Has anyone else copped this 4% surcharge for Very High SNAD rate ?

[dontmissthese]

Since 21st January this little charmer has dropped in my lap.

Additional 4% fee for Very High Item not as described rates

Thing is, according to the metric break down, my rate is NOT Very High.

Called ebay and it is being rectified.

Seems like a money grab because ebay has specified 0.40% as a return rate

based on a 'peer' group yet they have provided no details about what this

peer group is.

[digital*ghost]

I haven't been personally affected by it, but I know of a seller who has and I took a look at how eBay calculate what is "very high" - I was actually pretty gobsmacked by it, since they don't just do it as a percentage of your sales, but compare you to other seller's rates, without showing any of the data that goes into determining that.

Basically it looks like they determine an average for sellers in similar categories, and then apply that to everyone who they determine falls under that banner, which would suggest if you have a lot of competitors who have very high rates of INAD requests, your average allowed before the higher FVF is applied is more generous, while if you have very few competitors, and / or the average is lower, your own threshold is a lot lower. 

In comparing what was considered "very high" in my (and a couple of other seller's) store(s), the threshold was sitting at around 1% - this is more than twice what eBay seem to have specified for you (i.e. I get pinged at 1 in 100, while you get pinged at 1 in 250). 

Extremely unfair, IMHO, and I am always suspicious of eBay when they hide data like that. 

[wide-world-of-stamps]

How do you find out the rate for a particular category?

[digital*ghost]

If you go to the seller hub and click on the "performance" link, on the lefthand side is a menu with a "service performance" link. If you click that, it will show a graphic with the rates.

I just double-checked mine and found something particularly interesting. When I last looked at it, it was before eBay announced the additional 2% increase to the FVF, making it the current total of an extra 4%, and the "very high" rate was indeed indicated to be at around 1%, but while I'm obviously not in any current danger, it is now clearly lower than that.

[brerrabbit585]

If you click on the little i under 'see how you compare to your peers' it says your peers sell in the same category but also have similar listing attributes like price, expected delivery dates, item condition and return policies. If that's the case I wouldn't be compared to the biggest sellers in my category because they mostly offer returns.

[digital*ghost]

It's still exceptionally vague, though, because nothing is verifiable for the seller. At least with other seller metrics is a universally straight percentage of your sales, so things are very clear cut and pretty much anyone can do the math. 

This is still largely a "secret formula" (how can I verify who my peers are, and whether the average number of INAD claims does indeed run at 0.19%?), and I suspect - after discovering the sudden lowering of the average, post adding a further 2% to the higher FVF payable, to less than half the previous threshold - arbitrary and, essentially, bogus. 

Plus, opening a request counts towards the percentage - it doesn't matter how it is resolved, or even if it was a proven mistake from the buyer (this happened to another seller, and eBay refused to take it off the count towards this metric).

[dontmissthese]

I guess I will just have to keep wondering about the 'size' of the peer sample.

In my selling area there may well be 50,000 sellers.

What if eBay has selected 100 of the lowest return rate sellers.

It's hardly a representative sample.

Why not an 'average' return rate across all 50,000 sellers ?

It shall remain one of life's great mysteries unless the overall impact

is so severe financially that a 'class' might compel ebay to substatiate

the basis for it's 'peer' data.

We can all dream 🙂

[digital*ghost]

I like to watch this video and replace YouTube with eBay 🙂

[dontmissthese]

If that is a real screen shot of yours Ghost then just 1 SNAD return will put you

on 0.045% Looks like a lot of thin ice in our futures. Bad buyers will be given

a new extortion tool.

[digital*ghost]

By my calculations, it would take 4 requests to put me in the "average" zone, and maybe 6-7 to put me in the "very high" zone. 

Let's say it's 8 - that's 0.36% of transactions. 

Very narrow edge indeed.