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Buyer return new 14 day minimum - May 2012
 

Another new improvement to help the buyers

This has no effect on professional buyers. Won't get into detail with this b/c the less everyone knows the better.

Same policy I have always anyway...14 or 30 sometimes 60

The real thing to worry about is the new streamline return process through ebay. A link where customer can print return label and charges your account. I believe they may charge the credit card on file for newer seller. That could be majorly problematic if you have a VCC on account.

^^^ you can't be serious. Is this in effect already?????????

No - starts in May

Wow,

Talk about over charging the seller for shipping!!!!!

This is the email some of my accounts got...

Spring Seller Update

Dear XXXXXXX

Your commitment to great service is paying off! With eBay growing at double-digit rates, you now have access to more than 100 million active buyers. Updates coming this spring will help keep those growing ranks of online shoppers coming your way, help get your listings in front of the right buyers, protect your track record, and boost your efficiency.

Free pictures coming in July!

Your upfront cost of selling on eBay is going down again! Now, starting July 2, on top of listing up to 50 items Auction-style FREE each month, you'll get FREE pictures for all your listings, both Auction-style and Fixed Price. You can upload up to 12 pictures per listing and all 12 pictures will be free—including free zoom and enlarge! Listings with lots of great quality photos sell more, so start loading up now.

Congratulations! As an eBay Top-rated seller, you're about to get even more attention for your great listings.

Ecommerce standards for service have evolved in the three years since the eBay Top-rated seller program was first introduced, and savvy merchants like you have adapted to compete. Now the Top-rated seller program will also evolve to keep pace.

Starting in June, Top-rated sellers will need to have tracking information uploaded to eBay within their stated handling time on 90% or more of their transactions with US buyers. As of June 1, the 20% final value fee discount and greatest on average boost in Best Match will go to those listings from Top-rated sellers that include 1-day handling and a minimum 14-day return policy with a money-back refund option. Your listings without these two services will still have the Top-rated seller badge and some boost in Best Match but will not earn the discounts or the highest average boost in Best Match.

The good news for you: Since you already offer these services, just keep up the good work and you'll continue to reap the full rewards of being a Top-rated seller—only now, with more attention than ever for your great listings!

As an extra reward, from March 1 to May 31, you'll get a bonus 5% discount off your final value fees—along with your current 20% discount—for all your listings with 1-day handling and 14-day or longer returns with a money-back option.

Congratulations and thank you from all of us at eBay for your continued great service.

Safeguards for your hard-earned performance record

New seller protections help ensure your performance record is an accurate reflection of your great service:

Get an automatic 5-star Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) for Communication when you specify same-day or 1-day handling, upload tracking information by the end of the next business day, and no communication is needed between you and the buyer.

Feedback left for a transaction where the buyer had an unpaid item recorded will be automatically removed.

Earlier this year, eBay started displaying an automatic message on the View Item page to buyers outside the US regarding customs-related delays and customs duties. Because of this, any Feedback from international buyers that only references customs issues will qualify for Feedback removal.

Updates to boost your efficiency and profitability

Manage your business policies from one handy location. Opt in to a new way to create and manage custom payment, shipping, and return policies and apply them to listings quickly and easily.

Streamline returns: An optional new way to manage returns virtually automates the process according to the terms you specify. Your buyer simply clicks a link in My eBay to print a pre-paid shipping label. When you get the item back, simply click a button to issue the refund. Your final value fees are automatically refunded.

New same-day handling time option. Let buyers know you ship the same day for orders received by your specified cut-off time.

USPS® First-Class Package service reclassified from Expedited to Standard. Take advantage of the savings this service offers, while setting the right delivery expectations for your buyers.

A message on the View Item page alerts buyers to the possibility of extended delivery time for items with longer than 3-day handling.

New requirements for pictures. High-quality pictures can make all the difference in enticing a buyer to choose your item over the rest. Starting this fall, all listings will be required to have at least one picture, and all photos must be at least 500 pixels on the longest side and cannot have added borders or text (watermarks okay).

Best Match using more information to get your listings in front of the right buyers. eBay's default sort order will begin looking at more information—including information in your item description—to evaluate items for ranking. Item Specifics, product codes like UPCs and ISBNs, brand, part numbers, and other descriptors will be increasingly important.

