I agree with you totally. Even those in the know don't understand the importance of the DSR's. I was in an inkfrog seminar and the lady running the seminar said she never left 5's always left 4's...I tried to explain to her why that hurt the sellers, and this is a lady that is very knowledgeable about ebay, and she still didn't get it.

I too ship the next day unless the next day is Sunday, then it waits to Monday. I at one time had a 5 , then it went down, and I do not understand why. I still ship the day after I receive payment, but I guess that is not fast enough for some people.

I also have had 2 low ratings from new sellers in descriptions. But I have a minimum of 5 pics in every auction...But still got 2 1's as not as described. I wrote both the buyers about it, and they admitted they had left one's ....and the comment from one buyer was but the color was not really purple....and I said no it was eggplant really but no one searchs by eggplant they search by purple....Such a stupid thing to lower stars on, but ebay does not educate the buyer on the importance of the stars....and what a minor ding in stars does to your overall rating, and how it can effect what we the sellers pay ebay. Of course this is why the new requirement, lets make sure the sellers get less stars and no longer qualify for the discounts....that's more money for ebay, if more of us are disqualified by stars for the discounts,

I have been on ebay 12 years and the DSR's were the lousiest idea that ebay ever came up with. It is totally impossible to live up to the high standards that ebay demands with their stars....If I could find another place to sell, I would do it....and now they want to add more requirements to be met....geez Louise, what next.

The last rate increase.......no you didn't lower fees you raised them..yes Ebay, we can put a pencil to your figures and figure out it is a increase in fees not a decrease as y'all say.....is almost enough to make you really want to leave.
I wish ebay would get rid of all the changes that they have made to the site since I joined in the 90's....it would be a much better ebay and probably bring back some of the great sellers who have left and some of the buyers who are disgusted also

We believe the Top Seller Rating is ruining our chances of being a successful business once again on Ebay. We have been a Power Seller for many years and have many happy customers. We make our entire income on Ebay and our Website sales. We are not a Top Seller due to one DSR, Delivery Time. We see the companies who have the Top Seller ranking getting more sales than ever and our products that are identical and less expensive are not selling. We have been faithful and good sellers on Ebay for many years and feel that there is nothing we can do to get ahead now on Ebay with the current program.

The way it looks to us now, we will not be Top Sellers for more than a year unless there are changes to the program. The only place we have problems is on "Delivery Time". We are drop shippers but we check for tracking numbers and report them diligently to our customers. This also means we know that we know shipment has occurred and timing is as expected. Our manufacturers ship 99% on time and products are delivered within the promised time, so our customers should not have reason to complain. If there is a problem, we let them know as soon as possible. If we perform as we tell them to expect in our listing information, we should not be penalized. There is no built in protection to the seller ensuring this.[The buyer is protected by anonymity. This does not protect the seller.

I see my Top Seller competitors making more sales than ever in this bad economy. They are judged by Ebay differently because of this and they can have many more dissatisfied customers than we can. They receive more and more sales, and they have many more negative feedbacks than we do. But this does not affect their status because they have more and more sales, even if their prices are higher than ours. Our lowest Star rating is 4.8 which is well above Ebay standards and seems to be a good ranking, just two tenths below a perfect score. All of our other 5 Star rankings are at least 4.9.

Because of the Top Seller ranking, our listings are buried many pages behind the first pages. How many buyers are sophisticated Ebay buyers and know to look beyond the Best Match category? Also, when you look at "Lowest Price", the listings which are first shown may not be exactly what you are looking for, but a part or a sticker or something which is lowest in price, but not what you are looking for. Not only that, Top Sellers can buy the highest placement on the page, but non-Top Sellers can not. Our competitors with Top Seller rankings get more and more sales because that is what the buyers see and feel they can better trust, and it has a snowballing effect which is pushing us out of the running. New competitors can be Top Sellers more easily than we can, with our long and good history with Ebay. We work very hard for our customers and they know it. We have had many emails from our customers telling us that they appreciate the hard work we do for them, finding the right product at the right price, but we are still hurt, business-wise, but the DSR's.

We feel the Top Seller Program is unfair and has an enormous effect on buyer preformance, leaving a distorted appearance.

