Auctiva Blog

Detailed Seller Ratings, or DSRs as many of us refer to them, provide a “more complete picture of the member’s performance as a seller,” according to eBay. But I’m not sure how true this is. Recently, someone left me ones in each of the four DSR categories (item description, seller communication, shipping, and shipping and handling charges), but still left me positive feedback. How does that work?

I’ve never understood the true purpose of DSRs. I prefer the days when eBay allowed us to leave honest feedback about buyers. Today, buyers can anonymously rate sellers for things that are out of their control—shipping time, for example. Buyers don’t even seem to need a real reason to leave a low DSR score at all, so why have them?
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After 10 days of frustration, anger and just plain confusion, I finally feel vindicated for a false accusation of violating eBay’s Verified Rights Owner Program.

The organization, which is supposed to protect the intellectual property rights of third parties on eBay, came knocking at my door recently and took down one of my listings without any real explanation. It simply stated that I had somehow violated its policies. I knew there was no violation. I even checked my saved listing on Auctiva and re-read every word. Nada. The wording was mine, the image was mine and I was stumped. Then out of curiosity, I checked my Sellathon stats.

Lo and behold, only three people had viewed my listing before it was ended: me, another eBay seller—who was selling the same product—and eBay, which viewed it immediately before the listing was removed.

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Now that you’ve had the chance to digest the upcoming changes on eBay, do you know how they will affect your bottom line? Have you decided how/if you need to change your selling habits?

There are, after all, several factors to consider. So how do you go about deciding how to adjust to get the maximum value out of your listings while not breaking the budget on fees? Glad you asked. While I know there are lots of variables to take into consideration, I’ve come up with a few tips to help you in your quest.

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Are you unsure if you added a return policy and/or handling time to your Good ‘Til Cancelled listings on eBay?

If so, you might want to check out eBay’s Oct. 12 announcement. eBay has begun ending GTC listings that do not specify the required return policy and/or handling time noted.

To help sellers determine if they have listings that still need to be updated, eBay has created a site to find listings that are not in compliance with the new requirement. You can find that site here.

You can even download a spreadsheet of your listings to make the process easier.

Auctiva recently added its Bulk Live-Listing Revision Tool, which allows you to edit your active listings and add the required return policy and handling time without leaving your Auctiva account. You can also edit your listings directly on eBay.

Don’t wait until your listings are abruptly ended for non-compliance. Check them today!

Good ‘Til Cancelled listings — beware.

Have you made sure your Good ‘Til Cancelled listings include a return policy and domestic handling time? If you haven’t, now’s the time to do it. Beginning this week, eBay listings that don’t include this information will not be renewed.

Scary isn’t it? I’ll say.

Seriously folks, it’s time to review your active and older saved GTC listings to make sure you’re in compliance. We released a handy feature a couple of weeks ago that we call our Bulk Live-Listing Revision Tool to make the process easier on you. It allows you to edit your active eBay listings without having to leave the Auctiva site! Take advantage of it.

eBay U.K. users, you have until Nov. 3 to comply with the new policy. And while that may seem like the distant future, November will be here before you know it.

Want to know more about this policy change? Read our Auctiva EDU article, and be sure to check out our FAQs and tutorials. We’re here to help you through this transition, and the more you know, the easier it will be to keep in step with eBay.

Our latest release rolled out this morning, and with it came some very helpful features.

Did someone say spell check? Well, it’s back! And we’ve made several other enhancements to make listing easier and help you comply with new eBay policies.

As most sellers know, merchants can no longer offer shipping insurance as an optional fee to their buyers. But that doesn’t mean you have to risk shipping packages without insurance. You can insure items and pay for coverage yourself, or include the cost of insurance in an item’s price or shipping and handling fee.

With eBay’s new policy, it is the seller’s responsibility to make sure items arrive safely to buyers’ hands. This means you will have to decide whether to add insurance, or just drop packages off at the post office and cross your fingers. Our new Auto-Purchase feature for Auctiva Shipping Insurance offers a simple way to insure your packages and give yourself some peace of mind.

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We want to ensure Auctiva users know that on Sept. 22 eBay will begin enforcing a new requirement on Good ‘Til Cancelled listings. Sellers will have to specify both a handling time and return policy for their listings. You can read more about this here.

As a part of our Sept. 9 site update, we’re introducing a new tool that that will allow customers to make bulk revisions to their live active eBay listings directly from Auctiva’s manage listings page. This tool—which will be available to all to Auctiva customers on a listing services plan, and those who are still in their free 30-day trial period—will provide support for users who wish to make bulk changes to their Good ‘Til Cancelled listings to meet the handling time and return policy enforcement deadline.

Users who have such listings, and who have opted for our Free Tools plan, can sign up for a paid plan to immediately have use of Auctiva’s bulk live listing revision tool. eBay also provides the ability to edit the fields using the Bulk Edit tool on My eBay.

Making these changes is important since listings that don’t comply with the new requirements could be taken down.

Tony Maxey
Auctiva Product Manager