eBay have confirmed that from the 1st of October 2018, if you have a high number of after sales issues, in particular Significantly Not As Described (SNAD) cases, opened by your buyers then you will start to be penalised with a 4% final value fee surcharge.
SNAD and 4% Surcharges
This is pretty serious, it’s not an additional 4% of the eBay selling fee, it’s 4% of the sale price. If you sell in a category where final value fees are generally 10% then you’ll pay 14% of the final value in fees if you fall foul of eBay’s after sales surcharge. You will be judged based on comparisons to other sellers in the same category so the only way to avoid the surcharge is to be better than your competitors.
The only good news for affected sellers is that you won’t be hit on all your listings. The surcharges will apply by category and country site. This means if you have a very high SNAD rating in a category on eBay.co.uk, but sell the same products on eBay.com with a low SNAD rate, then you’ll only be surcharged on the UK site.
INR and Tracking
eBay updating their tracking policy and starting on the 26th of September 2018, you’ll be required to upload tracking before the estimated delivery date has passed. This is so that eBay can protect you if a buyer claims they haven’t received the item. Sending the tracking number to the buyer via email or uploading it after the estimated delivery date has passed won’t protect you from a claim.
eBay recommend you upload tracking information as soon as you have posted the item, saying without tracking information, eBay can’t protect you because they won’t be able to confirm that your item has been delivered. Tracking also benefits buyers by enabling them to track the status of their deliveries.
Insights into INR and SNAD
eBay will provide more insights into your INR and SNAD rates in the Seller Hub.
After 26 September 2018, you’ll be required to upload tracking information onto the site within the estimated delivery date, in order for eBay to protect you against “Item not received” claims.
From 1 October 2018, for a small number of sellers with a very high “Item not as described” rating compared to similar sellers in the same category, you will incur a 4% final value fee surcharge. If a seller is rated Very High in a category, but has fewer than 10 SNAD open returns or their SNAD rate is under 1% in a specific category during the evaluation period, they will not be subject to this increased fee.
We are expecting sellers to be rated over a 3 month or 12 month period dependant on their sales volumes. The very legitimate complaint we’ve heard from sellers is that, as a minimum, they’ll be initially assessed on their July, August and September sales and it’s already too late to do anything about July’s (or earlier) SNAD cases.
25 Responses
Would love ebay to explain how you can be better then your competitors when 1/3 of return cases opened are when they are either trying it on to get a free return or have not read the listing.
If they want to make more money why not go after the private sellers who clearly run a business and get them to start paying for their listing and full final value fees.
So if you dont upload tracking BEFORE an INR case is opened, and the item has been delivered, you cant win the case even if the tracking shows that the item has been delivered? (please tell me that this isnt the case)
Another nail in the eBay coffin, it’s like they are trying to get rid of sellers.
R.I.P ebay, we had some good times but you gave into greed and now your fat, bloated and dead !
“…has fewer than 10 SNAD open returns…”
What is the difference between a return and an open return?
I currently have high(er) numbers of INR cases (comparing to what we had before).
Some buyers figured out a way of getting freebies.
Fix for buyers? Get tracked delivery. Not much sense to pay £1.89 (2nd class signed for) if item costs £5 and little profit to be made.
So we raise the prices to accomodate tracked delivery. But then no-one buys. Long term loser is eBay.
Ebay will have done the maths they will know who and how many are likely to incur the 4%
we fear
This is a trial on the effect of 4% on fees .not just a penalty on standards.
4%will be coming to an invoice near you very soon if it works
The sheer greed of this company and the constant fee increases!
No wonder the place is dieing a death and it deserves all it gets,it consistently thinks nothing of “small business sellers” the members that built the place and leans and cares only a out the big cooperate businesses now again because that’s where they get all the money from that feeds their greed.
Amazon,Etsy,Ebid is the way forward let EBay die it’s what it deserves,plain GREEDY!
2 things come to mind with the “4% ebay re-stocking fine”.