Well Said Amanda. I have the same Complaints of all of you. It's a buyers market right now, and what will happen is Ebay will go down the crapper someday Ebay and pay(butt)Pal, this will happen when we stop selling. Too bad I loved ebay and in someways I still do

The real problem isn't with the DSR's in general - it's the way they are used. Ebay is giving discounts, escalated search rankings and power seller statuses based on arbitrary numbers. We sell on multiple channels, including multiple websites, ebay, amazon, and buy.com. Ebay customers are easily the most fickle group of customers. They ask the most questions (with 60% of them already answered in the listings), which means higher customer service labor. Customers opening paypal / ebay claims are incredibly higher on ebay than we receive A to Z claims on Amazon or chargebacks on our websites.

Here's where the issue lies. Ebay doesn't understand the fact that their customers are extremely more difficult to deal with than any other customers anywhere else. This inherently means that the feedback they leave will be worse than everywhere else - even if you give them the exact same service. Now, you add that to the fact that eBay's guidelines for 'top rated seller' are so strict on arbitrary figures - no wonder why it's very hard for sellers.

Not that anyone that could make any sense of difference on the eBay staff will see this or do anything about it (We have a dedicated ebay support rep, and I've mentioned this MULTIPLE times), but I'm going to list how it SHOULD work.

I agree that a customers satisfaction rate is mainly driven by the 4 categories that DSR's are based on. However, there are a few flaws.

#1 - Shipping and Handling Charges. If you offer free shipping to the US, the customer shouldn't be allowed to rate you on this. Also, if you use the shipping calculator built into ebay, and charge no handling charges - the customer shouldn't be allowed to rate you on this. Most ebay customers are not educated on actual shipping rates. We offer free shipping on every single item we sell in the US. But somehow over the last 3 months, we've had 7 people state our shipping and handling charges are worth a 1 or 2 rating.

#2 - Shipping Time. In this case, it should be based on the date the item was actually shipped - NOT by the date the customer receives it. If the Post Office or UPS misroutes a package, and delivery takes 2 weeks - the seller shouldn't be held accountable for this. Really, instead of stating a 1-5 ranking for this, it should be an automatic number based on the date the tracking information shows it was shipped. You should be able to set specifically in your listings how many days it takes you to ship an item. The rating should be either a 'meets' or 'doesn't meet' based on the date you said it was going to be shipped.

#3 - Buyers DSR's shouldn't be 'hidden'. Specifically for the 'item not described' and Communication' categories. If a customer leaves us a 1 or 2 in either of these categories, but doesn't actually say anything to us - and still leaves us a positive feedback not mentioning anything about this - how do we know what to fix? It's like handing a blind man a dart and say 'hit a bullseye, or you will lose a 20% discount'. We've had 13 cases where people have rated us a 1 or 2 in Item as described over the last 3 months, but we've actually only had 2 people actually say anything to us about our listings. None of them mentioned anything in the feedback to allude to any item description problems. In those two cases, there were legitimate listing problems - which we then fixed. However, in the other 11 cases, we have no idea what the problems are - so we can't fix them. This inherently will cause a problem in the future, because we don't know what is wrong.

#4 - Customers shouldn't be able to leave feedback based on how the product works. Product reviews are designed for this. Inherently, any customer that doesn't like how a product works is going to be dissatisfied. That's what returns and product reviews are for. However, this customer shouldn't have the ability to leave all 1's or 2's for DSR's that directly impact our income because they didn't like the way a product works. Retailers don't make the product - we only resell them. Build a product review section into eBay, so customers can leave reviews on products.

#5 - If a transaction is canceled and never shipped - that customer shouldn't be able to leave DSR's for anything other than communication. Ebay seems to live in a bubble where every single seller has every single item in stock 100% of the time. In the real world, there are out of stock issues and backorder issues. By not having any type of mechanism for situations like this, eBay causes communication problems. We've had cases where we've oversold an item, apologized, and immediately refunded the customer their funds within 24 hours. We open up a 'mutual agreement', which is how we receive our ebay fees back. Ebay doesn't have an option that says 'out of stock' for cancellation, so you have to use the generic 'other' field with no comments. In many cases, customers don't understand this because they see the mutual agreement before the eBay messaging system immediately after login. We've seen many cases where the customer has left us negative feedback (and presumably poor DSR's) in situations like this. The real question is - if the item was never shipped, how can a customer rate us for shipping time? If the full amount was refunded, how can a customer rate us for shipping and handling charges? They didn't pay anything.

DSR's in general are a good idea if you want to give sellers a way to improve their business processes to enhance the customer experience. However, they are utilized for penalizing sellers for not hitting certain numbers.

