I wrote this post a few days ago about a seller who was taking a very long time to ship my item and how I felt bad giving her bad feedback because we had been talking socially. (On a side note, that seller still has not indicated that the item has shipped even though I emailed asking for a status about a week ago so I am getting a little fed up. This was an over $100 purchase, you would think she would give me the courtesy of a reply but, whatever, we will deal with it as it comes.)
But as I have been doing a large volume of buying across several different accounts lately, while I have had the pleasure of doing business with many wonderful sellers, I am surprised at how many poor sellers I am still encountering. I made the comment on Twitter that I wondered if this is why some people are upset about DSRs because they are giving cruddy service and getting lower rankings. Obviously, the issue is much more complex than that but what do you want for 140 characters? (There was also objection to the word cruddy. I suppose I could have said poor but I didn’t think of it at the time. I was really thinking “crappy” but was trying to be nice. You can’t win em all.)
The comment I was trying to make is that, from my own perspective, DSRs made me make a serious effort to kick my game up a notch (not that my game was all that bad to begin with but, you get the idea) and I assumed (perhaps stupidly) that everyone else was doing the same. I figured DSRs were sort of an “adapt or perish” sort of thing and that it would weed out the bad. But finding out that many sellers haven’t made any changes to relation to DSRs and some are giving what I consider worse service than pre-DSR feedback, I felt it warranted a comment.
After all, if these people are the same ones complaining about having low DSRs, then this would clear up the issue for me some. For me, DSRs are annoying but certainly not the world shattering change some sellers have made them out to be and I was musing to myself that maybe those sellers had an idea of “good” service that was far shy of what most people consider good service so that was why their scores were low. It was a half baked thought and a bit of a sweeping generalization but I think there is something there even if it only explains a small part of the problem.
Now, with collectibles, I make every purchase with a grain of salt, as it were, as I expect standards to be much lower than with new items. I also shop with Best Match disabled so I sometimes get sellers with very low DSRs. Frankly, you get the best deals from low DSR people since most buyers stay away partially because of their choice, partially because of eBay (read as Best Match). But when I buy from someone with low DSRs, I know what I am getting into and don’t expect much from them. But I just bought some comic books from a guy with low DSRs who was a collectibles seller and casual seller both and happily gave him all 5s because everything with the transaction was perfect so understand that there is no hard, fast rule here.
When it comes to feedback, unless your service was in some way terrible or you really ticked me off in some way, I always leave great feedback. I haven’t left a negative in years and, even for really really poor service, I don’t go below 3 stars. I almost always leave all 5 stars because I am a seller and I know what its like to try to court feedback so I always err on the side of leaving feedback that is too high rather than the other way around.
That said, you know the old, treat others as you want to be treated? I suppose this whole thing comes from my expecting other sellers to run their business as I run mine which is, I suppose an unreasonable expectation. If I ship same day, is it unreasonable to expect the sellers I buy from to at least ship within a week of purchase? I don’t think so.
Now, again, at Christmas time when I did a ton of shopping on eBay of mostly new items I was more than pleased with the service I got. I consistently got faster and better service from eBay sellers than the big stores to the point where, if something was the same price on eBay and a big store, I still went to eBay because I knew the eBay seller would ship it faster. Just understand that I am a huge fan of shopping on eBay and that, overall, most sellers are still giving fantastic service. My gripe is about a subsection that I seem to have just encountered a lot of these last few weeks.
These are a 3 more things that happened to me in the last 2 weeks of buying on eBay in addition to the woman who still hasn’t mailed my items going on a month later:
- I emailed a seller, whose listing did not list a handling time, about how long after purchased an item would ship (fixed price item). The item offered Priority Mail and I was curious if I could get it by this weekend. In addition to explaining that I wanted it by this weekend which is was I was curious about handling time, I specifically said “For instance, if I bought this today, would this ship tomorrow or the next day?” It took 2 days before I got a reply (which was annoying enough) and when he replied, the full text of his email back was “No.” So you heard that here folks. His handling time is “no.” Needless to say, I didn’t buy from him.
- I received a package from a seller of collectible, vintage items. They were shipped in very good time, shipping costs were fair, no complaints there and I gave them all 5 stars. But they taped the items into plastic bags so nothing would fall out and, while I appreciate that, along with the items they also taped into the bag 3 large dead bugs as well as other dirt and bits. I didn’t dock them anything for that on feedback but, um, ew? Is it unreasonable to have expected them to at least use a clean bag?
