NEW: Check the DSRWatch blog for our latest updates.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a DSR?

In early 2007, eBay introduced a new twist to the feedback system called Feedback 2.0. As part of Feedback 2.0, eBay introduced Detailed Seller Ratings – four new ‘Criteria' that buyers can anonymously rate sellers on. The Criteria include:

• Item as described
• Communication
• Shipping time
• Shipping and handling charges

Each DSR is rated on a scale of one to 5 stars. In late 2007, eBay announced that they will begin advantaging sellers with high DSRs in the search results and disadvantaging (and even taking trust and safety actions) for those sellers with low DSRs.

DSRs are going to be as important, if not MORE important than overall feedback starting in 2008.

You can learn more about DSRs on eBay here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/detailed-seller-ratings.html.

Why DSRWatch?

There's no arguing that DSRs are going to be super important, yet eBay has given sellers only one way to see their DSRs. The seller must go to their feedback profile and look at the stars. Sellers can only see their DSRs to the tenths (e.g. 4.5) and you have to look at the "alt text" (seen by hovering your mouse over the stars) to see your actual numeric rating.

Sellers are busy and obviously don't have time to check their DSRs on a daily basis by mousing over a bunch of stars. Thus, at ChannelAdvisor, we've found that most sellers are not aware of changes (positive OR negative) in their DSRs — and, in fact, sellers have asked to be alerted to when their DSRs change. We mentioned this to the folks in our ChannelAdvisor Labs group and BAM — DSRWatch was born!

How does DSRWatch work?

Simply enter a seller ID and DSRWatch communicates directly with eBay's servers to retrieve the DSR information. In addition to retrieving the DSRs, DSRWatch compares your DSRs to eBay's "Rating Tiers" .

What is the Criteria?

There are four DSR criteria that eBay gives buyers to rate sellers on. These are:

1. Item as Described
2. Communication
3. Shipping Time
4. Shipping and Handling charges

What is the Rating?

The rating is the DSR rating as calculated in real-time by eBay.

Unfortunately, eBay stopped providing the hundredths digit to us on 12/13/2007, 6:30 p.m. EST.

What is a Rating Tier?

eBay has published data for DSRs that puts sellers into one of five tiers:

1. Top 10% – WOW! The top 10% sellers are a rare bunch and you should enjoy the fruits of your labor. Look for lots of perks as a top performing seller.
2. Top 10-25% – Congratulations! You are in one of the top tiers and most likely will enjoy several advantages to the competition.
3. Middle 50% (between Bottom 25% and Top 25%) – These sellers are average. They most likely will not face trust and safety action, but also will not be advantaged in search results.
4. Bottom 10-25% – These sellers should work diligently to increase their DSRs and stay out of the Bottom 10% tier.
5. Bottom 10% – These sellers most likely are close to or have already faced Trust and Safety non-seller performance.

What is the Number of ratings?

The Number of ratings is the number of buyers that have rated you on this criteria. Sometimes the numbers for each criteria can vary substantially. This simply means that some buyers are choosing to rate you on some criteria and NOT others. It's important to note that the larger the number of ratings you have, the longer it will take for you to impact your DSRs in a positive manner. For example, if a seller has 1,000 DSRs and a 4.3 DSR rating, it would take 170 5.0's, 1,000 4.5's, or 25,000 4.4's to bring the DSR up to a 4.4. The moral of the math story is that if you are in one of the bottom tiers you need to start moving the DSRs up ASAP!

Why does DSRWatch report a different number of ratings than what eBay shows?

DSRWatch retrieves data from eBay, which is currently returning a different number of ratings than those displayed on their site.

For example, as of this writing, the ‘designerathletic' ‘Item as described' DSR is reported on eBay as 22,716. DSRWatch has 31,716 — that's a difference of 9,000 ratings.

We have asked eBay about this and will update the FAQ when we have an authoritative answer. At this time, we have two theories. The first theory has to do with orders that come from cross-border trade. In the designerathletic example above, eBay may not be counting 9,000 non-US based customers that have left feedback for DSRs. Our second theory is that eBay is counting only unique ratings (i.e. the number of ratings left by different people), whereas DSRWatch is reporting the total number of ratings left.

Does DSRWatch work for non-US countries?

Yes, however note that DSRWatch allows you to monitor sellers' DSRs in any country, but we do not change the DSRWatch criteria text to reflect that country's specific DSR text. For example, in the UK, the DSRs are:

1. Item as described
2. Communication
3. Dispatch time
4. Postage and packaging charges

DSRWatch will return the correct UK values, but the incorrect criteria names. The same is true for DE and AU, etc.

How much does DSRWatch cost?

At ChannelAdvisor, we initially developed DSRWatch as a feature for our customers. However we realized that the entire eBay community is relatively unaware of the importance of DSRs and even if they are, sellers are not able to easily learn their DSRs or receive updates. Upon further consideration, we realized this utility was too critical to keep from the entire eBay community. We hope you find the utility helpful and will consider doing business with ChannelAdvisor in the future.

How do I unsubscribe from email alerts?

After you receive your welcome email and start getting actual DSR change alerts, you'll notice that next to each seller is a link entitled "Stop watching...". Simply click the links next to the sellers you no longer want to watch. When you stop watching the last seller to which you've subscribed, you'll no longer receive email alerts — unless you sign up again.