eBay Seller Advice – HQ Redo to Regain Top Seller Rating

I have been writing and talking about TRS a lot lately because it is so important.

To achieve TRS status you must have a very small number of 1’s and 2’s given in your DSRs (Detailed Seller Ratings).

Here are the four things you are judged upon and the maxes by both number and percentage for TRS. You are only judged on max count if you do a small number of transactions. eBay is lenient with this and takes the larger number for your limit.

As an example, as of today, I have three for my three month total number in 1’s and 2’s for Item as described. If eBay was going by the max count (2), I wouldn’t be eligible for TRS. However, my percentage (out of total feedback left) is only .34% so I am eligible.

Our TRS has been a struggle to obtain and maintain. Griff did mention on eBay radio this past Tuesday some fantastic news about maintaining TRS. He said that in the near future, once you have attained TRS, it will be harder than it is now to have it taken away. Thank Goodness!

Well, the category that really shut me down was shipping and handling time. We got 21 (yes I said twenty one) 1’s and 2’s in March in this ONE category and there are FOUR that we are judged upon. Yikes!

That was really a tough pill to swallow. With our super busy year putting on a huge event in Las Vegas (LOL), moving into HQ and trying to get organized, etc. we had let our quick shipping time erode.

Also, with me not dealing with emails and problems on the weekends (too much travel baseball and yard saling) customers were getting understandably upset. I am the same way when I buy on eBay. I want my questions and concerns answered within hours, not days. How you handle customers from that very first contact is going to highly affect the feedback that they leave you later on.

Also, as Lee Mirabel pointed out on our eBay radio interview on Tuesday, with the business out of my house I MUST schedule time to be at HQ. I can’t walk into the eBay room at any time of the day or night like before to weigh items, look for defects and deal with problems. Brilliant observation Lee!

So, what am I doing to regain TRS with my HQ Redo?

A.   Respond to problems immediately by scheduling time to be there every morning and every afternoon/evening. I try and make it there at least twice a day.

If there is an issue, (i.e. we can’t find something or we mixed up our shipments) we notify the customer immediately.

If you missed my ezine from last month that talks about mix ups and other customer service issues related to TRS you can read it here.

When we can’t find something, now I email immediately and say, “I am very sorry but we have been looking for your item and haven’t been able to locate it. We just moved our business into office space and the logistics of moving 10,000 listed items was difficult. If you would like us to continue looking we will be happy to do that and let you know within two days. If not, we will refund your money immediately. Thanks for understanding.”

I always say thanks for understanding at the end because how can someone not understand when you thank them ahead of time?

Here is an item that sold that we couldn’t find right away. I honestly didn’t think we would ever find it as it had originally been listed in April of 2004. OH MY GOODNESS! I emailed the buyer and said, “Please don’t pay until we can make sure that we have this item.” Well, she went ahead and paid and luckily Mo found an entire set in this pattern.

See this listing here.

And once we (I had better clarify that and say Mo) found the entire set, we (Mo) realized that only three of the items were listed. Mo quickly listed the remaining part of the set and got 22 auctions out of it! Yay.

B.    Email every buyer of not perfect merchandise ASAP.

I learned this from one of my Queen’s Court members Serena and her note was featured in the last ezine. Thank you Serena!

When an item sells that is defective, I immediately email the buyer to make sure that they knew that when they purchased it. This has alleviated sooooooo many problems I can’t even tell you. Serena actually calls them (she requests their contact info through eBay and phones them).

I don’t go to that extent, but since I have started doing this and implementing my other strategies, I am ecstatic to report that for the month of April, I only got 2 (yes that says two) 1 or 2 rating in all FOUR of my DSR categories!!!! Amazing after getting 21 1 or 2 ratings in just ONE category in March!!!!

As an example, a man bought a coffee mug last week. It had a chip. Said CHIP in the description and we included a photo of the chip. I emailed him and said Thank you for your purchase. We appreciate your business and this is a lovely coffee mug and I want to make sure that you saw and read about the chip in the listing when you purchased your item. Thanks again. Lynn

I don’t apologize for the damage and I always say what a great item. He emailed back and said, “I didn’t see that but I will honor my commitment to purchase.”

