Global Seller Standards - Seller Levels
Maintaining a good seller level is important to eBay. This ensures that both buyers and sellers are receiving the best shopping experience. But in order to manage expectations, eBay has set in place requirements that must be met by all sellers to sustain the great service that eBay is renowned for.
This lesson is designed to educate sellers on how to check and maintain their seller levels.
The Seller Hub gives you an overview about everything you need to know regarding your selling story.
To access this page, go to your Seller Hub and login. Here you will have the tools to:
- Manage your listings – You’ll find listing, reporting, and order management components.
- Monitor your business – You can create custom dashboards to track listing activities, sales, costs, traffic data, and more.
- View payouts – You can view previous payouts, find out when you’ll receive your next payout, and check if you’ve any funds on hold.
- Analyse business performance – You’ll receive personalised insights, as well as tips to improve your business.
You will also be able to download orders, sales & selling reports in an easy to read format.
TIP: You’ll need to have had at least one sale to use Seller Hub.
View your levels in the Seller Hub > Performance > Seller Level
This is where you will see the breakdown of your overall selling performance. Make it a point to check back at least a few times a week. This way you will always be aware of your standing and areas that may need improvement.
There are 3 main seller levels on eBay:
Top Rated: You’re one of the best sellers on eBay, providing an exceptional quality of customer service as well as meeting minimum sales requirements for the Top Rated Seller level. If you’re a Top Rated Seller, you’re also eligible for the Top Rated Plus listing benefits as long as you meet the listing qualifications.
Above Standard: You’re meeting our minimum standard for sellers and looking after your customers well.
Below Standard: You’re not meeting one or more of our minimum requirements for customer service quality.
Read more on seller levels and how they impact your business here.
There are 4 regional performance standard programs, with slightly different minimum performance thresholds, and your performance is measured against the standards of the region into which you sell an item. The four programs are:
- USA
- UK, Ireland
- Germany, Austria, Switzerland
- Global
Here you will see your performance based on the chosen region. This example shows Region: USA.
The important performance points to keep an eye on are:
- Transaction defect rate
- Late shipment rate
- Case closed without resolution
- Tracking validation
For each you will see how you are currently rated as well as a detailed breakdown of your performance. If you are not performing well, we will provide suggestions on how to improve your rating.
You will also be able to monitor your total transactions and sales. This allows you to ensure you are within the margin to maintain or increase your current performance level.
eBay will always keep you informed on where you currently stand and when your next evaluation will be. This gives you time to continuously make adjustments and improvements to your selling practices.
Remember, maintaining a high standard is crucial to your eBay business. Male it a habit to check your seller levels as often as possible.
Global Seller Standards - Service Metrics
Competition is the best motivator. To see how well you are performing, we have set several service metrics that need to be adhered to. This helps maintain a memorable shopping experience for both parties.
This lesson will explore what you need to know about service metrics.
Service metrics provide you with data on the percentage of your transactions that result in ‘item not as described‘ return requests and ‘item not received‘ requests from buyers.
View your ratings in the Seller Hub > Performance > Service Metrics
Ratings are evaluated as: Low, Average, High, Very High
| Rate | Item not as described | Item not received |
| Low | You are performing better than most of your peers. You set and meet buyers’ expectations for item condition, careful packaging, and ensuring orders are correct and complete before shipping. | You are doing better than most peer sellers in meeting your handling commitments, uploading tracking when available, and using shipping services that are as fast or faster than those offered in your listing. |
| Average | You are performing as well as your peers. You set and meet your buyers’ expectations but may have listings that are creating preventable return requests.
Some sellers’ rates may be higher than average, but they have too few total return requests for “Item not as described,” or their rate is too low to be evaluated as “high” or “very high.” |
You are performing as well as peer sellers in meeting your delivery commitments. You are doing well but check your reports to see if there are opportunities to reduce preventable requests.
Some sellers’ rates may be higher than average, but they have too few total requests for “Item not received,” or their rate is too low to be evaluated as “high” or “very high.” |
| High | You are not performing as well as your peers in ensuring that your buyers receive their orders as expected. | You are not performing as well as your peer sellers in meeting your delivery commitments. |
| Very High | You are failing to meet your buyers’ expectations at a rate that statistically stands apart from your peers. You also had at least 10 return requests with 10 unique buyers for “Item not as described,” and a minimum 1% rate in the category.
If you are evaluated as “very high” in “Item not as described” in a specific category, you may be subject to higher final value fees on your listings on the eBay site(s) and in the categories where the “very high” evaluation applies. |
You are failing to meet delivery commitments at a rate that statistically stands apart from your peers. You also had at least 10 “Item not received” requests with 10 unique buyers and a minimum 1% “Item not received” rate for the shipping categories.
If you are evaluated as “very high” in “Item not received” in a specific category, you may be subject to having time automatically added to your delivery estimates for the shipping categories where the “very high” evaluation applies. |
Service metrics are evaluated on the 20th of each month.
- Sellers with 400 or more transactions during the last 3 months: You’re evaluated on your transactions during the previous 3-month period
- Sellers with fewer than 400 transactions during the last 3 months: You’re evaluated on your transactions over the previous 12-month period
Note: If you are a CBT seller, make it a habit to check your CBT Seller Dashboard regularly as well, to ensure that your performance is compliant with eBay’s CBT Seller Standards.
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