Composite, seller-standards × fulfilment × inverse defect-rate × inverse INR. Single CXO number.
At a glance
A 0 to 100 composite score that fuses the four signals an eBay account-manager will flip your seller standing on: seller-standards level × on-time fulfilment × inverse defect rate × inverse open INR (Item Not Received) cases. One number for the CXO to glance at; if it’s under 70, your TRS / Above Standard status is at material risk.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your eBay data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US apparel seller running ebay.com only, previously Top Rated, drifted to Above Standard last month after a warehouse-shipping incident. Period: real-time snapshot taken 28 Apr 26.
Five things to notice:
- The score reads 80, but the cause is the INR component. Three of four components are healthy (90+); INR is the drag. Drilling into Open INR Cases and resolving the 4 unresolved cases lifts the INR component from 67 to ~95, which alone takes the score from 80.4 to 86.0.
- The Above-Standard demotion costs more than the score reflects. Seller-standards level only weights 30% of the composite, but in eBay’s own machinery it has cliff effects: TRS unlocks a 10% FVF discount, the “Top Rated Plus” badge, and Best Match search lift. Losing TRS is worth 5 to 8% of net revenue per month for a typical seller, far more than the 30-point swing in this composite suggests.
- Defect rate above 0.5% is the headline alarm, not the score. TRS requires defect rate ≤0.5%. This seller is at 0.84%, which is what triggered the demotion. The score is a summary indicator; the threshold indicator is the seller-standards card itself.
- The eBay system evaluates monthly, but this card updates real-time. eBay re-evaluates seller standing on the 20th of each month based on a rolling 12-month window for high-volume sellers (3 months for new sellers). Vortex IQ’s score updates in real time from the underlying metric stream, so it leads the official re-evaluation by up to 30 days, useful for getting ahead of a demotion.
- A score of 80 with no alert means quietly degrading. The
<70threshold is the firefighting line. Sellers who routinely sit at 78 to 82 are slowly bleeding TRS-eligibility margin, fix the underlying drivers before the score crosses the line. The Vortex Mind investigator can pull the trend on demand.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
The Health Score is a roll-up. Pair it with the components to act on what’s moving:Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in eBay Seller Hub: eBay does not publish a single “Health Score” tile, this is a Vortex IQ composite. The closest native views to reconcile its components against:Seller Hub → Performance → Seller Level (US) or equivalent in UK: tier, defect rate, late-shipment rate, cases-without-seller-resolution rate. Seller Hub → Performance → Service Metrics: rates of “Item Not as Described” and “Item Not Received” claims, the components feeding INR.The seller-standards summary on eBay updates monthly (around the 20th); this card derives the same inputs continuously and is therefore ahead of the official re-evaluation by up to 30 days. Timing, settlement, and reporting-lag table:
Why our number may legitimately differ from any single eBay tile:
Cross-connector reconciliation against other connectors the same seller may run:
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Why is the Health Score not showing on eBay’s own dashboard? Because eBay doesn’t publish a single composite score. The seller-standards page shows pass / fail on each component; the Vortex IQ score rolls them up into one number. Treat the score as the headline; click into the component cards (Defect Rate, INR Cases, Late Shipment, Seller Standards) to act. What’s a good score? 90+ = Top Rated, healthy across the board, near-instant payouts, FVF discount active. 75 to 90 = Above Standard, broadly healthy with one or two soft spots. 60 to 75 = degraded, fix before next monthly re-evaluation. <60 = at material risk of demotion to Below Standard, which slows payouts to 30 days and removes search visibility. Why does my score swing day-to-day if my underlying performance looks stable? The INR component is the noisiest input, a single new buyer claim against a low base of orders moves the rate visibly. Sellers who do under 200 orders per month see 5 to 10 point swings in the score from 1 or 2 INR cases. Look at the 7-day rolling average, not the live snapshot, for stable reads. My score is 85 but I just lost Top Rated status, why? The score is a weighted blend; a single component falling out of TRS-eligibility (e.g. defect rate jumping above the 0.5% cap) costs you TRS regardless of how the other three components look. The composite degrades by 30 weighted points as a result, but starting from a high base of 100 you can still land at 80+. Track the TRS-cap thresholds individually, the score is a summary, not a guarantee. How is this different from eBay’s own “seller level” tier? eBay’s seller level (Top Rated / Above Standard / Below Standard) is a categorical tier evaluated monthly. The Health Score is a continuous number recomputed every minute. They’re complementary: the tier tells you what eBay’s algorithm did last month, the score tells you what eBay’s algorithm will do next month if nothing changes. Does Promoted Listings affect the score? Indirectly. Promoted-driven order volume counts in defect rate / INR rate / on-time rate exactly the same as organic orders. So if your promoted SKUs have higher defect risk (e.g. clearance items, refurbished electronics), running more promoted volume mechanically degrades the score. Action: if you scale Promoted spend, monitor the score in parallel. My UK and US scores are different, can I see them split? Yes, the per-marketplace cards (filtered bymarketplaceId) show per-site scores. The dashboard headline blends them weighted by order share. UK + US sellers should always read both, the operational practices that drive defect rate are different by site (UK has stronger return-rights law; US has faster shipping expectations).
The score dropped overnight but no metric appears to have moved, what happened?
Three usual causes: (1) eBay refreshed its monthly seller-standards evaluation on the 20th and tier-flipped you (visible only when the system update completes); (2) a back-dated buyer-feedback “neutral” or “negative” was registered for an order from 8 weeks ago, which feeds the defect rate retroactively; (3) an INR case was opened more than 24 hours ago and you missed the response window, the case auto-closes against you. Open Cases without Resolution and Open INR Cases for forensic detail.
What’s the action playbook when this card alerts (<70)?
- Open Open INR Cases. Resolve every case under the 8-day auto-decide window. Each saved case is worth 4 to 8 score points.
- Open Defect Rate. If above 0.5%, surface the SKUs and ad-listing pairs driving the defects. Pause those listings or fix descriptions.
- Open Late Shipment Rate. Late tracking-uploads are the easiest fix (warehouse process), late carrier-scans are harder (carrier choice / handover SLA).
- Check Seller Standards. If you’ve already lost TRS this month, focus on reclaiming it next month rather than firefighting the score.
- If the seller is multi-site, drill per-
marketplaceId, fixes are typically site-specific.