FAQs they say
“I am a registered eBay PowerSeller, but I did not receive an email invitation. What do I do?
We send email invitations monthly to registered eBay PowerSellers. If you haven’t received an invitation, please wait a few days until we receive an updated PowerSeller list from eBay. If you still haven’t received an invitation, please contact PayPal Customer Service”
I clicked on the enrol on the first page, and bingo! It says I am enrolled….but I have logged out and logged back in again, and there is nowhere I can find that confirms if I am enrolled or not… very unsatisfactory really…
I managed to enrol too, I got an email to confirm it a few mins after.
Also, when I click into a payment details page, it comes up differently now, with a message at the top saying that it is OK to send the item.
I haven’t recieved a mail, nor will I , I’d reckon.
Sadly,I am registered on ebay.ie, which recieves every single one of the punishments (yet absolutely none of the benefits) accorded to it’s UK and European sisters.
It is, undoubtedly, the single most useless waste of bandwidth in the history of the interwebs.
I applaud paypal for the enhanced seller protection it is whats needed IF it works, which for us (gold powersellers based in the UK selling tangible goods etc) means that it is not availiable. Why ? god knowes !
Mark, I know this won’t make you feel any better, but when I saw “France” on that list, I was VERY surprised. At least you speak English: we have the audacity to demand a site in another language, *and* we all prefer cheques to PayPal. 👿
Clarky, are you sure it isn’t available for you? go to the eligible sellers link in the main post, and see if you can enrol.
Gill, yes, I’ve had a confirmation email now. Interesting about the change to the item detail page – I’ll go and have a sneaky look and report back…
I had the confirmation email when I signed up yesterday, and am also getting the extra bits on the payment page that Gill mentions.
at least you have an ebay ireland and france
The Scots have to make do with the English Site
God bless the Duke of Cumberland
Strang Norf, I thought it was ebay.co.UK 😛
yeah and like a lot of things UK its really London and SE
hi –
neg’ fb used as a weapon/tool to extort in any way, should be eligible for withdrawl, be the threat overt or veiled.
commonsense reflecting the law of the land should prevail.
whilst ebay apply individual employees inconsistent, ii-informed interpretation of the facts of a case when passing judgement, there will be bad customer relations – the customer/buyer being the seller (for clarification ebay aka the venue).
there are serious conflict of interest issues here, when ebay might profit via seller status for discounts being marked down.
too many grey areas, ebay wearing too many hats, so lets do hope lorrie’s good news is applied to the uk too – quickly.
then, let’s hope the new guides are understood properly by the relevant ebay judge and juries, without too many grey areas for them to read wrong.
for example ” if the buyer has a pattern of this behaviour” is for sure to be taken into account, but should not be a condition for withdrawl – once is enough – once can cause a seller real financial harm !!
and where there is financial harm, there is the prospect of the plantiff seeking remedy – please get it together ebay – just be fair and even handed !
thanks –
for many such improvements will be just in time!
justin time.
Hi All
Wasnt able to enrol, spoke to Paypal Business Support today and they have said it is from 26 March that this becomes active
So, if you are confirmed it would be worth checking if transactions into your paypal account are protected,
I was told that if I enrolled tomorrow, when it was open to all powersellers (allegedly) then payments received from tomorrow after the time I enrolled are elligible,
Not payments made before 26 March.
They also said the date of the transaction on eBay was irellevant and I have been advised to refund any non conf address payments and ask them to repay tomorrow
Spoke to PS support too, and they suggested blocking any buyers making repeat purchases to unconf addresses until paypal email you to confirm you are on the programme, then protection starts from 26 March
Kindest wishes
Suz xx