Ebay Selling Essentials: 4 Ways to Improve Your Shipping Dsrs

Are your Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) averaging 4.7 across the board?

If not, it's time to develop new eBay selling strategies that will allow you to earn five stars in each of the four areas related to a transaction: "item description," "communication," "shipping times," and "shipping charges."

Under the current eBay system, your feedback score, particularly your DSRs, largely determines where your listings will appear in the eBay search results. Listings by sellers with higher DSRs actually appear higher in eBay search results. But lower-scoring sellers will find their listings stagnating at the bottom pages of listings where most shoppers will never see them.

As you can see, your eBay selling success is closely tied to the strength of your eBay feedback.

Most eBay sellers are able to ace the first two DSRs, but find themselves falling short of the 4.7 in the areas of shipping they need for increased exposure in eBay's default search results.

"Shipping time" can be particularly troublesome. Although eBay tries to encourage buyers to rate this section only on how long it took the seller to get the item in the mail, some insist on holding you responsible for the post office’s mistakes via your DSR.

So what can you do to try to prevent this from happening?

Get the items in the mail quickly and keep the customer informed at every step with these four eBay selling strategies:

• Set up a shipping center. Create a defined shipping area to streamline your shipping chores -- and get those packages out fast! It can be a whole room or a corner of the garage... even just a table with some shelves next to it.



• Tell the buyer where it's at. At every stage of the shipping process, you want to let the buyer know what's happening. Be careful when you calculate your shipping times... add a day or two to your estimates to avoid disappointment. Then if it arrives earlier, you're golden!
  
  After the buyer pays, leave positive feedback and tell them when the item will be shipped. Send another email (automated if possible) when it's on its way. And it's easy to automate another email a few days later that asks if the parcel has been received yet.



• Track your package. If you ship with a service that offers tracking, you can upload the tracking information to My eBay, where it will be visible to the buyer. Buyers like to know that their package is on its way -- and you'll be happy knowing when the package has been delivered.



• Use U.S. Postal Service Delivery Confirmation. When you pay for shipping and print a U.S. Postal Service label on PayPal, you receive free Delivery Confirmation for Priority Mail and Express Mail packages, and lower-cost Delivery Confirmation for First Class, Media Mail, and Parcel Post packages. You and your buyer will have a record of when and where the item was delivered.

The time is now to add getting top DSRs to your eBay selling arsenal. So take these steps to increase the odds you'll earn top eBay feedback DSRs for shipping... so your listings get the top billing they deserve in eBay search.