1. It’s a great way to get ebay to dump one on your competition once you understand how the metric works. Their price rises to compensate for the fee increase and their best match status drops with ebay favouring your listing, in theory anyway.
2. A customer service opportunity is now one of loss prevention. No matter the legitimacy of the buyers return, the ebay re-stock fine applied does not distinguish the real from the dodgy. The solution is to pee off every buyer who uses it as a return mechanism, ensuring they don’t ever come back, thus protecting your business from future loss from the same buyer. Yes they can leave negative feedback, but the damage is already done and the feedback can be responded to for all to see.
This is outrageous! We have never, and will never, sell a product that is not as described – why would we? What would be the point? We are retailers, not idiots!
But since eBay created the concept of ‘free’ postage, buyers now don’t want to pay the postage to return items they don’t want, so they simply claim the item is not as described – a no-brainer for them and so easy as eBay never, ever check validity of the claims!
Back in the day, when postage was open and transparent, we never had a single not as described claim, and that was over an eight year period. Now we get them about once every six weeks. Our products are the same – high end, famous brands, no faults – so it’s pretty obvious what’s going on. Having spoken to eBay CS about the problem many times, they have said they are aware of the problem and are working on it. A difficult problem for them to police for sure, but as always, they have clobbered their best business sellers – and for what? How does this help? My best guess is they have given up on the problem of fraudulent buyer returns and decided they may as well make an additional 4% on the back of it! Unbelievable….
I wonder why if Ebay do not want duplicated listings they offer sponsored listings which is paid for duplicated listings :@/
We were contacted by Ebay last month to take off some duplicated listings but they were not duplicated they were sponsored so I hope they can work out the difference between the 2 before they start to penalise us.
I know I am probably wrong, but I thought there was a limit of £20+ to have to upload tracking to be protected.
I really don’t want to upload the tracking as it gives some scammers the ammo so that if RM don’t bother scanning then it’s an automatic INR and one loser…. ME
We have a paypal review and hold at the moment
Yet ebay mark the item as paid and dispatch now
Ita all becoming farcical
I’ve been looking at the Service Metrics graphic, within my Seller Hub, the one showing how my returns rate compares to my ‘peers’.
It offers what I take to be a perhaps honest reflection of how eBay intend to report return rates.
There are two periods shown, one current and the other projected.
On current, my rate is shown as 0%, with my peers at 0.5%.
On projected, my ‘peers’ rating is shown as 0%, with mine at 0.5%.
What is interesting is where the 0% rating appears.
When my ‘peers’ are at 0%, they appear at the bottom of the very bottom of the ‘Low’ range.
When mine is at 0%, it appears at the top of the ‘Low’ range.
An interesting way of depicting the same value.
But of course, it is in eBay’s interest to show my rating as always being higher.
Peers percentages defect rates bar codes product identifiers
We find it much easier just to rock ourselves in the corner with a few hours banging our heads of the wall for a little stress relief
We don’t even look at the metrics- we are too busy- but as soon as eBay becomes too expensive to use we will leave- and that’s the bottom line. While it’s still profitable we will deal with the background noise and soldier on, add 4% more fee robbery in and it becomes touch and go. And eBay should remember, sellers are also buyers. Food for thought I’m sure.
eBay are bringing out the extra 4% fvf on sellers who have a higher returns in that category, well there is a real unfair problem with the matrix system there using to measure this.
Basically if im selling new clothing just as an example, your definatly going to have a higher return rate than someone selling brand new clothes.
I feel its really unfair that New items, used items and new other items should be grouped together to give the average return rate as anyone selling new other or used items will have a bigger chance of being hit with the charge as they will obviously ghave higher return rate!
I tottally disagree with the whole stealth fee increase, but i put it to ebay, if this is something that needs to be done do you not think its fair that not only do you seperate catogries but you also seperate conditions too.
Its a fact new other and used items get more returns than brand new – for one, we all know buyers often dont read the conditions then open item not as described once they recieve the item.
Also the longer this goes on the more sellers drop, bringing the average return rate lower making it harder to adheare to for the other sellersand eventually everyone if not most people will be hit by it. Sounds like a very clever legal pyrimid scheame..
