Edited to add: We’ve just heard from eBay that the date for the eBay Premium Service badge to go live has changed to the 17th of September.
In the mean time Tamebay Reader has spotted the Top Rated Seller designator has changed to eBay Premium Service on his listings.
On Tuesday, 10th of September, the new Top Rated Seller badge is due to start being displayed on listings. An important change which hasn’t been shouted about is that the consumer branding will also be changing to “eBay Premium Service”.
eBay have already retired the PowerSeller brand in all but name. No buyer on eBay will ever see the PowerSeller logo to references to PowerSellers on eBay. Now it looks like Top Rated Seller is going the same way as the badge is retired from public view.
You’ll still want to qualify as a Top Rated Seller, but it’s your individual listings that will get the new eBay Premium Service logo. eBay say that “We want the badge to represent a consistent set of services that are available to a buyer“.
In my opinion eBay now have too many seller classifications – we have Private Sellers, PowerSellers, Business Sellers, Top Rated Sellers and now eBay Premium Service.
There’s little difference between the three different business seller classifications – You have to be a Business Seller to be a PowerSeller. PowerSellers get access to the PowerSeller board but that’s about the only benefit.
To be a Top Rated Seller, again you have to be a Business Seller. Top Rated Sellers are all about standards and there’s still a boost in search for being Top Rated.
To get maximum boost in search and the revised seller discounts, you’ll have to list to qualify for eBay Premium Service, which means your listings will need to:
- Minimum 14 days returns period (mandatory anyway from September)
- 1 day or same day dispatch
- An express 24 hour delivery option, and
- A free domestic delivery option
NB The free delivery option does NOT have to be the first offered – you can order your delivery options in whichever order you wish to present them to your buyers.
Are you, or have you already, edited your listings to qualify for eBay Premium Service? We’re guessing many sellers may be editing their listings this weekend if they’ve not already done so. The big question is of course do the discounts make it worth offering the eBay Premium Service, or will you save more money on your courier bill than by qualifying for the discounts.
The one thing that we don’t currently know is exactly how much of a boost qualifying for eBay Premium Service offers. Have you noticed a rise or fall in sales or significant changes to your position in Best Match search? Let us know what you’re seeing.
19 Responses
Business appears to have picked up since I complied with all the changes!!! BUT the next fiasco for me a STAMP DEALER is the re-scan issue. Even though eBay THINK my shop looks fabulous now; over 10,000 of my scans do not have 500 pixel minimum size! The auto re-scan option doesnt work for stamps…………they appear fuzzy, completely out of focus so daily, on top of 12+ hours work we are slowly re-scanning older scans and these come out TEA TOWEL size instead of postage stamp size. It wont be too long before I receive an ITEM NOT AS DESCRIBED complaint as larger than life scans do not represent what the customer is actually going to receive. eBay are not listening and I’ve worked out it will take ELEVEN YEARS to get all the re-scans done if I am still trading OR alive then!!!
So business is brisk for now….compliant until eBay halves my shop contents in October? Andrea!
NB The free delivery option does NOT have to be the first offered
So you can offer £1.99 postage for first class as your main option, then ‘free’ second class?
It doesn’t help much as you have to be prepared to accept the free P+P if people want it, which means the product price must have the P+P ‘included’. The £1.99 option would just be extra profit if people choose it.
Yes you could offer offer £1.99 postage for first class as your main option, then ‘free’ second class… but you would also have to offer an express delivery option as well.
(Even if it was £8 for a next day courier delivery for a stamp that no one would ever choose!!!)
Wasn’t there going to be some kind of central spot where you could manage cut off time, postage options, returns payment options etc.?
How early can you cut off time for the express service be?
Thanks
No need to wait for the 10th. The new badge is already being displayed on items.
Looking at a small sample the badge is showing on items that do not meet the stated requirements, e.g. Top Rated sellers without an express delivery option are currently showing as Premium.
No doubt they will sort it all out in time.
Is this the UK equivalent of the US Top Rated Plus? I don’t see any differences other than the name.
I tried the ‘free post’ illusion a while back and my sales hit the floor, granted, I didn’t/couldn’t give it much of a test as the kids were starving. Back to listing normal listings with postal charges clear for customers to see, to hell with eBay games & the PS status.
My sales dropped when eBay were messing about with the search engine, May was it? and sales still haven’t got back to ‘normal’, not sure they ever will either. It used to just work great as it was, so many changes that the customers just don’t seem to be there, or are they as confused as everyone else is.
One thing this fiasco did do, was to get me to open on Amazon and even though it isn’t plain sailing and has it’s own unique issues, it is already profitable and getting more so by the day, so I thank eBay for that. I now buy more on Amazon too.
