How to monitor and improve your seller performance

Why does seller performance matter?

Buyers should have a great experience on eBay, every time. If an order is canceled unexpectedly or an issue isn't resolved, it can significantly affect that person's trust in the seller, and make them less likely to come back to eBay. And although most sellers are great at sorting out problems with orders, avoiding situations where the buyer doesn't receive the item they were expecting is even better.

For these reasons, eBay has some minimum expectations for all sellers on eBay, and it monitors each seller's level of service relative to others with a similar selling profile. The performance metrics eBay provides are intended to encourage good selling practices which establish buyer confidence in you and in eBay.

How do seller evaluations work?

On the 20th of each month, eBay looks back at the past 3 months or 12 months, depending on how many transactions you had, and calculate your performance on the areas detailed below.

Based on these, you're assigned:

• A seller level which indicates your individual performance, and
• A service metrics rating which indicates how well you're preventing buyer issues, compared to sellers with similar sales activity

Monitoring your performance

Two different seller dashboards help you monitor how you're doing on some key basics and identify areas where you can improve:

What can you do now?

Top 5 things to improve in the nearest future

Other ways to improve your seller performance

• Charge reasonable shipping cost
• Set up Time Away, whether you're planning a break or managing an unexpected disruption, to avoid disappointing buyers
• Make sure you fulfill any orders and respond to any buyer requests for items sold before your time away start date
• Provide a clear payment policy in your listing. To help you get paid quickly and avoid having to cancel orders because the buyer didn't to pay, set your payment preferences to require immediate payment on Buy It Now and Auction listings
• Make sure the item is delivered to the buyer as described in the listing
• Pack items securely and carefully to reduce the chance of them being damaged in transit
• Provide the buyer with any appropriate proofs of authenticity for the item, and keep copies of them in case eBay needs to ask you to prove that the item is genuine
• Use all the features of Seller Hub to monitor your business

Use these recommendations to improve your customer service and improve your seller level, and eventually boost your bottom line.

You can even achieve the Top Rated status which gives a lot of valuable benefits, such as reduced final value fees and enhanced seller protection.