Stuck In 'Below Standard' NEED HELP

[KayleighT]

Hi so i basically sell second hand items on ebay mainly clothes and I was doing very well until my account fell below standard back around May time. At this point I wasn't really aware of how defects worked and had never accustomed myself with the seller dashboard. Before falling below standard I had free insertion costs all month so I was able to make a good profit averaging £300-400 per month. Since falling below I now have to pay the 35p which isn't feasible for the amount of listings I have. I spoke to various ebay staff online and on the phone and they assured me my account would be above standard when 2 defects fell off in September however with a restricted 100 free insertions per month and my listings being Buy it Now, means my transactions have dropped to an all time low. I now make around £30 per month as not all buy it nows sell within the 30 days.
My other defects fall of 1 in November and 2 in April which is 7 months away, I cannot wait that long to be back above standard and will do whatever it takes to try and get back up again to receive free insertions.
So basically to be above standard my defect rate needs to be 0.30% and it currently sits at 0.94% for cases closed without seller resolution.
All my other percentages were really high but since transactions lowering now means my transaction defect rate is dangerously close to being in the red. It is 1.88% and can only reach 2%
I have researched what to do and familiarised myself with the defect system.
The only option I have other than wait until April is to auction things of for 0.99p and they will probably only sell for that, so I will be selling items for 99p that I would usually sell for £10 plus. The question is how many items will I need to sell to get safely back above standard?
I am rubbish at maths and cannot work this out.
I just feel stuck in a circle, waiting all this time for September now it's going to be April. I am really down about this and ebay was my way to save and pay of debt etc.
My maths is probably extremely wrong but I have just attempted at working it out:
319 transactions so 100/319=0.33 so that means 1 transaction accounts for 0.33%
If my defect is at 0.94% then surely selling just TWO items will push it back up?

[dallis]

Used clothing is a nightmare category, I used to sell 500-600 items a month. It's virtually impossible to maintain standard ratings in that business.

That said, you allowed cases to close without resolution. That means when you have a problem you ignore it or don't fix it. Is that the way you want people to treat you?

I read your post and got lost in all the words.

Take a picture of your dashboard and post it, without identifiers. One of us will help you from there.

[KayleighT]

Hi it wont let me add a photo in it has to have a URL.
Basically to be above standard it needs to be 0.30% or less. Mine is at 0.94% based on 319 transactions.

[dallis]

So it sounds like you have 3 hits for unresolved buyer issues... .30% is 3 per thousand, so you'd need to do 600+ more and get to 1001 transactions without even one issue to bring it down to .30%.

Probably not possible.

What happens is they lower you in search and restrict your limits and it becomes impossible to bring the numbers back up because you can't generate the volume.

You're probably going to need to wait for them to drop off. You can start a stealth, but you'll need to tighten up and fly right from now on or in a little while you'll be right back here again.

Used clothing is nearly impossible to do well with these days. You should probably think about phasing in another product line. New clothing is slightly less risky if you don't want to change products completely.

[KayleighT]

Ohhh:( I didn't realise it was going to be so high! Yes I do have 3, however it went to 5 hits before they made me below standard and that was based on 452 transactions.
I have definitely tightened up and now as soon as one little issue arises I deal with it asap.
What is stealth?
Thank you for your help

[e2free]

You not took eBay serious now eBay not taking you serious
cases closed without seller resolution means you don't care at all

[rsot]

Welcome to the forums - all the best as you master stealth

Start making backup accounts and spread sales - rebuild

[mcnol012]

Stealth is the way to go my friend