Defect Rate table is um, defective.

[everard6920]

(As an aside - a "log out" button is nowhere to be found on your home page (or, if it's there, I couldn't quickly or easily find it). Poor interface design, anyone?)

Anyway.

With regard to the "defect rate" table displayed on my seller dashboard, I am counting 2 "defects" for "canceled transactions". Both transactions involved buyers pressing the "buy it now" button, then messaging me and asking me to cancel the transactions because buyer #1 only wanted to watch the item, and buyer #2 purchased the wrong item.

So . . . I sent them cancellation requests with the reason as, "buyer changed mind or no longer wants item" (you know the one I mean). They accepted, and that was the end of that.

Until eBay decided to count these as "defective" sales.

Not only is this nonsensical, but on the "defect rate" table, it clearly says, "Canceled transactions: out of stock or sold to someone else" which is 100% inaccurate, because that isn't what happened.

I have contacted eBay customer service about this three times to date, and was assured that it was in error and would be fixed. That was two weeks ago.

Get it together, eBay.  I've been selling here for 15 years and this is the first time I've seriously looked into moving my business elsewhere. (Not just because of this issue . . . )

[clarry100]

We have had cancellations for the very same reasons recently and they have NOT counted against us as in your case.

Once again eBay being very inconsistent in the application of their own rules.

There are many reasons why we are now in the process of setting up our own independent website. We will try to keep trading on here, notwithstanding these things, until we can get the new website running the way we want it to. Then we will close out.

It's becoming more & more of a headache here and honestly how much can a good honest seller bear before they crack and leave. The place will be abandoned by the Aussies to the shonky/cheap Chinese sellers. That seems to be who they want/favour.

Buyers will only put up with the left-over bad sellers for so long until they too abandon ship and look elsewhere. IMHO inside 5-years ebay will be a thing of the past if they keep on down their current tracks.

[davewil1964]

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@everard6920 wrote:

(As an aside - a "log out" button is nowhere to be found on your home page (or, if it's there, I couldn't quickly or easily find it). Poor interface design, anyone?)

Anyway.

With regard to the "defect rate" table displayed on my seller dashboard, I am counting 2 "defects" for "canceled transactions". Both transactions involved buyers pressing the "buy it now" button, then messaging me and asking me to cancel the transactions because buyer #1 only wanted to watch the item, and buyer #2 purchased the wrong item.

So . . . I sent them cancellation requests with the reason as, "buyer changed mind or no longer wants item" (you know the one I mean). They accepted, and that was the end of that.

Until eBay decided to count these as "defective" sales.

Not only is this nonsensical, but on the "defect rate" table, it clearly says, "Canceled transactions: out of stock or sold to someone else" which is 100% inaccurate, because that isn't what happened.

I have contacted eBay customer service about this three times to date, and was assured that it was in error and would be fixed. That was two weeks ago.

Get it together, eBay.  I've been selling here for 15 years and this is the first time I've seriously looked into moving my business elsewhere. (Not just because of this issue . . . )

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Top left where it says 'G'day, <your name>.

Hover over your name and a dropdown gives you the sign out link.

[porcelainforyou2]

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@clarry100 wrote:

...

There are many reasons why we are now in the process of setting up our own independent website. We will try to keep trading on here, notwithstanding these things, until we can get the new website running the way we want it to. Then we will close out.

It's becoming more & more of a headache here and honestly how much can a good honest seller bear before they crack and leave. The place will be abandoned by the Aussies to the shonky/cheap Chinese sellers. That seems to be who they want/favour.

Buyers will only put up with the left-over bad sellers for so long until they too abandon ship and look elsewhere. IMHO inside 5-years ebay will be a thing of the past if they keep on down their current tracks.

---

I have had a suspicion for some time now that eBay is trying to get rid of sellers of one-off collectable second hand items (? to Gumtree, which it also owns) and become a sort of Amazon.com mark II, selling items mass produced in China which can be listed as "free postage", because postage is so cheap in China (? 'subsidised' by the Chinese government).

The recent disastrous FVF on postage policy and strong "encouragement" to incorporate postage into the selling price is further support for this suspicion.

The cyberattack on eBay and the FVF on postage have combined to create a "perfect storm" of buyers deserting eBay in droves. Although some sellers have noticed no downturn in sales, I like many other sellers on these posts have noticed across my eBay sites a marked downturn in all 3 parameters of buyer interest - "lookers", "watchers" and bidders/buyers since the two events which occurred within a short space of time (or at least in the case of the cyberattack, became public, which was quite some time after the actual cyberattack).

[cadburygal]

"Until eBay decided to count these as "defective" sales.

Not only is this nonsensical, but on the "defect rate" table, it clearly says, "Canceled transactions: out of stock or sold to someone else" which is 100% inaccurate, because that isn't what happened."

Totally agree.

Upon checking our dashboard, I see the same reason (as above) listed against 2 defects and we have never, ever, EVER cancelled a transaction for any reason other than at the request of a buyer!

To add insult to injury, we have also received defects on a transaction from February, where an inexperienced buyer purchased multiple items and paid for each item separately.

This meant the buyer overpaid by paying postage on each item bought.

