eBay Returns – How We Deal With Them AND Make Profit!

eBay Returns. How to Search eBay by Item Number

Transcribe of “eBay Returns – How We Deal With Them AND Make Profit!”

– Hi guys. Neil Waterhouse. In this week’s video blog, I’ll show you how we handle eBay returns and also how to minimize losses and also how to even make a profit from some of these eBay returns. If you’re new to this channel, my name is Neil Waterhouse. I’ve been selling on eBay for 23 years. I’m also the author of “Million Dollar eBay Business from Home”. So let’s launch straight into it. First of all, if you’re new to selling on eBay and you’re worried about eBay returns, it’s important to remember that every single business on the planet gets some returns. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling on eBay, Amazon, Shopify, or traditional bricks and mortar store.

Every business on the planet gets returns. And that’s okay. We as eBay sellers though, we just need to know the best way to deal with these returns. So we don’t lose our shit. which is what this video is all about. Now, before I get started, make sure to subscribe and turn on the notifications to my channel because I post videos just like this every week, showing how anyone can make a full-time living from their home using eBay and Amazon and using less than $100 dollars. And you don’t want to miss any of the videos.

So taking eBay returns one step further, not only does every business on the planet get returns, but it’s critical to make sure that your business also gets returns. There’s a rule in business that if you’re not losing money on some of your sales, your customer service is simply not good enough. Now, just to repeat that, if you’re not losing money on some sales, your customer service is not good enough. With eBay, you have the option of enabling or disabling returns. We always allow returns. Now, there are several options When you get eBay returns from your customers.

There’s not a one fits all strategy. First of all, if you drop shipping on eBay and purchasing from local suppliers, not all, but most local suppliers will accept returns. So you can get your customers to return the item straight back to your supplier. As an example, let’s say you’re selling in say Australia and your customer is also in Australia and your drop ship supplier is also in Australia. By law, every Australian supplier must by law, give 12 months warranty for every atomized sale. And the majority of drop ship suppliers will also accept returns.

Now with returns, there’s no one fits all solution for every return. So let’s look at a couple of typical different return scenarios. Let’s say, for example, you drop shipping these new inflatable kayaks. And one of your buyers contacts you to say they want to return it. Because they don’t like the color or whatever the reason. The first thing my team will do is offer them a small refund and they keep the item. I refund of $10 or 10%. If the buyer accepts the $10 or 10%, awesome, then refund that amount and close the case.

If you don’t already have a customer service person who can do this for you, I’ll put a link on the screen to previous week’s video showing where you can get virtual assistance from $1 per hour. Our rule of thumb is to spend 10% of profits on virtual assistants who run and grow the business for you, even when you’re sleeping. Now, if the buyer still wants to return the item, we will then see if it can be sent straight back to the supplier. For this scenario, your VA will need to contact the supplier.

As some suppliers require you to call them and get a return authorization number, which is in the new series known as an RA number. And you need to get that RA number before they’ll accept the return back. Now, if the supplier will not accept the return for whatever reason, then just get the item sent straight back to yourself. This can be a home address or a third party address like a P.O Box or a three PL.

Then when the item arrives back, check it out. If it’s like new and can be sold as brand new, simply sell it again. Or when the next item sells, just ship it direct from you to that customer instead of from you know, your warehouse or if you drop shipping from your drop ship supplier, If it’s marred or has a damaged box, simply list the item as having a damaged box or as a scratch and dent item. Now here’s the crazy part, we have a joke in our warehouse that we should damage all items before we sell them.

And the reason this statement gets joked around is many, many times over the years, we’ve auctioned items on eBay as damaged or as marked items. And many of these items have sold for more money than we’re currently selling the identical item for on eBay as buy it now. So as an example, we could be selling like say one of our kid’s ride on car for $197 on buy it now on eBay, but we sell it as a scratch and dent item on eBay auction for $250. Now don’t get me wrong.