Check out his feedback. Wow!

“Excellent communication from seller; quick arrival of described china mug”

If I hadn’t contacted him can you imagine the feedback rating I would have gotten for “item as described” even though I did describe it correctly?

Here is the listing for that coffee mug.

A little prevention goes a long way.

C.    End old listings and make sure current listings are correct with the right quantity.

eBay has a fantastic tool in Selling Manager Pro. I love it. You can tell when an item was originally listed. Not when it renews as GUC (good until cancelled) but when it was originally listed.

As I prepare for the new eBay seller changes and need to add international shipping and handling charges, I am first deleting all really old listings that were left on as a mistake or we missed taking off of eBay.

As many of you know, I leave my items on eBay for about two years before marking them down, repurposing them (a great idea! For example, if you had your dinner knives listed in 2’s and they didn’t sell, relist them in 4’s–this has been working fantastically well for us) or donating to charity.

Here is an Adirondack pattern teapot by Mikasa/Studio Nova (heads up, don’t EVER buy this pattern) that was listed in my store for about two years at $39.99. I even marked down all of my Adirondack by 50% using Markdown Manager and it didn’t sell. Before donating it to charity, I put it back up at auction (repurposed it) and started it at $9.99. Yay! It has a bid.

See this listing here.

With my HQ REDO, I am going through those old listings, item by item and checking them by oldest first and deleting them or repurposing them. It has been an awesome start to my housecleaning at HQ. Indy (my daughter) has been helping me and it has been a great way for me to spend time with her and get some free labor. Well, nothing is really free. I just bought her a few clothing items she wanted (actually needed) at Target on Sunday and everyone is happy .

We have pulled the I Sell sheets, found the items on the shelves and then made our decisions.

It has been extremely enlightening to actually touch everything, find it, dust it off and make decisions with the items in front of us. This process is going to make attaining and maintaining TRS status entirely doable and fun!

In fact, by kicking up the dust at HQ, we have sold some of the items that have been left on by mistake since 2004. Amazing! These mistakes happened because we didn’t have our shelf lettering system in place. We didn’t start lettering our shelves and positioning our stock by date listed until about 2 1/2 years ago. Those of you that attend Live Boot Camp at HQ this September will get to see firsthand how beautifully this lettering system works!

In addition to the Caliente flatware I talked about earlier, check out this purse that just sold that was also left on eBay by mistake from 2006–eBay’s or our mistake—we can never be sure!

See this listing here.

This entire process is a lot of work (and honestly a full accounting and inventory check should really be done once every two or three years) but it is going to pay off big time in the end. Especially with multiple items at a fixed price in our stores, a lot of times we sell things and eBay doesn’t adjust the totals correctly. Not all of the mistakes with incorrect quantities and missing items are necessarily our fault. Sometimes the eBay system can be to blame.

Every two years I have been taking a look at my collector plate inventory (now I am doing it for EVERY ITEM) and making sure the quantities are correct. I just did it again this past week for my collector’s plate and amazingly enough, about 50% of the quantities were wrong and 17 items were not even listed. FREE inventory and great Royal Copenhagen and Bing & Grondahl items to list. YAY! I love this HQ Redo .

Here is one of the items that I got listed at auction that wasn’t showing up at all on eBay. It may have even sold, the buyer never paid, and it fell through the cracks and was not properly relisted. With eBay’s automatic upi (unpaid item) system in place for auctions and the new shopping cart for store/fixed price listings (where you must pay before an item is yours), these problems will hopefully be a thing of the past!

See this listing here.

I am always a little unnerved by the eBay changes that come out every Spring, but there is always a silver lining and I hope that you all see that.

The eBay changes force us to re-evaluate and make our businesses run more like “real” businesses. When I was a buyer for May Company, your slow moving inventory (6 months or older) better be gone or you wouldn’t get a raise.

It is the same way when selling on eBay. We are our own bosses and that can be both good and bad. These new eBay changes are in a way a better boss and will help all of us Entrepreneurs get a raise this year! If we don’t monitor our inventory, take care of slow moving items and strive for TRS, we are going to drastically lower our profits. It is very motivating–especially for me and I hope for you also!