There are a couple of Top Rated Seller bugs we’ve become aware of.
Discounts not applied
Back in March eBay announced a 5% discount for sellers who prepared their products read for the new Top Rated Seller requirements about to kick in. If you listing offered a minimum returns period of 14 calendar days, 1-day or same-day dispatch, an express delivery option offering delivery within 1 day and a free domestic postage option you should have had the 5% final value fee discount.
eBay say “As a result of a software issue, additional fee discounts for the ‘5% final value fee discount for meeting the new eBay Top-rated seller requirements’ promotion may not have been applied or only partially applied to your invoices“.
The issue has now been resolved, and the outstanding discounts will appear on invoices from the end of July onwards. Some transactions that occur within the last days of your billing cycle will only be reflected in the following invoice. eBay apologise for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.
Top Rated Seller Royal Mail 1st Class bug
eBay have a bug that will launch with the new Top Rated Seller changes on the 1st of August, this will be corrected on the 20th of August.
Between the 1st and 20th of August, listings offering postage services with a 1 day estimated delivery time will qualify as the express delivery option and this includes Royal Mail 1st Class. Listings meeting this and all the new requirements will receive the benefits of the new eBay Top-rated programme during this time.
From the 20 August this bug will be corrected and only sellers offering ‘Express services’ as identified in the listing flow will qualify and all previously incorrectly badged listings will lose their benefits.
In other words you can get the 15% discount for the first 20 days of August simply by offering 1st Class postage, from then on you’ll need to revise your listings to include a guaranteed 24 post or courier delivery option.
9 Responses
Is there some way to tell if a listing has somehow slipped through all the snafus at the moment and actually qualified for the TRS discount?
What with all the business policies changes (doesn’t work, can’t label a listing as Get It Fast, can’t actually change the shipping options — I’m told this will be fixed next week) and all these other bugs — it’s pretty much impossible to tell if ones own listings qualify or not.
How can a poor beleagured seller see if he’s jumped the latest hurdle set for him by our taskmasters?
Can somebody tell me where I might find Business Policies?
Also, where can you specify a same-day cut-off point?
I am aghast for ANOTHER time reading the above Top Rated Seller Royal Mail 1st Class bug article. I have tried and tried to COMPLY!! More recently I’ve had huge ‘rows’ with eBay customer support (it’s a joke to say they are a top rated service) whose only solution to me covering FREE POSTAGE was to add £1.00 to each of my 18,400 items. As a stamp dealer my prices are governed by Stamp Catalogue prices and to inflate my prices would see my business tumble. Instead I spent several weekends altering my postage charge (1st class, same day despatch), returns policy and adding a slower FREE courier service. Does this mean now that I have to go through the entire process again adding an express courier service at a much higher price to keep my TRS? Currently my Seller Dashboard says I am 99.99% compliant…will this now change on August 20th? Ebay could not OR would not understand that for a mere £1.00 any amount of items can be bought from my shop……to inflate the true value of my stamps there is no possibility for combining shipping and a nightmare for overseas customers who would see all my prices go up. Yesterday came the announcement that inclusive or exclusive eBay are going to take a 10% cut of postage/shipping charges. WHY? Are they going to provide FREE labels, packaging, stamps….final value fees I can understand….eBay hosts my business and therefore warrants their slice of my sold items; how do they earn THEIR slice of my postage costs? Sorry this is such a long missive….totally fed up here in Birmingham. brumstamp (Andrea)
Neil: Phoned ebay yesterday as I could not find the Business policies section either and the Spring Release suggested that sellers would be invited to opt in between May & July.
Like me, you were probably not invited to join, so we have to wait for it to appear and the ebay rep suggested that it will appear soon as part of this new update.
Still waiting!!!
Lee
Business Policies’ appeared for me as an ‘opt-in’ banner at the top of the SMP page on 30th July.
eBay obviously didn’t think that I had enough to do on the day of the Autumn Seller Release!
Based on what I have heard so far and with eBay’s ‘right first time’ record I am not touching it and hit the hide button PDQ.
When the early adopters (should there be any) start saying how good it is, and all the time that it now saves them, I might have a look (if I still have listings by then).
Whenever I try to relist anything I’m getting a message saying that my items don’t meet the service requirements for Top-rated seller discounts.
I’ve checked, and all of the requirements for TRS are correct.
Is anybody else getting this message when relisting?
Another bug. I was told this would be fixed by the 20th but sellers not meeting the new requirements are still top rated.
How has this listing got a TRS badge?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/XBOX-360-U-DRAW-GAME-TABLET-plus-INSTANT-ARTIST-udraw-new-sealed-/111143111331?pt=UK_PC_Video_Games_Video_Games_JS&hash=item19e0a54aa3