I’m not saying this happens every single time. I’m just saying that it’s not the end of the world when you get returns that are scratch and dent. And also by the way, if an item is marred or has got some damage to it, contact your supplier cause they might do the same deal with you. They might say, okay, look we’ll give you $50 back, you keep the item and you pass that $50 and you’ll offer it to your customer and say, “Hey, if we give you $50 will you keep the item?” And you know, very often they’ll say yes.

So we’ll have this one as my train of thought. Yeah. So anyway, so buyers often think they’re getting a bargain when they buy a scratch and dent item or items that have got damaged boxes. And also many buyers get caught up in the excitement of an auction. Now also remember this rule when selling any one of item, like a scratch and dent return, or even, you know, you’re selling off your family car. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to sell it.

The rule I always use for one-offs. This only applies to one-off items like return, or, you know, like selling, you know, something around the house or a car or whatever. You know, if you sold the item in the first 30 days, you sold it too cheap. Again, this only applies with one-off items. One-offs, you know, scratch and dent item. This rule certainly does not apply to our normal eBay sales. You know, normal inventory as we only sell you items that can be sold over and over. We want to sell those items as fast as possible. Now, another thing you can do with eBay returns is this similar to other marketplaces, as well as eBay.

There’s some other marketplaces like Facebook marketplaces, Gumtree, Craigslist, et cetera. There’s a huge demand these days on places like Facebook marketplaces for use items. We can sell these one-off items. You know, you can often sell them for more money on these marketplaces than you’ll get on eBay. Even when they’re scratch and dent. This all comes down to supply and demand. If you want to know more about drop shipping on Facebook, I’ll put a link on the screen and below to a previous week’s video.

Now, just before I wrap this video up, like I said at the beginning, eBay returns are just part of doing business. We can also do a few things to dramatically reduce eBay returns. First of all, make sure you have clear photos of the item and multiple photos from different angles. If you’re selling used items, make sure that you clearly point out any defects in the photos and in the description. Also make sure that your customers gets delivery of the item in a timely fashion after they order it.

If a customer is already angry that the items arrive late it might not take that much to push them over the agency side to return the item. It’s the old saying of the straw that broke the camel’s back. If the item is going to be late, make sure you or a virtual assistant contacts the customer to let them know everything is okay, but because of the huge amounts being delivered each day, the order may be a few days late. For example, if you’re in Australia, Australia post is currently delivering over 3 million parcels per day.

Which is another record of, you know, for this time of the year. This content you have customers again, it can be fully automated using software or low cost overseas, virtual assistants from $1 an hour. I won’t go into the software or VAs in this video as I’ve done that before in a previous week’s video. But again, I’ll put a link below the video and also put a link on the screen if you’d like more information. Also always reply to any customer emails within one business day. Again, either do that yourself or preferably get a VA to do it for you.

Also, whenever you get an eBay return, when the automatized back always close the open return case that you buyer created within the designated timeframe that eBay has given for the case, if you don’t close the case within that timeframe, the buyer can escalate it and then you’ll get a defect. Bottom line with eBay returns is always try your best to not let eBay get involved. Always close cases when items are returned within the timeframe.

So the claim cannot be escalated to where eBay closes the case in favor of your buyer. As a general rule of thumb with all eBay defects, if eBay gets involved, you can get a defect on your account. Another note is we have a defect cutoff of 1.5% for all listings on eBay. That is if an item has a return rate of greater than 1.5%, we stop selling it. In other words, for every 100 sales, any individual listing gets, it’s only allowed to have 1.5 returns for every 100 sales.

Any more than that, we stop selling that item on eBay. If you want to know more about how to reduce eBay defects, make sure you check out this video over here. If you have any questions, please ask them in the comment section below. And if you found any value in this video, please give it a thumbs up and make sure you hit the subscribe button to the no fluff channel that teaches how anyone can make a full-time living from their home using eBay and Amazon and using less than a hundred dollars. Until next week, stay safe. This small selma is Neil Waterhouse.

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