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Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

Hello. I found Aspkin and stealth guides about 2 years ago. Thanks to the wonderful knowledge of Aspkin & the forums, I have developed a decent grasp with stealth accounts. With absolutely no real knowledge and shaky legs, I have managed to run two successful eBay stealth accounts for the past 2 years.

My "main" account now has over 410 positive reviews! With 99.8% positive feedback (only 1 negative / 410). I have generated over $35,000 in sales this past year. Absolutely flawless!...

The problem is I shot myself in the foot by not really understanding eBay's new seller-rating system. On one month, last May 2016, I incorrectly over-listed one particular item's stock... and ended up selling 9 pieces on one day. I refunded all 9 transactions, cancelling the orders... not knowing the impact this has on the new seller-ratings.

This has caused my DSR(sp?) "transaction defects" to be bumped up to 2.3%, with the maximum allowance being 2%. Since then, it seems like they drop all my listings to super-low priority (IE not getting many views, sales dropped down dramatically, limits reduced by over 60%...) I'm still making sales, but I was doing 3-4 sales a day, and now I'm lucky to do 3-4 a week. I guess the account still works, but this is a major setback.

My second "backup" account isn't really being used for sales, although I did age it and did about 40-50 transactions on it, with 20/20 positive feedback.

Does anybody have any experience, or suggestions, fixing my situation?
It seems very difficult to fix the transaction defect rate, as to go from 2.3% down under 2% I would need to make over 50 transactions in under a month or two. While this would normally not be a problem, as my items sell very well, since they dropped me to a "bad seller" status, my listings just don't seem to be receiving hits like they used to. I assume they put me on page 50 or something instead of the first few pages.

I imagine I could just lay off until May 2017 and the 9 cancelled transactions will fall off... but I was hoping there's a better way to fix this quickly, since this is a profitable account.

Open to suggestions/tips - or should I just grab another high-limit aged stealth / work on my "backup" account? Thanks

Re: Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

I guess nobody else has experienced a similar situation?

Re: Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

For cancelling an order on eBay, always choose Buyer cancel option. Then make up a good excuse and send buyers a message the reason why you cancelled their orders.

Re: Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

Nothing you can do but wait for it to drop off.

You're lucky you don't get suspended for this. Amazon would suspend your account for that many cancellations in a heartbeat.

Re: Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

You can do that on amazon by choosing "buyer cancelled"

Re: Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

On both ebay and amazon you can't just arbitrarily select buyer cancelled.

On amazon the buyer must request a cancellation, then you can cancel with that reason and not have it count.

On ebay the buyer has to confirm that it's being cancelled at their request, which they may not do if they didn't actually want it cancelled.

Re: Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

This actually happened to me as well. I had excellent feedback and 2 years of perfect selling and DSR ratings. And then had too many items that I had to cancel due to pre-orders not coming in on time. I was shocked when ebay sent me a notice of restriction saying I can no longer sell on ebay. I had no idea that by cancelling an order it counted against my DSR's. At least you're just suspended and not restricted. Not much you can do to be prioritized back to the top of the results page until the DSR falls off.

Re: Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

Well of course. Listing items that you don't have and aren't going to fulfill is going to cause buyer disappointment.

The reason why you cancelled (unless it's a legitimate buyer requested cancellation) is irrelevant. Bottom line is you failed to deliver. Stuff like pre-orders always comes with a big suspension risk if you're not 100% sure your supplier will come through.

Re: Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

Make sure you ask all customers for positive feedback to bump up your DSRs as much as possible. Maybe sell something cheap at below wholesale price to get sales even if you loose out on the item. (In the UK you can get 10 sachets of coffee for £1 from a poundshop) Buy these sort of items and sell at the same price you buy (something light and easy to ship cheaply) Stick a note in the envelope asking for positive feedback and add an extra sachet as a goodwill gesture and your feedback / sales should increase which will dilute the previous DSRs

Re: Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

TBH, with all the selling limit games, seller ratings, and competition with the Chinese sellers, I'm almost hopeless with eBay. If you spend the same effort and time building your own website, I bet it will be pretty lucrative and will eventually pay off what you're worth.

Re: Successful Stealth Account - Messed up my seller rating...
 

It's tough but doable - would need exposure and traffic also....depends on market too