- I bought a batch of items from a seller who listed them as being in excellent condition. When they arrived, I discovered that the sides of the items shown in the photos were, in fact, in excellent condition but that the backs of each of the items were in very bad shape. When I emailed her about it, she said she’d intentionally not shown the bad sides in the photos because it would scare buyers off but that, because she didn’t show it at all, she didn’t misrepresent. She also, abrasively, told me that she did not accept returns. When I further pressed that her description listed them as excellent she stated that while she did say that, she also said that she was selling them As Is so that negated the word excellent. Her logic was at once baffling and sort of impressive as an art form all its own. In the end, I found that I could repair several of the items and I paid so little for them that I just rolled my eyes, gave her lesser description star rating and left it at that. (Though if it had been a more expensive order, you better believe I would have fought it).
These are just three little examples of what has been a frustrating 2 weeks of no handling times or shipping costs listed in descriptions, poorly packaged items, slow shipping etc. On the plus side, the really good sellers mixed in with this lot have looked so very good in comparison that my feedback of them has been positively glowing.
Do I understand that to some extent I am opening myself up to this kind of stuff because of the kind of stuff I buy? Yes, I very much do. Like I said, I try to cut a ton of slack, especially with older items, new or casual sellers, etc. On new items on eBay I have been pretty much 100% good sellers/transactions so it seems limited to some categories. But as a collectibles seller, these people are running the same sort of business as us and if we can make a little bit of effort, why can’t they?
I think it boils down to two things. As an eBay buyer, I’m annoyed that not every seller makes the same amount of effort so it’s Russian roulette when buying some items. Yes, there is only one bullet (bad seller) in the chamber and many more empty holes (good sellers) but even one bad seller shakes your faith in the marketplace just as even one good seller can make you love eBay as a whole. It just makes you take pause before every new transaction when you got burned even slightly on the last one which degrades the marketplace as a whole.
But as an eBay seller, it annoys me, for lack of a better word, that these people, who in some ways are my direct competition as fellow collectibles sellers, are giving poor service because they, by association, give us a bad name, even though we are working hard to do everything right. Sure, to some extent, they lower expectations which makes people appreciate our service even more but there is a certain amount of school-age jealousy of “If we have to play by the rules, why don’t they?” that I cannot help but feel.
It seems to me in these tough times sellers would go the extra mile on customer service. Some do, but sadly many seem to be getting worse. It maybe due to lack of selling experence in some cases, but that is still no excuse. Good customer service is common sense. Treat every sale like its a Million Dollar sale and hopefully they will come back for more. Never mind what everyone else is doing….or not doing. It is YOUR name and YOUR reputation as a seller that you are putting on the line.
One thing I was also thinking of, though it may not apply to everyone is that maybe some sellers that were full time sellers are now only part time sellers as they needed to get another job to make ends meets. Maybe this accounts for sloppier service in some cases.
One possibility is that sellers who were struggling before (financially) are simply overwhelmed now that eBay has raised fees, the post office has raised fees, and the average selling price on eBay is even lower. eBay sellers have to work harder for less money. Perhaps the financial pressure means that some sellers may not have the funds to ship the products timely or maybe they are so busy just trying to generate cash flow that it is difficult to stop and take care of a problem. Obviously this does not excuse poor customer service but perhaps it helps to better explain it.
And I know many eBay sellers who have had such poor experiences with their buyers that they view almost every eBay buyer and prospective buyer with disgust. A lot of eBay sellers hate their “job” and it shows. They have been beaten down by eBay and by eBay customers and they are simply weary. I am sure many of them would switch to something else if the economy were better.
Having said that (and it is in no way excusing poor customer service behavior), there is absolutely no excuse for purposely leaving out the information about a poor item condition, especially condition that cannot be seen from the photograph.
My final comment is that the DSR system is, in my opinion, a poor judge of a seller’s performance because every measurement is subjective. And the buyer’s subjective opinion of S&H charge punishes sellers who offer heavy items (like furniture) for sale. Take a look at Amazon’s seller performance rating system if you want a much more accurate representation of a seller’s performance.
I like your point about some eBay sellers hating their “job.”
