eBay.com have published their Spring Seller Release (confusing also billed a “Summer Seller Release” on some pages) and here’s what you need to know:
Final Value Fee increases
Final Value Fees for store owners on eBay.com are going up by 0.15% in many categories. They’ll still be cheaper than for sellers without a store subscription who pay 10% across the board. You can check the full list of fee changes here.
Below standard sellers will pay more in fees
eBay will charge an additional fee to transactions from sellers with a below standard status “to be reflective of the friction that it brings to the marketplace“. The fee will be an additional 4%.
Performance Standards on eBay.com
Top Rated Seller Discount
If you’re an eBay.com registered seller, the Top Rated Plus final value fee discount will change from 20% to 10% on qualifying listings on May 1, 2017.
Promoted Lisitngs
All Top Rated Sellers are eligible to receive a quarterly $30 credit to create promoted listings campaigns on April 1, 2017, whether or not you subscribe to an eBay Store. eBay are removing third party ads on the .com site and replacing them with promoted listings. Take note even if you’re not a US seller, promoted listings are becoming very important to eBay and they want you to use them.
Tracking requirements
The tracking requirement to qualify for Top Rated Seller status will increase from 90% to 95% on June 20, 2017. Top Rated Sellers will be required to upload valid shipment tracking within your promised handling time for at least 95% of your transactions with US buyers in the last 3 months.
Performance Rating
Starting August 1, 2017 for eBay.com, only transactions with buyers in the countries included in the Global region (countries outside the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany) will count toward your seller performance rating in the Global region.
Even if you’re receiving protection (from performance-related selling limits or selling restrictions) in a three month grace period to enable your account to recover, you will still pay higher fees all the time your account is deemed to be below standard.
We don’t know if this will affect international sellers, but if you list directly on eBay.com the chances are high that it will if your eBay.com status is below standard.
Links and eBay messages
As with the eBay UK Links policy, eBay.com are updating their links policy to ban contact information. Unlike the UK, eBay.com don’t have business seller information in their listings so you’ll be totally reliant on eBay messaging for communications with buyers.
Quick reminder – active content removal also applies to eBay.com
Highlighting generous returns policies
eBay.com will give more exposure to listings with free 30-day and 60-day returns to buyers starting this summer. New opportunities will include:
- Giving buyers options to search for and filter free 30-day and 60-day returns.
- Highlighting free returns policies when buyers visit your listings.
- eBay marketing campaigns that feature the best returns policies.
Shipping tools
With new location-specific shipping rate tables coming to eBay.com this summer, you’ll be able to provide more accurate shipping charges to buyers. You’ll be able to create up to 20 shipping rate tables and specify shipping charges based on more than 100 regions, the proximity of your warehouse to your buyer’s location, and multiple shipping services. Also this summer, you’ll be able to customize the days you work and your cut-off time for same-day shipping with a new calendar tool.
2 Responses
I love the high lighting of 30 & 60 day free returns — possibly removing more a-holes looking for freebies from buying from my listings.
More eBay drivel. The announcement says that free returns are becoming the norm (totally untrue) and that their research indicates that customers want free returns. If you ask anybody if they want something for free, you get the answer YES. Would you like free electricity? Yes. Would you like free petrol? Yes. Would you like everything to free? Yes. The real question is would you, who return relatively little, like to pay more to subsidise the returns of those who return loads of stuff? Then you get a totally different answer, but eBay lack the brainpower to ask the right questions.