While online marketplaces like eBay are some of the only places to find the rarest items in the world, shipping delays can still make the whole process feel less efficient for buyers and sellers alike. At least, with some updates to eBay’s seller ranking system in the U.K., sellers’ reputations won’t get dinged if their carrier of choice suffers an unexpected delay.
That’s the news from eBay’s General Announcements blog, where the company outlined plans to waive performance adjustments for sellers who send their packages via Royal Mail and also upload tracking capabilities to each order. Moreover, eBay’s U.K. sellers will get some wiggle room when it comes to disgruntled customers; under the new criteria for decreasing a seller’s rating, a minimum of four buyers must be affected by delays, stockouts and other problems before a reputation can be adjusted (three for eBay’s top-rated sellers cohort). The site’s upper echelon of vendors will also be required to offer 30-day returns on all products starting May 20.
What remains the same, though, is the account cancellation threshold for cases closed by the company without sufficient resolution completed by the seller. That number remains at 0.3 percent of all transactions but no more than two at a time.
The new standards went into effect as of Saturday (Feb. 20), and Ecommerce Bytes reported that they might represent a new style of management now that eBay’s management is free from its partner company, PayPal, and able to make its own decisions. With less stringent seller reputation policies, eBay might be able to encourage more vendors to offer expedited or free shipping options that are becoming expectations in many consumers minds; with less risk of their online rankings tanking because of a blown tire on a delivery truck, the new ratings could modernize the incentives of how eBay sellers manage their transactions.
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