Slight Frustration with the Ebay Seller Rating System

[pennynike1]

I accessed my ebay account today, to see that a buyer that I had sold a book to on Sunday, April 26th had already received his book and had left me positive feedback. Although I was given a positive rating from my buyer, with the phrase: "item was excactly as described," he took it upon himself to give me less than 5 stars on:

 

- Communication (I communicated with him after purchase and again the very next day after he had paid for his item)

- Shipping time (I don't see how it could have been any faster - it was mailed the next day), and

- Shipping charge (I charged him exact shipping cost for Priority Mail).

 

My perfect 5 star rating was destroyed after a virtually flawless transaction. Anyone else have something happen like this?

[TFL-migration]

Ebay. It blows BIG HONKIN' CHUNKS..............

[TheWatcher]

WTF? I don't sell on Ebay, but I know this would pizz me off if I did. You did everything right and you still got hosed on the ratings. Some people are never satisfied. Have you contacted him and asked why he didn't give you 5 stars?

[mschmidt]

I accessed my ebay account today, to see that a buyer that I had sold a book to on Sunday, April 26th had already received his book and had left me positive feedback. Although I was given a positive rating from my buyer, with the phrase: "item was excactly as described," he took it upon himself to give me less than 5 stars on:

 

- Communication (I communicated with him after purchase and again the very next day after he had paid for his item)

- Shipping time (I don't see how it could have been any faster - it was mailed the next day), and

- Shipping charge (I charged him exact shipping cost for Priority Mail).

 

My perfect 5 star rating was destroyed after a virtually flawless transaction. Anyone else have something happen like this?

 

Yep - the same exact thing happened to me. I had 5 stars across the board until I ran into a new ebayer who decided to ding both the "Communication" and "Shipping and handling charges" stars and also leave me this feedback:

 

"Regret buying from seller because of their very unreasonable S&H charges."

 

I asked him what was going on, and his reply was that after he received the book, he looked around & saw that some other ebay sellers were charging less to ship than I did. When I pointed out that I had charged him $5 to ship 4 books in a priority envelope (which costs $4.80), he said that I should have told him that before he left his feedback.

 

[pennynike1]

Have you contacted him and asked why he didn't give you 5 stars?

 

I was thinking of doing just that, but I figured I would post on here first before doing so. For the life of me I can't imagine viewing someone's feedback, seeing a person who has worked hard to get 5 stars on all 4 possible criteria, and then take upon myself to cripple that effort.

 

I could understand it if I took 3 weeks to ship, or didn't respond to emails, or charged 2x the shipping cost, but none of that applies

[pennynike1]

 

Yep - the same exact thing happened to me. I had 5 stars across the board until I ran into a new ebayer who decided to ding both the "Communication" and "Shipping and handling charges" stars and also leave me this feedback:

 

"Regret buying from seller because of their very unreasonable S&H charges."

 

I asked him what was going on, and his reply was that after he received the book, he looked around & saw that some other ebay sellers were charging less to ship than I did. When I pointed out that I had charged him $5 to ship 4 books in a priority envelope (which costs $4.80), he said that I should have told him that before he left his feedback.

 

 

Sorry to hear that Mike. He gave you less than 5 stars over 20 cents

 

"very unreasonable" indeed. OMG.

 

My buyer has been on ebay since 2000, and has over 100 feedback, so he should know better...

[Boozad]

There's so much that sucks on ebay, the feedback system being one of them. I gave up quite a while ago selling on ebay because of things like this. I had over 30 good sales that people never even left me feedback for even after I'd mailed them.

 

But I'm back on ebay now and to be honest I couldn't give a rats azz about the ratings. If people are like me they won't even check my ratings before pulling the trigger. My ratings are all around 4.8, even though I refund any shipping over actual cost, ship when I say I will and always describe the item as accurately as I can with refunds offered and my communication is second to none.

 

If you leave your rep to unscrupulous buyers you can't expect it to be 100% all of the time as there are some right wankers out there who just don't care about doing things right.

[pennynike1]

Well said Boozad - thanks for chiming in with your experience on eBay (thumbs u

[Boozad]

(thumbs u

 

I figure that if you remember ebay is a market for con artists and awkward buyers as much as it is for honest sellers and dedicated collectors you won't get so pissed at the smaller annoying facets of it.

 

The way I see it is that if you can get a large % of buyers who are happy with what you've sold and they come back for more you're doing things just right. To even have ratings of 5 across the board in the first place is an achievement. In society today it seems most people have got to look for something to complain about even if everything is good.

