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Back in the beginning of the month (August 13th, 2007) Philipp Justus of eBay announced the enhanced attention that eBay would be paying to the Seller Non-Performance Policy. I think it’s pretty safe to say that it caused a bit of an uproar. All of a sudden, many sellers were finding themselves victim to the new SNP. Many that didn’t think they deserved the distinction of being a non-performing seller.

Now, eBay has heard some of the concerns and questions that many have had on the SNP and Lynda Talgo of Trust and Safety has given some answers.

She gets very detailed on the factors that could lead to a restriction. It looks like the negative and neutral feedbacks are really the major factor followed by the percentage of items not delivered. Eventually, the detailed seller ratings will be taken into effect as well. The restriction is based on a rolling 90 day period. Any seller with a 5% buyer dissatisfaction rate and 2 or more negative feedbacks in that period will be subject to restrictions.

She also confirms that Neutral feedbacks are used in the SNP calculations, but not as a negative as previously thought.

No, it’s more accurate to say that we treat neutral feedback as not positive. For instance, neutral comments alone do not trigger an SNP action. There is a negative feedback threshold of two which neutral comments do not count towards.

There are basically three levels of restrictions. The first, a 14 day seller restriction is used for the low volume and low buyer dissatisfaction rate (5-10%). A second, volume restriction, is for the higher volume ($3000 in sales over 90 days) sellers and reduces the total dollar sales volume to 75% of their previous volume or less. The third, reserved for sellers with a greater than 10% buyer dissatisfaction rate, is a full sales restriction.

With all the restrictions, moving your buyer dissatisfaction rate below the 5% can result in removal of the restrictions. I think that maybe a bad move. I think they should be for a set period of time and then done. Otherwise, why couldn’t I buy a bunch of small, low price items and sell them fast to get my rating back under the 5%? Of course, a 14 day seller restriction or a full seller restriction would not allow that, but the volume restriction leaves that door wide open.

You can read the entire Q&A session with Lynda at the Chatter.

[tags]ebay,non-performance policy,non performance policy,snp,seller,restrictions[/tags]

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