We kindly refunded each individual transaction (of our own accord) & then combined all items onto one invoice with postage price completely removed (we have a free post offer) so that the buyer may pay again in one transaction and saving her $3.10.

For our kindness, from Ebay, we get multiple defects!!! (At least the buyer was appreciative).

The way this is going, no-one is going to win but Ebay.

The sellers can't win, because we are penalised for trying to do right by our buyers and the buyers will end up overpaying, because sellers will be reluctant to refund at all as it impacts them negatively to do so.

Becoming really disheartened lately 😞

[gkam2]

We have received 8 defects over the period, all due to buyers from W.A. either ignoring or not bothering to read the listings where we clearly state a couple of times on each page that " We are unable to ship plants to W.A., Tasmania and the Northern territory due to quarantine restrictions in those States".

This places us firmly between the proverbial rock and a hard place,  where I have to refuse a sale and refund the money, thus incurring a defect for, Quote, " Choosing not to post an item after it was sold" or honour the sale and risk the item being confiscated in transit. Thus ensuring that  I end up with one peed off customer who will lodge an item not received claim and Paypal will refund, hence I lose both item and payment.

In a spectacularly unproductive conversation with the laughingly named Customer Service, I was advised that a solution would be to add all W.A buyers to my blocked list. Yeah Right!.

I pointed out to them that there used to be a system of excluding certain post codes from buying but apparantly that no longer exists. I then asked to speak to a supervisor who agreed that I do have a point and promised to look into it and call me back at 4.00pm today Monday June 2. I will wait and see what happens but I won't be holding my breath.

[digital*ghost]

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@gkam2 wrote:

I pointed out to them that there used to be a system of excluding certain post codes from buying but apparantly that no longer exists. I then asked to speak to a supervisor who agreed that I do have a point and promised to look into it and call me back at 4.00pm today Monday June 2. I will wait and see what happens but I won't be holding my breath.

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You can block regions by postcode as far as I know - I've seen the block in use on some recent listings, I just can't tell you exactly how because I can't access the function on all accounts (I brought it up on this account after I played around with creating a postage rate table).

More info here, though, for what it's worth: http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/pay/shipping-costs.html#where

[gkam2]

The eBay supervisor did ring back and gave me the link to exclude regions by postcode:-

http://www.bizpolicy.ebay.com.au/businesspolicy/policyoptin.  I have not tried it yet but will see how it works.

Fingers crossed.

[digital*ghost]

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@gkam2 wrote:

The eBay supervisor did ring back and gave me the link to exclude regions by postcode:-

http://www.bizpolicy.ebay.com.au/businesspolicy/policyoptin.  I have not tried it yet but will see how it works.

Fingers crossed.

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Cheers for posting that link and info. 🙂 That confirms something I suspected - or at least, explains why one account could access regional blocks and another couldn't. This ID could access them and has already been opted into Business Policies; my other account hasn't been opted into BP's and couldn't access the option.

[everard6920]

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@cadburygal wrote:

"Until eBay decided to count these as "defective" sales.

Not only is this nonsensical, but on the "defect rate" table, it clearly says, "Canceled transactions: out of stock or sold to someone else" which is 100% inaccurate, because that isn't what happened."

Totally agree.

Upon checking our dashboard, I see the same reason (as above) listed against 2 defects and we have never, ever, EVER cancelled a transaction for any reason other than at the request of a buyer!

To add insult to injury, we have also received defects on a transaction from February, where an inexperienced buyer purchased multiple items and paid for each item separately.

This meant the buyer overpaid by paying postage on each item bought.

We kindly refunded each individual transaction (of our own accord) & then combined all items onto one invoice with postage price completely removed (we have a free post offer) so that the buyer may pay again in one transaction and saving her $3.10.

For our kindness, from Ebay, we get multiple defects!!! (At least the buyer was appreciative).

The way this is going, no-one is going to win but Ebay.

The sellers can't win, because we are penalised for trying to do right by our buyers and the buyers will end up overpaying, because sellers will be reluctant to refund at all as it impacts them negatively to do so.

Becoming really disheartened lately 😞

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IMO, eBay is 100% wrong on this issue, but we know by now that we can't rely on them to fix it.

I went back, downloaded my "defect report" and discovered that one of my two "cancelled transactions" isn't one of the ones above (the buyer who clicked "buy it now" on the wrong item). Only the other one (the buyer who just wanted to watch the item) is counting as a defect. Which is even more confusing because I chose the exact same reason for both ("buyer changed mind"), both buyers accepted . . . so I don't know why one would count and one wouldn't.

Anyway.

I discovered that the other transaction is one where I refunded my buyer - they paid for multiple items separately over 24 hrs and because I was able to combine postage, the postage I refunded them was equal to one of the payments - so I simple refunded one of their payments in full to make up for the extra postage paid.

Wrong move. It now counts as a defect because I refunded the entire payment. I should've partially refunded several of their payments to make up the extra postage, and then I wouldn't be counting a defect. (I have several other partial refunds and none of them are counting as defects . . . )

tl;dr version: don't fully refund any payments, because you'll end up with a defect. If you want to refund your buyer for overpaying postage (or any other reason), do a partial refund on several payments, because partial refunds aren't counted as defects.