No one has really commented on this but the new rules mean that no one from abroad can be a TRS as it is not possible to have a next day delivery from China.
Of course they could always put one on their listing and have it costing £1000 and no one would ever select it.
We implemented the required changes to qualify for Top Seller Rating about 3 weeks ago. We have seen a dip in sales since the changes. I think the Free Postage thing now makes Ebay products look more expensive more compared against other websites and stores. In my opinion £9.99 + £1.99 P+P is perceived as better value than £11.98 Free Postage. Also, I think we are conning customers into thinking they are getting free postage when in fact the postage has just been added to the item price. This was recommended by Ebay. I think we should not be forced to offer free postage, it would be better to be transparent with customers offer them good value P+P.
These latest changes have really irritated me, I have been a top rated seller from day one and have never had a negative feedback with feedback now well into the thousands yet I will not now be considered a top rated seller simply because I won’t offer free postage, during the last year or two I have rarely if ever had a complaint about postage costs or delivery times, the items I sell are fairly unusual and buyers have no problem paying the delivery cost, add to that I have to go out and source items from auctions etc I cannot always offer despatch within one working day, I currently indicate that items are despatched within two days to cover myself, again this is not good enough for Ebay, the whole thing is a joke and as ever Ebay have just thrown every seller into the same bracket, they never seem to realise that there are many different sectors which are all very different. At the end of the day the people that know Ebay best are the retailers who use it day in day out all year however most of the changes that are made tend to go against what I guess many of them would actually do, so many of these changes get reversed or altered a year or two down the line however unfortunately that is far too late for so many.
Just a quick example, if I sell a painting for £500 it may cost me £22 to send it (with a very minimal charge for packaging), the discount I could get if I offered free P & P would £7.50 so by offering free postage I would lose £14.50, why would I bother ?? I know people say boost your price by the difference however where do you draw the line ?? The whole thing is ridiculous.
Well it’s the 17th and not surprisingly this is still not working. I have loads of competitors charging postage and proudly displaying the TRS badge.
The badges DO NOT show on either ebay ‘mobile’ or ‘ebay app’ site versions so this is a misrepresentation of “rewards” to compliant sellers by ebay.
The badges only show on ebay “classic site” (ie desktop pc version). NOWHERE ELSE.
If you search for your listing on either mobile or ‘app’ you cannot differentiate between private or business, top rated or low rated, ‘premium’ or non ‘premium’ sellers.
Its just one big list of the same item with the lowest price (excluding shipping by the way) getting top spot.
So, ebay are demanding sellers offer free shipping, dispatch within 1 day, and penalised with 15% higher fees if we dont meet this.
Ebay do this on the specific stated assurance that our listings will carry the “premium” badge and the “fast and free” badges in search results as a reward for performing sellers.
However the default mobile page is not “classic” and ebay are directing buyers to download their App, both platforms they are not honouring this assurance.
So it appears ebay are in breach of their own terms and are also misleading buyers by presenting items in search results that are 1) going to reach them slower and 2) are from sellers who may be untrustworthy or not genuine businesses.
This would appear a pretty serious breach of good faith and gross insult to top sellers at best and breach of contract with possible profiteering at worst as by driving traffic equally to non-compliant sellers without offering the buyer the promised filters and badges to identify compliant sellers, they obtain 15% more in fees from such sales.
I have recently changed all my listings to adhere to the New Ebay rated service and this has drastically reduced my sales to the point where it may ruin my business. I have contacted Ebay 6 times in 1 week to speak to them about this and they just tell me the system is still reindexing. I can appreciate that listings are reindexed when thy are revised, but my listings are lost in the system completely. I used to have all my listings within the top 20 pages spread nicely. Now they start at page 15 on a 50 items per page view. Some are located on the last page on certain searches.
I have great DSR’s which are supposed to account for 60% of the best match qualifying and then 10% for the other 4 rules offered to get the new badge.
I have all 5 in great stead and now I am seen much much worse position than many sellers who have no badge and worse feedback/dsr than myself.
I am so upset by this and do not know what to do as Ebay are not investigating this for me as I bear no significance in me possibly being the few that have suffered such a drastic change in best match results.
Can anyone offer help and advice please?
Many thanks
Nicola
Not very happy with all the new changes.
The so called “ebay premium service” does not work and like a previous person said, is a pure illusion. The simply idea of incorporating the postage cost into the item does not reward those who which to buy more than one item?….I myself do not offer free postage and find that my purchases are more profitable as i am able to offer postage discounts on multiple orders compared to other sellers. The same if not more quantity is selling compared to competitors who offer free postage but i can keep a track of my postage costs and reap the highly profitable margins on multiple orders.