Come on ebay – this needs addressed as i feel its a valid point!
In my opinion…
There are a lot of reports, chatter, speculation and rumour about eBay’s new Service Metrics Seller Penalty, sorry, Surcharge. I’d long hoped that a lot of it was incorrect and that it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I’d understood it to be. Today, I’ve learnt that it is. Hearing it from the horses mouth, it has been confirmed that all return requests (SNAD wasn’t mentioned) will be included in this new metric. None of which I can contest.
The rationale behind it, that we’re all in the same boat, doesn’t really wash with me. We’re not. We’re going to be lumped together in a way that suits eBay’s intentions of generating additional sales income. I can’t believe this is anything about improving customer, sorry, buyer experience or that of sellers, it is all about eBay.
This is the one metric eBay know I cannot control.
We all have experience of bogus/malicious/fraudulent return requests, and there is no way we can stop someone raising one. And that is all it takes; enough people either unwittingly or wittingly helping eBay’s coffers expand.
Being told that eBay encourage buyers to contact sellers, before raising return requests, is nonsense. eBay’s message to buyers is that they can return an item and their money will be back in their account within 48 hours. Where do they advise buyers to speak to the seller first? I’m a buyer as well as a seller and I’ve never seen it.
It is disheartening to close something that I’ve spent years building, working 7 days a week, for 13 hour days, but this penalty, sorry, surcharge is too much. I’m going to have to close my store and my seller account. Sad, but true.
It’s alright being told I have a near perfect account, with no defects, but that doesn’t matter. I have been able to control those areas. But, sadly, not the bogus/malicious/fraudulent act that eBay know will get me time and again.
I’ve just spoken to Ebay CS and am completely disheartened. I’ve been an Ebay seller for nearly a decade and this is by far the worst thing I have ever heard. I spoke to Ebay CS and told him exactly what will happen and he said that upon listening to what I said he totally understands what I’ve said and that he will feed it back to management (ahem)
Anyone selling anything on ebay under a £5 will be off ebay within months if not weeks. So if you are selling an item for say £3.99. If it costs you 50p to buy the item (for example), and it costs you at the cheapest 60p to post the item second class. That’s a total of £1.10 – so even after EB & PP fees you are still making a nice healthy profit. So if a buyer gets an item from you – and fancies a free item all they need to do is go for a return. The postage on the return is just over £3, so is it more cost effective to just give the buyer a refund then and there or is it worth paying the £3+ to return the item AND then give them a full refund. Added to the fact that an automatic return is going to hammer your new INAD metrics and in very short order, you’ll be paying an extra 4% to ebay because when the word gets that this is how you get freebies… it’s just gonna be carnage. Even if EB lose their percentage on the sale, they’ll still get money from the return postage cost plus the increase 4% fees.
When I spoke to the Ebay CS person they told me that this was all because of the UK laws on seller protection, which have not changed recently I believe, but I’m sure as heck that it doesnt mean that buyers have a right to free items.
This pretty much will kill ebay I think as anything that is low priced will be gone in short order once the word gets out that you can get it items for free.
Decided after 15 years to stop using eBay to buy/sell. Gutted. It was my favourite website ever. Fed up of how difficult it’s become to use as a private seller. No bulk edit of listings. Forced ‘Best Offer’ on listings, which annoys sellers because they don’t want to sell cheaper, and buyers when the seller says they don’t accept offers. I’ve had 100 free listings a month for years and years, and now it’s gone, with no communication to tell me it was going.
Today I closed all my listings (approx 70) one by one as you can’t do it in bulk anymore ?. That’s it for me unless in a few months it can get back to where it was. Maybe I’m not the target audience anymore, but for me I only used it to buy when I had funds from my sales there. Now it’s gone. 1700 feedback score and 100%. RIP eBay, it was a blast.
Blame the wonky eyed lobotomised moron Wenig and Donaho, their astounding incompetence and personal greed has killed eBay. May their lives be forever cursed by karma.