Here's a proposal on how to make things fair for sellers - and buyers:

1 - Only allow one overall rating 1 - 5. Get rid of positive, neutral and negative. 4,5 are positive, 3 is neutral, and 1-2 is negative. Alternatively, if you still want the 4 DSR's, just put an overall rating as an average of the 4, and still put it in that scale. Having the ability for a customer to leave positive feedback, but rate you a 3 in two categories and a 2 in the other categories is insane.
2 - Allow customers to have more space to explain why they rated us the way they did.
3 - Have the ebay system itself determine the shipping time and shipping charges based on things mentioned above.
4 - Create a product review system. If a customer leaves a product review in feedback , they should be removed by ebay at request of the seller.
5 - Ensure there is transparency in feedback. Allow the sellers to see exactly how they were rated on every transaction, so they can solve the problem. Really, with the ebay 'buyer protection' and paypal dispute system, how can any seller even attempt to 'retaliate' to a customer anymore? Wasn't that the reason for not telling the sellers why feedback can't be seen in the first place?

As a high volume retailer that has been selling for many years, I can tell you we have less and less put our resources into eBay. We've spent the time and effort we used to spend on the eBay channel into SEO for our websites, PPC campaigns for our websites, and branching out into other marketplaces including comparison shopping sites. The reason eBay is losing market share to companies such as Amazon isn't just because the buyers are leaving - it's because the sellers are leaving too.

I hope someone that cares and can do something about it will actually read this. However, I doubt it will happen. In reality, even if someone does read this that can do something will 'forward it up' and put it in a lost pile of ideas that will never happen.

It's too bad Pierre Omidyar is as rich as he is now. He should not be able to sleep at night knowing what is happening with his company he built.

Chris Potter Potter's Gifts PottersGifts.com As Seen on TV, Bobble Heads, Collectibles, and more!

Of course the DSR program is impossible...It is a creation by EBay to get rid of any sort of discount that is offered to sellers. EBay, like most other corporate America companies, could care less about anything other than MONEY...The whole idea of anonymous ratings is absurd...EBay is at a crossroads now...They have chased away many wonderful and honest dealers with their stupid policies, and many of these trustworthy sellers have been replaced by big box JUNK sellers...For example, I recently ordered a bracelet that was advertised as sterling for a friends birthday present...Imagine my horror when I presented the piece to my friend, and her Father, a jeweler, says...Why that's not sterling...Sure enough, it was tested, and its CRAP...I filed an item not as described for the buyer, my money was returned...HOWEVER...The seller, who has over 100 negative feedbacks IN ONE MONTH...continues to sell the same item with the same sterling description...WHY???? Because the listing fees they pay are HUGE...They offer 5000 items for sale at one time...DONT EXPECT A PINK TO RESPOND TO THIS POST...THEY DONT CARE...My advice? Look for other avenues on which to sell...I have, and I am very glad that I did...

DSRs are ebay's failed attempt at creating the Order Defect Rate which Amazon uses to evaluate their sellers. The difference is, Amazon is fair to their sellers, they're still buyer centric. The way it is calculated is straight forward and isn't convoluted into a discount program. The reason ebay will never be as successful is because both parties in these transactions need to feel at least some degree of saftey, both parties have that on Amazon, the seller on ebay has no idea what that is like.


Ebay has a stigma, it is expected that you will get fake/counterfeit, inferior, or broken items most of the time. It is expected that your seller will not be willing to work with you in the event that there is a problem. It seems to me that it would be in a companies best interest to change the view of the brand at this point.

Instead, Ebay has decided to go forth with changes to their site that in all honesty will INSURE that the stigma holds true to ebay because eventually the profit margin is destroyed and nothing that works or is legitimate can be sold here because it is not economically viable.

She's not concerned about gaining a perfect 5.0, did you not see that? She's concerned that her 4.7 is on the line!

i do believe that you have stated what all honest ebay sellers feel & think about the new fee structures & now the new unpaid item limit. if there were another platform such as ebay, there would be a mass migration to it. seems that only the buyer has rights here now.

