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Our service metrics are intended to help sellers provide a great experience for all buyers. We provide detailed insights and peer benchmarks to indicate how well you're performing compared to others with a similar selling profile.
This page describes our service metrics program. We also evaluate individual performance for all sellers against our minimum seller standards.
Every month we take a look at how many times your buyers reported that they didn't receive an item or requested a return because their item wasn't as described. We count all opened cases because even if you resolved the issue promptly, it indicates that the transaction didn't go as smoothly for the buyer as it could have.
There are many factors which can influence the number of cases in your service metrics (such as types of items or seasonality), so we don't set limits for these. Instead, we take the average rates from other sellers with similar sales activity – or "peers" – as a benchmark to evaluate your performance. We also have some safeguards in place to protect sellers and ensure fair evaluation.
It's important to check your service metrics regularly so that you can see how you compare to other sellers. Use the button below to see details of your service metrics, including your projected rate for the next evaluation. Note that this projection may change if more cases are opened.
View service metrics dashboard - opens in new window or tab
If your rates of 'Item not received' or 'Item not as described' have increased, or are considered high compared to your peers, it's important to focus on minimizing these issues as soon as possible – this will help to improve your rating at the next evaluation. For more help, read our article on Monitoring and improving your seller performance.
We'll only calculate service metrics for you if we have enough data. Depending on how much you sell, you may not see service metrics for all your categories, or we may not show any data in your service metrics dashboard at all.
Sellers are expected to minimize the number of times that their buyers either:
Report that an item hasn't arrived
Request a return because an item doesn't match the listing
Rather than simply measuring these as a percentage of your sales, we compare your rates to those of sellers with similar items, prices, shipping options and terms of sale on the same eBay site.
Your service metrics are evaluated on the 20th of each month to determine whether your rates of buyers reporting a problem are Low, Average, High or Very High compared to your peers.
Other eBay members can't see your service metrics. We may place some limitations on your selling activity, including extended delivery dates or higher final value fees, if you are evaluated as Very High.
Service metrics are provided for your listings on eBay.com as well as a number of other eBay sites. For more information about how your performance is evaluated when selling internationally, please read our Global seller performance policy.
On the 20th of each month, we take a look at your recent transactions to work out your service metrics and peer benchmark.
To make sure we're getting a fair picture, we'll adjust how far we look back (the "evaluation period") depending on how much you've sold recently:
If you had more than 400 transactions in the past 3 months, we'll count all those transactions
If you had fewer than 400 transactions in the past 3 months, we'll count all your transactions from the last 12 months
To help understand how evaluations work, please see our calculation examples below.
For your service metrics, we count how many times your buyers have either:
Reported that an item hasn't arrived
Requested a return because an item doesn't match the listing
Peer benchmarking means we look at how your rates compare with those of other sellers who have similar sales activity, items and business policies.
Service metric |
What it means |
Who we compare against |
'Item not received' rate |
The percentage of your transactions where a buyer reported that the item didn't arrive or was not available for collection |
Other sellers who:
|
'Item not as described' return rate |
The percentage of your transactions where a buyer requested a return because the item doesn't match the listing description |
Other sellers who:
|
When comparing 'Item not received' rates, we take into account where sellers are shipping their items:
Domestic: The item location and shipping address are in the same country
International – Matured region: The shipping address is in one of the following regions:
United States and its territories
Canada
Australia
China
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Japan
New Zealand
South Korea
Israel
United Arab Emirates
Singapore
Most European countries and British Territories
International – Emerging region: The shipping address is neither 'Domestic' nor 'International: Matured region'
These examples illustrate how we compare and evaluate sellers for each type of service metric.
See 'Item not received' service metrics example
Kathryn runs a boutique pre-loved fashion business on eBay. She uses tracked labels, but can generally only make it to the post office once a week to drop parcels off, meaning some items take a little longer than expected to arrive.
Kathryn's Fashions – small business |
Peer group |
|
Evaluation period |
12 months (1,000 transactions) |
|
Listing site |
eBay.com |
|
Shipping category |
Domestic |
|
Average selling price |
$53 |
$50-100 |
Average delivery time frame |
3-7 days |
Less than or equal to 10 business days |
'Item not received' report rate |
1.1%
11 of 1,000 transactions |
1.8%
Avg. % of sellers' transactions |
Service metrics rating |
Low
|
|
See 'Item not as described' service metrics example
Bird Watches is a family business specializing in casual and sporting watches. Over the past couple of years, they've been increasing their sales on eBay and it's now an important part of their turnover. They recently sourced some stock from a new supplier, but unfortunately many of the batteries were defective, which led to a high number of returns.
