There has recently been an update to eBay seller protection policy for 2018. With this document eBay specifically aims to protect its sellers from free returns, unpaid sales and negative feedback. The document is in line with the effort of protecting its seller community and winning their trust. The move will help eBay establish a long-lasting relationship with the seller community.

One of the key highlights of “eBay seller policy 2018” is to protect the partner sellers on eBay from disputes arising because of free returns.

Often, buyers return damaged products. In recent years it became a more prevalent problem where the buyers take advantage of the free return offer from eBay. Even at certain times, sending back damaged products back to sellers – thereby leading to unwanted disputes.

The new policy allows sellers to issue a partial refund for a used or damaged product returned by a buyer under the free return program.

The eBay seller protection policy that comes into effect on June 1st, 2018 will be applicable to all the selling partners. eBay takes the responsibility of taking care of their free return policy. Hence, the selling partners can focus on their respective businesses.

An important addition to eBay seller protection policy 2018

Another important addition to the eBay seller protection policy is online reputation protection of sellers from negative feedback and reviews.

eBay’s free return offer allows sellers to manage shipping and return policy. The seller policy for 2018 is going to protect the sellers. For example, in cases where buyers are abusing free returns.

Some of the other cases where eBay will help protect sellers from circumstances beyond seller’s control include:

Late delivery despite timely shipping and tracking

Sellers facing carrier disruptions or severe weather conditions

Buyer retracts his bid or doesn’t pay

Consumer changing his order or requesting more services

Buyer raising complaints or returning products frequently

Products sent in used condition

In essence, this new eBay seller protection policy for 2018 is all about making eBay more seller friendly.

Here are the Protection policies in the document

Report a buyer. eBay is listening to its sellers. Earlier, buyers often violated good buying practices and got away with it. With the new eBay seller policy, sellers will immediately report unscrupulous buyers. Afterwards, eBay will immediately note the feedback. The move will allow improving the entire eBay community.

Case resolution. eBay case resolution centre is the most convenient way of solving transaction related cases. Sellers are free to request problems with buyers to case resolution centre and save their money and reputation.

And the above policies will better protect sellers for the following reasons

As per the policy, eBay will identify buyers with a bad record. Sellers will get a warning beforehand about buyers with suspicious activity. Moreover, eBay intends to place restrictions on these buyers.

Sellers’ Dashboard will clearly reflect Money Back Guarantee cases.

A delayed shipping will now not be a straightforward case of Money refund. eBay will look into the case and will decide based on the genuineness of case for Money Refund because of delayed shipping.

Delivery and tracking related information like shipping date, delivery status and address of the recipient will be made visible.

Once the Money Back Guarantee is settled in favour of the seller, the ratings given by Buyer will be removed.

Resolving unpaid products

eBay has value fee credit for sellers facing unpaid items that affect their bottom lines. Moreover, eBay keeps an eye on the behaviour of buyers.

Buyers will not be able to place feedback for Unpaid Transactions. In addition, buyers with a history of unpaid items face restrictions on their account.

Use resolution centre to solve unpaid item case

Sellers can utilize service of Resolution Centre to resolve disputes with Buyers. You can take the following actions to solve unpaid items

Sellers can contract the Buyer and discuss no payment of funds for sales closed by a buyer. Remind the buyer by sending the invoice and remind them of the payment of the due invoice.

The buyer should be provided 2 business days to respond. If you don’t get any response from the buyer, you are free to approach the resolution centre for value fee credit on an unpaid item.

In case of unregistered buyers, sellers can report unpaid cases immediately.

The resolution centre would open an unpaid item case after 2 business days of actual sale.

In addition to above, no value fee is credited for unreported cases.

Unpaid Item Assistant

Unpaid Item Assist helps clear unpaid items. Hence, the software opens and closes unpaid items cases with value fee crediting to sellers’ accounts in due time. The software saves time and keeps sellers free from manually checking the list of unpaid items and opening cases with resolution centre.

Unpaid Item Assistant has features. Those include notifications from eBay. Relisting items after an unpaid item case is closed and excluding buyers with a history of unpaid item cases. Therefore, this software works for almost all the eBay listings except for vehicles.

Automatic defect removal

As an additional measure of eBay seller protection, eBay keeps the Sellers’ profiles clean of the negative feedbacks which arise from transaction defects not controlled by sellers. Some of these defects are:

Unpaid items cases closing favouring sellers.

eBay Money Back Guarantee or PayPal Purchase Protection request closing in favour of the sellers.

The defect arising from eBay site or any program of the ecommerce platform.

The community takes action against buyers violating the Buying Practices policies of eBay

As a result, sellers are advised to hold shipments or cancel transactions through eBay or PayPal

To make the process smooth, eBay uses valid tracking tools to find defects resulting from system delays. The delays could be because of reasons like the products getting stuck in custom or in extreme weather conditions.

Transaction Defect Report is provided to sellers. The details of defects along with the date of when a defect was removed are a part of this report. Furthermore, sellers can access the report from their dashboards.

FAQs

Sellers are always welcome at the eBay FAQ section where they can find the solution of all their queries related to protection from failed sale transactions.

The eBay e-commerce community wants its sellers to grow with the community and the new eBay seller 2018 policy document is the right step in this direction.