eBay: Stricter Selling Requirements on Tap - Page 2

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And, there are more DSR changes coming, as eBay prepares to employ new minimum standards for all sellers.

"Starting in October, there will be a new minimum standard for all eBay sellers based on the number of low DSRs (1s and 2s) received. The minimum standard will be stricter in April, 2010," says Tilenius. The company also plans to introduce a new "Selling Practices" policy, outlining guidelines " for professionalism and accuracy in all aspects of listings and transactions."

In a special forum created to discuss the changes, Brian Burke, director of global feedback policy, fielded questions on the new DSR percentage policy. One seller was concerned that competitors could sabotage rivals by posting bogus numbers, but, Burke says that eBay runs weekly reports to identify abuse and uses models to look for targeted attacks.

Responding to concerns that the policy is generally unfair, Burke writes, "What we discovered was that buyer's who left 4's were not that much less dissatisfied compared with buyer's who left 5's. Buyer's who left a 1 or 2 were much more dissatisfied and were more likely to leave the marketplace. So our focus on low DSRs is the correct focus at this time."

EBay also said it's aiming to cut unpaid item dispute time with a more streamlined process.

"We are also working on a new automated option that will make the process even more efficient, cut the time to resolution to as little as eight days and block negative feedback when a seller opens a claim and a buyer doesn't pay. This automated option will be tested in late September and our goal is to gradually make it available to all sellers by the holidays," according to Tilenius.

A new search format

The company also updated its new search format called "Best Match," which ranks hits based on relevancy and recently replaced the older query style that used the ending time of auctions.

Best Match will now "look at listing's recent sales in relation to the number of recent impressions it received as a key factor for Fixed Price listings. An impression is any time a buyer sees a search results page that includes the listing," according to the company.

In addition, single quantity and newly listed Fixed Price items will be given exposure in Best Match even though they have no sales history. These listings will be given initial impressions based on the performance of similar listings. Auction-style listings will still get a boost in exposure as they are about to end, according to eBay.

Steiner summarized the policy changes as providing benefits for sellers.

"In general, I think today's announcement contains some positive news for sellers, especially for those who sell internationally. In theory it looks like smaller sellers could benefit from some of these changes. However, I think most sellers remain vulnerable to what I call 'bad buyers' who treat sellers unfairly," said Steiner.

She adds that the seller community, part of which has charged eBay with behind-the-scenes preferential treatment for large sellers, received no answers on this front. "Also, missing from today's announcement is transparency into eBay's special deals for large merchants, who may be getting special pricing and higher placement in search, along with participation in Daily Deal promotions."

EBay did not returned calls for comment by press time.