Bird Watches – medium business |
Peer group |
|
Evaluation period |
3 months (1,000 transactions) |
|
Listing site |
eBay.com |
|
Category |
Jewelry & Watches |
|
Average selling price |
$127 |
Over $100 |
Item condition |
New |
|
Return policy |
Returns accepted |
|
Average delivery time frame |
3 days |
Less than or equal to 10 business days |
'Item not as described' return rate |
7.8%
78 of 1,000 transactions |
1.3%
Avg. % of sellers' transactions |
Service metrics rating |
Very
High
|
|
Your service metric ratings for 'Item not received' and 'Item not as described' give you an indication of how well you're preventing buyer issues, compared to your peers.
Rating |
What it means |
Low |
You're performing better than most of your peers in making sure that buyers receive their orders promptly, and in setting and meeting buyers' expectations about your items. |
Average |
You're performing as well as your peers, but you may have opportunities to reduce preventable requests. |
High |
You're not performing as well as your peers in ensuring your buyers received their orders as expected.
If any of your service metrics are High compared to your peers, but the rate is less than 1%, that rating will be adjusted to 'Average'. |
Very High |
Your 'Item not received' rate or 'Item not as described' return rate is significantly worse than your peers.
If any of your service metrics are Very High compared to your peers, but the rate is less than 1%, that rating will be adjusted to 'Average'. |
If your service metrics evaluation on the 20th of the month shows that your 'Item not received' and 'Item not as described' rates are significantly higher than your peers, we may put measures in place to help manage buyers' expectations when ordering from you. To see what you can do to bring your rates back down, read our article on Monitoring and improving your seller performance.
Some limitations are applied straight away after the evaluation, while others take effect from the 1st of the following month. If your service metrics rating improves at a future evaluation, the same time frames will apply for limitations to be removed.
Directly after the evaluation:
For the shipping categories where you are currently evaluated as Very High, we may add extra time when showing buyers an expected delivery date for your items
Funds from your orders may be placed on hold until tracking information shows that the item is on its way to the buyer
You may be unable to deduct an amount from the buyer's refund if an item is returned used or damaged
Directly after the evaluation:
You may be unable to deduct an amount from the buyer's refund if an item is returned used or damaged
From the 1st day of the month following the evaluation:
You may be charged higher final value fees. For full details, please see our fees pages:
Our service metrics are in place to protect the interests of all users, and are intended to look at your performance in context, rather than being specific to individual transactions. We understand that some types of items will see more returns than others, and that international deliveries usually take longer than domestic ones. Peer benchmarking helps us identify sellers whose rates of 'Item not received' reports or 'Item not as described' returns are statistical outliers.
To ensure your ratings are based on valid statistics and fair comparisons, and that we only place limitations on selling activity when significant differences are identified:
We only benchmark you against sellers with similar sales activity, items and business policies (see How we benchmark performance)
We may adjust a rating in certain circumstances so that it won't affect your account. When we do this, you'll see a message in the service metrics dashboard. For example:
Your sales have grown and you've changed from a 12-month to a 3-month evaluation period and peer group. If this results in your rating becoming Very High, we'll adjust your rating and limitations won't apply for one evaluation cycle
A service metric rating is High or Very High, but the rate of reports/requests is less than 1% of transactions
A Very High rating won't affect your account unless it involves at least 10 reports/requests with 10 unique buyers
We have safeguards in place to protect your ratings and help you in case you have a problem. For example:
If we determine that a buyer has violated our Abusive buyer policy, we'll automatically remove any 'Item not received' reports or 'Item not as described' return requests they had filed from service metrics
We may extend expected delivery dates and/or remove 'Item not received' reports from service metrics when things happen that cause widespread delays, such as severe weather or carrier disruptions
While these protections are available to all sellers, some of our other protections are dependent on meeting specific eligibility and/or seller performance criteria. Learn more about our seller protections.
We'll only remove 'Item not received' reports or 'Item not as described' return requests from your service metrics when they fall under our automated seller protections.
As described above, your service metrics ratings need to be statistically meaningful and substantially worse than your peer group in order for limitations to be applied, so individual reports/requests shouldn't adversely affect your account standing.
If you believe a buyer is not following our policies, you can report the buyer - opens in new window or tab and we'll look into it.