 

If your feedback is 100% and you have returning customers then you're winning - big time (thumbs u

[pennynike1]

Yep, got the 100% feedback and returning customers, so I guess your perspective is right on. Thanks

[RockMyAmadeus]

My selling account was dinged because some person_too_unaware_of_social_graces buyer (who shall remain nameless) thought shipping in 6 days wasn't fast enough, and because I made them pay for the insurance that I state very clearly in the auction was required, but which cannot be added until the final total is known and an invoice manually created and sent out. Said buyer was "put upon" because he couldn't be bothered to wait for the invoice (like the auction said) and just paid the winning bid. Basically, a pissy, unreasonable buyer.

 

I really wish eBay would allow insurance to be required, and then base the insurance cost off the final bid amount. It's really not hard, and they do it for international sales.

 

I know, I know, I'm showing my age. Now, if it's not shipped 3 minutes after the buyer hits "confirm payment", it's too slow.

 

Remember back in the olden days, when you would get something "within 4 to 6 weeks"....? And that was STANDARD and acceptable to EVERYONE?

 

What a crazyass society we live in.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

The way I see it is that if you can get a large % of buyers who are happy with what you've sold and they come back for more you're doing things just right. To even have ratings of 5 across the board in the first place is an achievement. In society today it seems most people have got to look for something to complain about even if everything is good.

 

But...but...eBay SAYS that a "4" rating is "good"...!

 

 

Lots and lots....and lots....and lots....of buyers have no clue how DSRs affect sellers, and if all your buyers left 4s...stating that everything was fine, good, and dandy...you would soon lose your ability to sell on eBay.

 

Crazy, innit?

[taro90]

Don't worry about that stupid ebay rating system. It's just worthless garbage that ebay decided to add to their worthless site in recent years. I have never care for it and it has never really affected my sales.

 

If your feedback is 100% and you have returning customers then you're winning - big time (thumbs u

This is all you need......... (thumbs u

[Boozad]

A guy I've worked with for years deals in pottery, and he argues that 4 stars is good, but if you drop below 4.something (can't remember what the score is) your items get dropped down in the 'best match' search filter. I can see his point, if everything is 'good' then what's the problem? Another ebay up.

 

But then I thought about it, and whenever I search for something I use the 'ending soonest' filter. Always have, always will, so the star ratings don't come into it. I reckon if people are searching for something I have for sale they will find it, and they are invited in all of my auctions to check my feedback as a seller which is 100% with some very nice comments in there. Do they check my star rating? I don't know and neither do I care.

 

I think listing an item correctly linked with 100% feedback is far more important than the star system, I don't even look at my own any more. I once sold some collectible bears that belonged to my wife. I checked on ebay at everybody's postage fees and undercut them all. Out of 6 sales I had 5 who left a full 5 stars across the board. The other one said my postage costs were way too high, I was cheaper than everybody else and actually charged less than it cost to ship it! They could see that on the postage label, that's why I just don't care about the star rating, it's just complete bollocks.

[CKB]

Your store fees are directly linked to having ratings in the high 4's. I think 4.9 in all 4 categories is the biggest discount.

 

Doesn't every seller know that to get 5's you need to sell a book that is undergraded by two grades, throw in a freebie or two and include a personal check made out to the buyer for the puchase price. Come on you losers.

 

Seriously, are buyers even told how important the ratings are to store sellers? I haven't used the star system as a buyer.

 

 

 

 

[chromium]

I know a guy that only gives 5 stars for shipping costs if shipping is free...Pretty sure there are more dingbats out there that think like this and screw up the ratings.

[PhantomObserver-migration]

Whenever I buy something on Ebay, I never pay attention to that star rating unless it is extremely low, like 1 star. Doesn't Ebay suspend the buyer If it goes low to a certain point within 30 days?

Otherwise it is useless like an appendix. When I want to leave a positive feedback to a buyer, I thin that is enough. I have better things to do in my life than to waste a minute. The feedback should say it all & that is good enough for me.

[goldust40]

I always check the feedback, and more importantly, who has left the feedback. If anyone who I know has good standards has left positive FB, that's the green light.

 

I generally never pay attention to the star system, even though it probably is useful in certain cases.

[G.A.tor]

we too always accurately describe our products, email immediately after the auction is won, email immediately after the auction is paid for with tracking info, ship same day if paid before 3pm and ship next morning if paid after , etc, etc...

and yet, we don't get all 5 stars either... it bothered me at first, because we truly take pride in serving our customers, but then you realize that even if you are "perfect" as you can be, to some, you are not

[nocutename]

A rating system is too subjective, IMO. If you ask 20 people what a 4 means on a 5 point system, you will get 20 different answers. Some will only give the highest if they feel that the service was beyond outstanding. Has anyone ever attended a survey or marketing group session? The answers are quite astonishing to see how many different opinions you can get over a silly 5 star rating system. I don't give it too much weight when I am deciding to purchase from the seller. I am more concerned with the feedback percentage and comments.