is this the same for ebay.com?

[designermummy]

Taken from ebay UK announcements


We pride ourselves on bringing sellers a large audience of engaged, active buyers. In the last month alone, almost 15 million people visited eBay.co.uk looking for great deals on all manner of items.
Over the last year we’ve been asking those buyers who have left eBay, or who no longer buy as much as they used to, why they did so. One of the most common reasons cited was the prominence of sellers who clearly overcharge for postage & packaging on their items.
The introduction of Detailed Seller Ratings on the site earlier this year allows us to identify clearly those sellers who are consistently rated poorly by buyers for postage & packaging charges. As a result, we’ll shortly be introducing changes to the way that we display search results based on Detailed Seller Ratings for postage & packaging charges.
For the vast majority of sellers, this will mean that your items will continue to be featured as normal in search results.
However, those sellers who consistently receive the lowest scores on postage & packaging costs will receive considerably reduced visibility in default search results by appearing much further down the list of items. This will apply to sellers whose Detailed Seller Ratings for postage & packaging are 3.9 or below, which accounts for roughly 0.5% of all sellers on the site.
This small group of sellers are responsible for a hugely disproportionate number of buyer complaints about overcharging for postage & packaging, and taint the vast majority of good sellers who buyers agree are charging fairly.
We will be introducing these changes during the week beginning December 17th, after the main Christmas trading period is over, and we encourage all sellers to continue to review their postage and packaging charges to make sure these are as fairly priced as possible.
We expect to make further changes to the display of search results to protect buyers in 2008, including extending the use of Detailed Seller Ratings to other areas of concern for buyers.
You can comment on and ask questions about this change here.
Regards,
The eBay Team

 

[HandbagAngel]

I don't recall seeing this announcement in U.S. eBay.

 

[designermummy]

The announcement was yesterday on the UK site. They normally trial with the .com first then roll it out UK, perhaps they are doing it the other way round!

 

[4theluvof-it]

I am not sure if that is exactly what it said, but we have the star rating system and they will start to "hold it against" sellers soon.

They need to start a buyer rating system so we can rate the buyers as well.

 

[skigirl73]

Haven't seen anything here about that yet.

 

[chloehandbags]

God, there are much worse things than high p&p, IMHO. Trust eBay to pick that out and highlight it as the reason for people deserting!

I filled in that survey and I can assure you it wasn't my main concern.

For example, far better highish p&p for a well packaged item, than poor packaging, so your designer bag arrives folded in half in an envelope... :s

Also, what about poor/misleading item descriptions, especially those leading to SNAD items? Aren't they far worse, too?

Not to mention scamming sellers who bait and switch for fakes/very used items, or those who don't send anything at all, from time-to-time.

Good grief.

 

[letsgoshopping]

I agree chloehandbags! I'm pretty sure that everyone I know who has left ebay does so because of ebay fees being way too high, they have poor customer service, or they disagree with the way ebay runs their website. My whole deal with shipping and handling fees are- if you think they're too high, don't bid on the item!

I haven't seen this announcement in the US yet and hopefully I wont'.

 

[gtomad]

eBay trialled the star system first in the UK to see how it would work before placing it on the .com site.

Once again, it is the sellers that they are targeting not the buyers but l do think it should work both ways as there are fraudulent sellers and equally fraudulent buyers!!!!

 

[CynthiaNYC]

God, there are much worse things than high p&p, IMHO. Trust eBay to pick that out and highlight it as the reason for people deserting!

I filled in that survey and I can assure you it wasn't my main concern.

For example, far better highish p&p for a well packaged item, than poor packaging, so your designer bag arrives folded in half in an envelope... :s

Also, what about poor/misleading item descriptions, especially those leading to SNAD items? Aren't they far worse, too?

Not to mention scamming sellers who bait and switch for fakes/very used items, or those who don't send anything at all, from time-to-time.

Good grief.

HEAR HEAR!!

It never ceases to amaze me that eBay somehow got to be a multibillion dollar company by totally missing the mark so widely on such a regular basis. Can you imagine if eBay ran an airline? Flights to JFK would end up in the water about 75% of the time.

 

[bulletproofsoul]

This infuriates me. There ARE bigger things for ebay to target. Not only that, but I am more of a buyer than a seller, so I know that my P&P rates are more than fair. As a matter of fact, the last 2 items I shipped out I paid MORE than I charged just because I'm paranoid of people claiming loss/damage. Yet, I've been dinged on postage fees more than a few times. People are so cheap and spiteful.

 

[designermummy]

This infuriates me. There ARE bigger things for ebay to target. Not only that, but I am more of a buyer than a seller, so I know that my P&P rates are more than fair. As a matter of fact, the last 2 items I shipped out I paid MORE than I charged just because I'm paranoid of people claiming loss/damage. Yet, I've been dinged on postage fees more than a few times. People are so cheap and spiteful.

The past 3 parcels I have posted out I have had to pay extra on and im at 4.8- I think because I send all my items out recorded signed for and some seller send theirs basic post they are comparing prices. Or what they think is a reasonable price to pay without looking at the cost of the speedy delivery with bubble wrap and tissue!!

 

[chloehandbags]

I'm pretty sure that everyone I know who has left ebay does so because of ebay fees being way too high, they have poor customer service, or they disagree with the way ebay runs their website. My whole deal with shipping and handling fees are- if you think they're too high, don't bid on the item!

Yes, I agree, too, letsgo.

I do think it's a good idea that the shipping fees are prominently displayed, so that buyers can't get caught out and I'm sure nobody in their right mind agrees with sellers who charge exorbitant shipping fees, in order to make the item seem less costly than it is; but penalising people who charge slightly more for a far better service will just encourage poor packaging.

 

[chloehandbags]

HEAR HEAR!!

It never ceases to amaze me that eBay somehow got to be a multibillion dollar company by totally missing the mark so widely on such a regular basis. Can you imagine if eBay ran an airline? Flights to JFK would end up in the water about 75% of the time.

What a scary thought!

Thing is, are they really missing the mark, or are they actually, cleverly, using the shipping cost thing as a smoke screen for the real reasons that business is down; reasons that they simply can't afford to own up to?

After doing the survey, they had to publish something about their findings and appear to act on them and I don't suppose it would be very wise for a company to admit that the real reason that buyers have deserted, is that almost all of them have been scammed, at least once and are regularly lied to by sellers!

 

[chloehandbags]

This infuriates me. There ARE bigger things for ebay to target. Not only that, but I am more of a buyer than a seller, so I know that my P&P rates are more than fair. As a matter of fact, the last 2 items I shipped out I paid MORE than I charged just because I'm paranoid of people claiming loss/damage. Yet, I've been dinged on postage fees more than a few times. People are so cheap and spiteful.

I think a lot of people, who never sell, simply don't understand how much more it costs to pay for and send a sturdy box, with tissue and/or bubble wrap, via Special Delivery, than it does a smallish (padded, if you're lucky!) envelope, or plastic bag, via standard post.

Because of this, Paypal should be ready to expect even more claims for items damaged in transit...