A buyer says an item never arrived. The seller has a tracking number showing delivery. Both of them are telling the truth as they understand it.
Whatever the marketplace decides, one of them will be unhappy. What determines whether they stay is not the decision. It is whether the process was explained, moved quickly and made sense.
Step 1: try direct resolution first
Most disputes are misunderstandings and resolve between the two parties within a day. A process that escalates immediately creates adversaries out of people who would have sorted it out.
Step 2: set a timescale on that stage
A defined window after which it escalates automatically. Without one, a seller can simply not reply and a buyer is left with nothing.
Step 3: publish the stages and the timescales
What happens, when, and what each party must do at each point. Most anger in disputes comes from not knowing what is happening rather than from the outcome.
Step 4: publish the evidence standards
What a seller should provide, what a buyer should provide and what will be considered decisive. Sellers accept losing far better when they knew the standard beforehand.
Step 5: distinguish the dispute types
Not received, not as described, damaged, and a change of mind. These have different evidence requirements and different fair outcomes, and treating them identically produces bad decisions.
Step 6: handle the not received case properly
Tracking, delivery confirmation, address accuracy and whether the delivery was to a safe place. This is the most common dispute and the one with the clearest evidence trail.
Step 7: handle the not as described case carefully
Photographs, the listing text and what a reasonable buyer would expect. This is the most subjective category and needs the clearest published standard.
Step 8: explain what happens to the money
Whether funds are held, when they are released and what happens to fees on a refund, which is the ground in dispute and refund questions from marketplace buyers.
Step 9: explain the returns position
Who pays return carriage, whether a return is required for a refund and what happens with low value items where return is uneconomic.
Step 10: give both sides the same information
A process visible to one party and opaque to the other generates the belief that it is rigged. Symmetry is what makes it acceptable.
Step 11: explain the appeal route
One further review, with a defined basis. An unappealable decision feels arbitrary even when it is correct.
Step 12: track patterns rather than cases
A seller with a rising dispute rate, or a buyer with an unusual claim pattern, is more important than any individual outcome.
Step 13: keep the routine support load off the dispute team
Most contact is not a dispute at all, which is the ground in buyer and seller questions marketplace support teams repeat and what buyers ask about fees and why it matters.
Step 14: acknowledge and progress it immediately
An assistant that identifies the dispute type, explains the stage and the timescale, collects the right evidence from both parties and escalates a genuine decision to a person resolves most cases before anybody becomes entrenched. The same two sided handling appears in ai chatbot for estate agents. See features, start at try, and the sector view sits under ecommerce.