I hope that ebay takes notice of the money they are losing as we all cut back on our listings. I ended over 500 listings that would cost me $15 plus store fee of $15.95 total $30.95 a month but with new listing fees would cost me over $115.95 a month to list. I won't ever list them again so Ebay lost that from me and god willing more then that from 1000's of other sellers and they get the wake up call taht the Empire they built on good sellers is going to crumble if they all end there listings. For 8 years I never had less then 700 listings up at at time and all my items are hand made so alot of work. and now I think I have 130 some items listed and it will stay at that or lower.
As for me since all of my items are hand crafted I can't really increase my sales any higher then the amount of items I can actually make in a given week or month so I can never improve my # of sales. As of DSR's that is all for Ebay it really has nothing to do with us as sellers. Take note without fail come ebay monthly bill time your DSR's seem to drop but no one has even left feedback wonder hwo that could be.. Ebay sure couldn't answer me that and I kept daily records too. and funny they took away wth 30 day DSR so we could see how we were doing..hummm wonder why. to many of us ask them for proof of why our rating dropped about the time we were being rated for Power seller and Billed..oops No discount for me this month but tomorrow my rating goes right back up and still no new feed back... All a Scam to make more of sellers... I have awesome feedback, a following of buyers and they all think this new system is ruining ebay for them as well becasue they can not find my listings... I told them to email me I will be happy to send them all my new listings weekly... and they do... remember you can always build repour with your buyers so they come back and support you ... Greed has never prevailed and Ebays greed will eventually destroy them so in the mean time we all need to prepare for it...

This is a valid concern but buyers may or may not be leaving low DSRs out of spite or disatisfaction. Some probably do so they are nonchalance.

A few months ago, someone, a fisrt time buyer asked my help with two sellers' ratings. His answers to my questions portrayed satisfaction with both sellers. But to my greatest suprise and despite my argument, there was not even one 5 star for ether sellers. He refused to understand the implication of his ratings because the outcome did not matter to him.

So what do we as sellers do?

I am outraged at eBay's new final value fee structure. Between eBay and PayPal I barely make a profit on the items that I sell. I have to ask myself if it's worth the time and effort to do all the work so eBay can make more of a profit than I am on the items that I am selling. On my recent auctions eBay and PayPal have made between 13% and 188% of the profit. I have had a lot of business and sales training coupled with years of real world business and sales experience. If I can not provide myself with a respectable profit margin then the value of my efforts will no longer be motivational to me. At that point I will have to find other avenues to sell my products other than eBay. The only other option I see is to take the profits that I have made and purchase some stock in eBay because they are the real winners in the current situation. We the seller's are the slaves to the stock holder, as eBay falsely states that they are trying to help the seller with there new fee structure; all I've seen is more of my profits leave my pocket and make eBay's much fatter. The new fee structure is only a way to entice sellers to list more items as the insertion fees are lower, but when the item sales and you have to pay 9% directly off the top of your profits that's CRAZY! In March I sold an item for $484.99 and eBay's fees totaled $20.14 that's only 4.15% of the total selling price. I sold the exact same item this month for $549.30 and the fees totaled $51.59 that's 9.39%. WOW! For those of you not paying attention that is more than double the fees. If you were to go to the store to purchase an item that you payed less than half for less than a month ago would you still buy it? I think I can confidently speak for everyone here and say NO! I am close to the breaking point were I will have to say NO to eBay in the near future! After insertion fees, final value fees, PayPal transaction fees, shipping material costs, and the actual shipping cost I find it hard to stay with eBay much longer. A quick response to the many of the other postings saying that eBay will never respond to our complaints. Everybody needs to get as many people as possible to comment on this post. If a posting gets enough attention then eBay will probably express some concern. Also, please email eBay with your complaints if they have enough complaints on the same subject sent to them then they will have to respond. If they are still complacent with there current fee structure then maybe everyone that possibly could afford to participate should discontinue selling items on eBay for one month. With enough participation this could cost eBay millions of dollars of revenue. That would get their attention! So everybody email everyone you know to get some participation with this!

I started out as a seller on eBay. Shipped my first item out in Nov., 1998. I used to actively search locally for items that would sell for under $25 and still be profitable for me.

Starting in 2007 I could see that I was not going to sell much on eBay and in fact have only listed 2 items since then. Nation wide exposure and the expectation of returns on investment of 1500% + are the only reasons I chose eBay.

As an eBay buyer there were times when I was expecting as many as 8 packages in a week, now if I bid on 1 item per month that is a lot.

EBay, clearly not as good as it once was, and (with each additional change) not as bad as it is likely to become.

MTRY

MTRY