On eBay, sellers are classified according to their performances with a status of the seller:

• Top rated seller – it’s the seller who receives positive feedbacks for his/her services, eBay rewards that seller with a cockade on the listings. In this way the seller gains visibility.

• Over the standard – the seller receives medium-positive feedback for his/her services but there is something to improve.

• Under the standard – the seller receives not so good feedback for his/her services. In addition to the loss of credibility, eBay could impose some limits on the account and giving to the seller the possibility to improve.  

This is made according to the feedback given by the users. With the feedback, the users not only show to everyone their own opinion, but also evaluate certain aspects of their purchase experience. Such aspects can be: items’ description, communication with the seller, observance of the shipping and handling times, shipping cost and packaging in compliance with the services offered.

According to these evaluations, eBay calculates the observance of their standard (in the last 12 months):

• Percentage of defects per transaction – It’s the percentage of the transactions where there are problems related to a controversy on PayPal’s program of purchase protection closed without solution or seller-initiated transactions cancellation.
• Percentage of late shipping – It’s the percentage of the transactions with problems related to the shipping time.  
• Cases closed without the seller resolution – It’s the percentage of the transactions where there are problems related to a controversy on PayPal’s program of purchase protection closed without solution

eBay allows the sellers to see their level of performance and to see the prediction of what can happen the next month. In this way, the seller can see where s/he can improve before the next evaluation and not to lose the Status obtained.