One thing I think is funny is how you cite Amazon’s feedback as good. In my experience, Amazon buyers rarely leave feedback and, when they do, it’s usually only if they have something negative to say or to review the product they bought because they don’t understand what feedback is. I suppose it must depend on what you sell because if you had asked me, I would have said there’s is the worst so it’s interesting that you find theirs to be best.
Hillary, I have sold on Amazon for one year and have received nothing but positive feedback — everyone has left all 5 stars except one person who left 4 stars.
Everything Amazon “grades” me on is objective except for the customer’s feedback left for me and even that is weighted in my favor because I am not penalized for buyers who do not leave feedback (Amazon assumes buyers who do not leave feedback must be satisfied).
I am graded (by Amazon for seller performance requirements) on whether my items are shipped on time, the number of orders I cancel (if I don’t have the item in stock), the number of returns I have, and the number of chargebacks, etc… all of these are objective verifiable numbers.
And, because Amazon also recognizes that not all buyers leave subjective feedback, they “grade” me on negatives received (none for me) as a factor of the number of items I have shipped NOT the number of feedbacks I have received. So, if I have received 10 feedback – 9 positive and 1 negative – but have shipped 100 items then my feedback percentage for the seller performance grading is 99% (99/100)even though potential buyers see a grade of 90% (9/10).
Compared to Amazon’s objective grading system, eBay’s system seems completely irrational to me.
I guess I am just selling the wrong stuff. We have been selling on Amazon for just shy of a decade and have only managed to get about 10 feedbacks in that entire time, about half of which were reviews of the products and of the remaining 3 were negative because buyers didn’t understand Media Mail. But it is great to hear that their feedback system works for someone!
WOW! I guess the type of product you sell on Amazon makes a HUGE difference. I thought that receiving only 60 positive feedback in a year was an extremely low number, based on the number of units I actually sold. It is interesting how two good sellers can have completely different experiences on the same platform.
“I suppose this whole thing comes from my expecting other sellers to run their business as I run mine which is, I suppose an unreasonable expectation.”
The beauty of ebay was that it was not supposed to be a bunch of businesses. No business would ferret a precious item out of a pile of filth, decontaminate and clean it, and offer it up for your perusal and possible purchase. No business gives enough of a whit about an item, or about you, to do that. It’s not in the ‘financials’ –whatever THAT means…
But ebay presumes to know in 10 years what it took me nearly 30 to learn. To call it discrimination is an understatement- the amount of present policy informed by stereotype at ebay is staggering.
The more they intercede ‘on your behalf’ the more you lose. Selection dries up as sellers view every ASQ as an attempt to probe their defenses. This damage will take years to repair and I hope Google is watching closely, should they ever attempt an auction venue, for the lessons learned here.
On ebay as with the flesh and blood antique/collectible circuit, you had the front liners who dumpster surfed and curb hopped, and were the actual source of the stuff. They sold for way too little, often were not hygienic and physically presentable people, but had the best stuff.
In brick-and-mortar land, the smart shopkeepers let the fancy cars park in the front lot while the sagging rotted pickup trucks, their closely held connections, parked in the back. In so doing they forgave these rough folks their flaws. It was an implicit contract- They understood the tradeoff was worth it. The only value proposition the shop really offered was to pass the stuff along and aggregate it.
Ebay worked best when it was about stuff and not people’s behavior patterns or socioeconomic station. To present anonymous DSR’s to buyers was a great idea. To wire them into search was horrendous, and antithecal to ebay’s original item-centric mission.
As a buyer you should take great offense that your favorite items are being driven off the site- even if only indirectly- as good but small sellers get spooked and leave.
You should also feel irked that your judgement isn’t trusted as being intelligent enough to read and interpret various sellers’ DSR scores for yourself.
Kind of in line with what you’re saying, there should be a box you can click which indemnifies ebay against performance related issues and lets you “in the back” where the good stuff is.
If the true intent of ebays present setup were merely to alter sellers’ behavior, rather than to actually eliminate them, then ebay would add service charges the worse your scores became, like in any other industry.
I’m just a guy who comes across some really great stuff in the course of his dirty, grimy job and I think other people would like a crack at it. Most times I’m right, to the point I’m willing to pay for the times I’m wrong.
But I am NOT a business. I hope I never become one. Businesses throw a little bit of America away every day. I go running in and save it.
