RIdiculous selling restrictions

[SolidGoldBrass]

I have had stupid restrictions placed on my selling limit despite 100% positive feedback. I am mot a 'professional' ebay seller, I tend to sell lots when having a clearout then not bother for a while.
I also sell mostly low-value items and send them by second-class post. In a few cases (ie about 4) in the last three months, items have (allegedly) not arrived. I have always communicated with buyers when this happens and if the item doesn't arrive within a reasonable amount of time I refund in full, yet I have still had my account restricted to 5 items a month. WHich means I will never be able to shake the restriction as it only needs one item every other month to not arrive FFS even though I refund when things don't arrive.

Should I just open a new Ebay account with one of my other email addresses?

why don't you send with proof of delivery? - you are leaving yourself wide open to being scammed. I say it all the time but Hermes is better than RM and you just add the tracking info to the transaction in eBay. No chance of an item not arriving then. Refunding after an item goes missing can still have an impact on your account.

And opening another account, well eBay may link that to your existing one and restrict that one too.

yup, if you have more than a 5% defect rate, ebay will penalise you by reducing your selling allowances, you should ALWAYS send tracked to avoid this.

People won't pay for tracked posting on an item they have bought for 99p, though. And I am not going to offer free postage on items that sell for that low a price, because then I would actually be selling at a loss!

well - you should never ever start an item at 99p really. No need with free listings now and complete waste of time. No profit to be made after fees is there. And Hermes is £2.78 if under 1kg so cheaper than RM.

Start at a fiver and offer free p&p - guaranteed 5 stars for delivery then too.

I also wouldn't use Hermes. They are always leaving things in my bin too. Sometimes they leave things behind it too and the parcels have got sodden when it rains.

well I have never, ever had an issue with them. But use Collect + instead, but always send with proof of delivery, any other way is going to risk your account.

I learned not to bother listing items at 99p. There's too great a chance they simply won't sell for more than that and I can't be bothered to list, pack, send for literally pennies if it does sell for 99p.

I start an item at the lowest amount I want to receive net after ebay fees, p&p and paypal fees. Work it out on a little spreadsheet or make yourself a chart with 1.99/2.99 etc start prices and varying postage/courier charges and deduct fees and see what you will be left with. It focuses the mind beautifully and demonstrates why people sell stuff in bundles.

I've changed to free P&P on all my listings and even though on some of them I only make 2/3 £s profit on them it all adds up at the end of the month,everything over £10.00 goes tracked and I build that into the price so I can honestly say that I have not had a parcel go astray,I have had a couple of people tell me that post was late but what do they expect this time of year. ??
I am now stopping selling for 4 weeks as I have been lucky enough to make my xmas £s,made £over in fact so am not listing anymore til New Year when the backlog of parcels has dwindled.