Jim Ambach

I'd like to offer more detail about seller standards.

More on Seller Standards
Bill spoke about great sellers – specifically, these are sellers who provide buyers with an experience that consistently means:

• Describing items well
• Communicating with buyers effectively
• Shipping items quickly
• Charging fair and accurate shipping costs.

I'm sure most of you recognize these criteria, as they are exact ones we use in our Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs). As Bill made clear, great sellers will receive new rewards and economic incentives in the form of increased exposure in Best Match search, plus discounted pricing and other benefits for PowerSellers who qualify.

In contrast, Bill also mentioned new requirements to discourage bad seller behavior. I'd like to clarify what we mean.

While the vast majority of eBay sellers do the right thing, a relatively few sellers create a high percentage of dissatisfied customers. At eBay, we consider a buyer dissatisfied if:

• The buyer leaves a 1 or 2 DSR rating on any of the attributes
• A seller get complaints from buyers about items being "significantly not as described" or "item not received"
• A seller receives negative or neutral feedback from the buyer.

If a seller has any of these activities in the last 30 days, these will cumulatively count as dissatisfied customers for that seller. We then calculate what percentage dissatisfied customers represent of a seller's total customers.

As Bill said, sellers with a high percentage of buyer dissatisfaction will receive reduced visibility in Best Match search. Also, because excessive shipping and handling continues to be one of the biggest pain points for buyers, sellers with the worst DSRs for shipping and handling charges will see a decrease in their listings exposure, as well.

For more details, please read our Seller Standards information page and FAQ.

Safe Payments Requirements
Last January, Bill announced that all new sellers would be required to offer PayPal or a merchant credit card as a safe payment option. This requirement gives buyers a higher degree of protection when transacting with sellers who have little or no track record.

This year we're expanding this requirement to the following sellers:

• a small number of sellers who have the worst buyer dissatisfaction rates
• sellers with less than 100 feedback
• sellers who list in certain categories with higher rates of buyer complaints.

Also, for a small number of these transactions paid with PayPal, when eBay suspects the transaction may result in a dissatisfied customer, PayPal will delay release of the payment funds to the seller until the buyer has left a positive feedback or 21 days have passed without a dispute.

I'd like to put context around this last detail for our good sellers: Sellers with an established track record and more than 95 percent satisfied buyers in the last 30 days will not have funds held. And, sellers on eBay will continue to receive the vast majority of payment funds much faster than other marketplaces.

Summing it all up
Sellers, we know we've introduced a lot of changes. Each change supports our goal to improve the buying experience so that eBay is known as a place for value and selection from sellers that buyers can trust. But we can’t do it alone. Your actions in creating that great buying experience are critical to making eBay.com a better place for the entire community.

Let's take a quick look at all the things we're doing to strengthen our partnership with our sellers:

1. Reducing insertion fees
2. Free Gallery … on all listings!
3. Reduced Feature Plus and Pro Pack fees
4. Increased listing exposure for sellers with great DSRs
5. Pricing discounts for PowerSellers with great DSRs
6. Protection from chargebacks for PowerSellers
7. All addresses are confirmed addresses for PowerSellers on their eBay listings that are paid with PayPal
8. Unlimited PayPal protection for PowerSellers
9. Repeat Feedback credit
10. Rolling 12-month Feedback Percentage
11. Personalized Seller Dashboard

Please find more details on these changes by going to our Overview page. Also, I'll be part of the leadership panel at Bill Cobb's next Town Hall on Monday, February 4th, and I hope you'll listen and call in with your questions.

Sincerely,

Jim Ambach
Vice President, Seller Experience