Category and other updates

Electronics: Listing with the eBay catalog will be expanded to more categories, including DVD & Blu-ray Players, Home Theater Receivers, Home Speakers & Subwoofers, Home Theater Systems, and Home Theater Projectors.

Category and Item Specific updates: As always, changes to categories and item specifics are included with the rest of seller updates. Find out if your listings are affected.

Clothing, Shoes & Accessories
Coins
Computers & Networking
Consumer Electronics
eBay Motors
Home & Garden
Toys
Jewelry & Watches (Category adjustments in Watches only)

More information

Get details on the 2012 Spring Seller Update.
Use the Seller Checklist to stay on top of important dates.
Find out how you can update your listings quickly and efficiently with bulk editing tools.
For additional insight, you're also invited to talk with members of my staff during the next two days on a special discussion board we've set up for this purpose. Join me and other leaders from eBay in a Town Hall meeting on February 29, 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. PST.

As always, thank you for selling on eBay.

Sincerely,
Michael Jones
Vice President
Merchant Development

So how does eBay thank them for helping them grow as business by screwing us, ah same ol same ol. Thanks eBay :smash::smash::smash: this is why I use a merchants account, you want to bitch about an item or try to play games eBay eats it not me.:pound:

The streamline returns is such bullllll****tttttttttttt. As of yet i had no problem with eb*y. Now i do. I wonder what caused them to do this. Maybe all the stealthies???? :suspicious:

what the hell. does this affect uk sellers too. I sell alot of vintage designer items - all pristine condition and i get ALOT of buyers who buy the outfits, maybe wear them for one evening to go out in and then send them back. it infuriates me no end because i can see right through them. It doesnt bother me as much if they return and they are returning and its out of their own pocket but now if they want to return, all returns will be out of the sellers pocket?? they are making it impossible to make a living on there these days especially with heavy items.

Once again a this a small action to a much bigger action to come.

Driving away small business - and keeping only the big ones only a matter of time, i honestly think their out to catch the smaller fish, us fish have to get smarter and play by their rules to survive.

:clap: well done eBay.

is this only available though if you offer a return policy? I don't currently offer one because im constantly messed around on there but the other day i had someone open a "i want to return the item and get a refund" after 21 days of having the item. i clicked no and refused to let them. next thing i know they are opening a SNAD and saying the item was "torn to bits" even though the picture showed no tears at all. just wondering if it will be based on SNAD or this new thing they bought in recently where the buyer can just request to return it for no reason even if it was described correctly!!

i think this is gonna be a huge problem with electrical issues too. buying phones/laptops/tablets - buyers will take advantage thats for sure.

Seems to me that it's optional, so you may have to opt-in/out.

I don't think this is mandatory, but does it even make a difference? If the buyer wants a refund from PayPal/eBay, they end up getting one sooner or later anyways...

I will opt in... Cause chances are if you dont you will end up at the bottom of the list like all other rules and regs...

to stay top rated and get the 20% discount, you have to send packages with tracking within 24hrs of the sale 90% of the time, and offer the 14 day return

seems like that will hurt the top rated guyz that sell hundreds of 2 dollar items a month. Now it'll cost almost that to ship them the item.

I have made alot selling small dollar items, let alone it helped my fb score

I'm at the point where i'm just gonna give up my trs badge(just what the tur.............._s wanted anyway) because i figure i make way more with a 44 cent stamp selling many small items along with my higher dollar items. Let them keep there 20% and pass the cost on to the customer with a tiny increase in shipping. Almost all of my items are free shipping anyway even tho it cost .44 cents to 10 bucks shipping. i don't think it will hurt one bit to ask for 50 cent shipping on the shipping.

Boy-O-Boy.........i just can't wait till some new rules role out.........and they will..........again and again

For me it is very important to have the top rated seller badge so that I could list as featured on ebay catalog products...

One account I had $2000 in fees this month so that 20% ($400) was not small change.

I agree, my discounts also add up to real money. At some point, however, it may no longer be worth it.

On Auctiobbytes.com they have a transcript of the "town hall" meeting regarding these changes.

Sellers of smaller items, like postcards and stamps were very concerned about the new policy, as were sellers of live items such as mealworms and flowers.

They were raising very valid points as to why this new policy would not work in their category and were asking questions. The eBay reps would not answer any questions, they just kept parroting the eBay party line about how great this was going to be. I discovered that it is possible to be rude and arrogant without DIRECTLY being rude and arrogant.