Interesting points of view from everyone. In reference to the previous poster, you make some good points about how your niche works. The problem lies in the fact that Ebay and internet consumers have changed substantilly in the past decade. In Ebay’s (and e-commerce in general) early days, it was okay to have more of a setup like you mention. It was okay to be a free-for-all, even, because this was a new thing and everyone, buyers and sellers both, were still feeling their way along.
But things are different now. Internet consumers have become conditioned to expect the kind of service they get from the big guys, like Amazon. They want their stuff cheap and they want it fast. Ebay has gradually evolved into a platform that attempts to force this kind of service via various mechanisms, like DSRs and Best Match. Whether they’re successful or not is up for debate. The one thing you can say, however, is that a seller now has to be a business and run that business accordingly if they hope to have long-term success on Ebay or any other sales venue. It’s not just an Ebay thing, it’s everywhere.
I’m constantly amazed at the complaining about DSRs that sellers post on various forums. They whine that they shouldn’t get bad ratings because their car broke down/they were in the hospital/the dog ate their postage stamps/etc… While one can be sympathetic to these situations, what these sellers don’t realize is that buyers don’t care. Buyers just want their stuff. They’re used to dealing with businesses and expect their purchases to be treated as business transactions. The whole mom-and-pop environment still exists, but fewer and fewer buyers are willing to put up with sloppy service, since they’ve become so accustomed to the good service of the major ecommerce vendors out there. Would you put up with purchasing a book from Target if there were dead bugs in the bag?
(that really squicks me, BTW – big time shudder here
I think not. IMHO, there’s no excuse for stuff like that.
As an FYI, I do buy lots of vintage stuff on Ebay and have encountered some truly awful packaging and service — though, no dead bugs, thank goodness. My lame-o seller prize goes to the genius who packed a breakable carnival glass dish in one layer of newspaper inside a Capt’n Crunch cereal box. The broken glass bits were poking out of the box when it arrived.
Being a business doesn’t make you some evil entity. It just means you make some effort to do things right and, hey, maybe make a pot of money while you’re at it. Sure, it requires some investment of time and often, money, but you need to think like a buyer and treat them the way you would want to be treated in their shoes. Far too many of the excuse-mongers have lost sight of that, and that’s why Ebay is trying to force them into a more business-like mold. I’m not saying Ebay’s approach is the best, but it’s clear that *something* needed to be done. Maybe if more sellers exercised a little common sense, a lot of the problems could have been avoided.
It’s been interesting to read these comments-i’m not really one who looks for info about eBay even though i’m a seller, and this has been enlightening. I also buy a lot of stuff as well, in fact ebay wanted me to take a survey as a buyer, which i chuckled to myself about! i would agree that people want it fast and cheap (pretty much describes our society, wow
) but I agree with the guy that says you have to find the collectible, clean it, present it, etc., At the same time, that thing can’t be defective, dirty, or not what your description says. I bought a purse that the seller said was in well cared for shape, it came to me shoved into a box, with the handles falling off. But the thing that bugs me about DSR’s and Best Match is that ebay lowered me because of shipping costs, and I don’t over charge on shipping, but people want it cheap and don’t want to pay shipping charges. I’m not sending something for free, and I send it out in a timely manner, and yet i’m ‘lowered’. It can be really discouraging to sell on ebay with the people you have to deal with as well, mean people who must be disliked by everyone around them! I’ll probably stay with it for now, but i’m discouraged about selling rather than encouraged. PS How do you disable Best Match? Thanks for the site.
I lot of things mention here as far a customer service is very simple. Just get the item out quickly, be polite to your buyers, and securely pack you items so they don't get damaged in transit. In many ways if you run across an unpleasant buyer you may not even know it because your dealing with them online. It's basically they paid, you pack and ship, and answer the occasional question.
I couldn't agree more! Most would-be bad buyers can be good buyers if you head off problems before they have a chance to happen!
I lot of things mention here as far a customer service is very simple. Just get the item out quickly, be polite to your buyers, and securely pack you items so they don’t get damaged in transit. In many ways if you run across an unpleasant buyer you may not even know it because your dealing with them online. It’s basically they paid, you pack and ship, and answer the occasional question.
I couldn’t agree more! Most would-be bad buyers can be good buyers if you head off problems before they have a chance to happen!