More about eBay DSR-2

DSR is an area that has many sellers worried about how frequently their items will be seen in Best Match searches and how they will be viewed by a prospective buyer. A seller's DSR is made up of ratings in four areas; item as described, communication, shipping time, and shipping and handling charges. Using DSR lets buyers rate the seller on a one-to-five-star scale in these four key areas. Buyers and sellers can only access a seller's score; they cannot see the exact score or comment left by an individual buyer.

Changes to the DSR, dubbed "DSR 4.3" will require sellers to maintain a minimum 4.3 DSR rating across all four DSR categories, over the prior 30-day or 12-month period — depending on volume — to list on the site. For example, sellers with less than 10 DSRs over the past 30 days will be evaluated on their DSRs over the last 12 months.

For most sellers, the main issue is how they are rated by buyers on shipping charges and delivery time. Many eBay merchants are frustrated over shipping issues because, to some extent, they have no control over what happens to the product once it's out of their hands. In short, once the item has been shipped, and is in the hands of the carrier, a seller cannot physically get the item to the buyer any faster.

Unfortunately, in the eBay discussion forums, sellers are reporting that despite doing everything they can to boost shipping, some buyers will score them low here, even when a seller is working the shipping process in an honest and speedy fashion. There are also some sellers, even those maintaining DSR scores well above the new 4.3 minimum, who just say the DSR system is too much. Scarletslounge (who has excellent positive feedback and 4.6 to 4.8 DSR scores) is one seller who posted in the public forum, saying that anything four and above shows a good seller.

Meanwhile, eBay says that right now only a small fraction of sellers fall below this threshold, but the same small percentage of sellers below a 4.3 DSR are actually responsible for a high percentage of customer complaints. So, to penalize this tiny percentage of sellers, eBay decided to implement the strict rules for all sellers. The problem with this, according to many sellers using public forums to discuss DSR, is that by enforcing a 4.3 minimum, sellers are being forced into doing things they really can't afford to do, such as offering free shipping and taking the loss simply because they are afraid a buyer will score them low enough on shipping and handling charges that they may see their DSR drop below the 4.3 minimum.

More in my next post.