I just wish we could take away everything that John Donahoe has and leave him with 1 pc with internet access and $1,000. He would have to earn his living on eBay if he wanted to feed his family. He would also have to abide by ALL OF HIS OWN RULES!

He could change the rules if he wanted to, but they would have to change for EVERYBODY.

If we could somehow make that a reality, eBay would be a sellers paradise in no time!

i figure the sales i make vs the 20% discount and having to pay the extra shipping........envelope with 44 cent stamp vs the bigger envelope with tracking 1.64.

And i would have to make sure i send 90% with tracking within 24 hrs....you can bet that if you miss that little detail, kiss your 20% goodbye:nono:

I just dont think thats gonna work for me......i've had TR for a long time with this one account but it looks like i'm just gonna have to let them keep the 20%:rip:

i think this 90% bullsh.. and the 1 day shipping will hurt alot of sellers in different ways.:rip:

They must think we're a factory with a moving conveyor belt that starts at one end and out the door in 24hrs. For me, that just can't happen 90% of the time.

i got 4.96 for my shipping time now and they say that just ain't good enough.:deadhorse:

New listing requirements:ban?::ban?::ban?:

Optional, whats all the hysteria?




They simply need to add a return request feature like Amazon. Suckers pay their own shipping.

Is this happening in the UK or US?

as others have stated it's optional, and really if printing the label for a package within 24 hours is a problem, you're in the wrong business or doing too much for just yourself working. It doesn't have to be in the mail in 24 hours, just printed. I send stuff out everyday because i want people to get their stuff quick because i'd want it that way for me. But, if i am lazy one day..as long as i printed them, they never know whether you shipped that day or the next

Thats just it though, They are going to connect with the tracking and it should show accepted as well in that 24hr period. Then it has to show delivered in "Their" estimated time frame and not the carriers.

Its really BS. I feel they will run off large businesses with that as well.

I know of 2 very large retailers on ebay and they will probably just dump ebay altogether due to their ongoing BS demands for listings that are not even their items.

Big businesses arent going to put up with that BS. THey will just drop ebay. you watch.

Its too big of a laundry list of crap to follow now. Can you imagine just one lazy employee screwing you out of thousands of dollars in fee discounts over some stupid rules ebay makes up every few month.

You would have to have a training card in every employees pocket with a list of what all you have to do on each sale to please ebay.

All they are doing is slowly making room for the other auction sites to slide into that niche sales market. Its just going slower than I thought it would.

As if the last post wastnt long enough? lol

I also wanted to say, I have several listings that show Nothing on tracking yet for the USPS. Nothing at all, not even accepted and they got the packages already. That is the case in over 50% of my listings.

If you drop packages on the dock of the mail carrier doesnt want to bother with that many then you are not going to have the info filled in for ebays "bots". Then your 90% is shot due to something so simple.

Unless they are getting that all straightened out before june with the USPS I dont see many folks getting the 20% any more.

My carrier just complains on how they are overwhelmed anyway so he isnt going to be able to scan all my pkgs.

I drop most on the docks anyway and leave. I roll 2 carts daily and they rarely get scanned. Sometimes they do but most never do until maybe half way to their destination. some just at delivery, most nothing ever.

How is that going to work??

My PO says that the carriers scanners wont scan the smaller bar codes on international pkgs, Only the counter and back room scanners with scan them.

I rarely get an international pkg scanned at all.

With me having a couple buyer pull the bait and switch scam on me I have started stating all items sold as is. So far has not effected my sales.

The best thing was the scammers did this on my real account and I was able to beat them with good pictures in detail. I always take extra pics and pick the ones I want and save them on a thumb drive so I had them to show ebay.

Just another way to get the professional buyers a way to screw us over.

They are getting too long of a list of rules everyone has to follow. I will probably just give up my TRS status on all and just keep my stars up.

I spoke with someone to day with ebay about the new changes and they had no answer to my question about the 24hrs to get the tracking info uploaded.

I asked them how they were doing that. Are they going to just go by when the label was printed or by what the USPS shows as "accepted"?

3 people they transferred me to had no idea and just said "that is a great question".

That is the part I have a problem with. My tracking is always in since I use ebay shipping but as most of my packages get delivered they RARELY have acceptance scans since I drop on the docks.

IF they show no acceptance I doubt that will count and I will lose the 90% that is required. They get delivered just fine but never get scans until either delivery or somewhere in between. some NEVER.