This is one of those posts that will probably tick some people off but I have a real issue with this train of complaint.
I see this all over the blogs and even in listing texts. Some people feel that the new quality standards (which is what the DSR ratings basically are) are unfair to hobby sellers. Now, I agree that DSRs are set up stupidly (Reasonable vs very reasonable on a charge we have no control over? Don’t get me started.) but, for all their issues, as long as you are providing a reasonably good service, you should have nothing to worry about from DSRs.
I’m sorry but this is a fact. You have to be pretty terrible to have below a 4 in anything.
I really got into it was a so called “hobby seller” over this issue a few days ago. This seller sold on eBay “for fun” and she was convinced it was terribly unfair that DSRs were ruining her search ranking. Now, her DSRs were truly terrible and nearly all were for slow shipping time and description as she only ships once a week and writes pathetic 2 word descriptions with bad pics. She whined on and on about how unfair it was but when I suggested stepping up her game a little she balked. It was, after all, just her hobby. It was like she was wearing her “hobby” status as a badge of laziness that said she didn’t have to work as hard as a “real” seller.
To a buyer, there is no real seller vs hobby seller. That is the point of DSRs. To warn buyers who they are going to get good service from and who they aren’t. You may want to run a bare minimum eBay business. But I have a right to know that ahead of time and avoid you because of it. If you are going to take weeks to mail my package until you get around to going to the post office, I am going to go with the seller that will mail it tomorrow, no questions asked.
That isn’t unfair to you as a seller. It would be unfair to me as a buyer if I WASN’T warned about how crappy you are.
Because, seriously, if you cannot meet that bare minimum of quality to keep your DSRs up, you aren’t good enough to do this hobby.
There is no hobby that doesn’t have some kind of responsibility or cost.
If your hobby was racing, you would have to show up on time for the race. Yes, you might have to rush a little to get there on time, fixing your car would cost money and you would have to give up the time to actually run the race.
If your hobby was model airplanes you would need to make time to put together the model and deal with the time it takes for the glue to dry.
So why is having eBay as your hobby the only hobby where it is not supposed to inconvenience you in any way? If your hobby is eBay, then getting your items shipped quickly, packing well, taking good pictures, answering emails, etc are a part of the hobby. If you cannot meet these simple requirements of the hobby then, guess what, you cannot do the hobby and DSRs will issue that smackdown.
When I was in college, I was what you could call a hobby seller. I sold when I could find time to list and it was often only a few items a month unless I was on break because I had class and a ton of work. But during my “hobby” phase I didn’t totally slack off. In fact, when I was only selling a handful of items, it was even easier to give good service because I was only mailing 1 or 2 packages instead of hundreds, answering only a few emails, etc.
My point is that being a part time, hobby or casual seller doesn’t have to mean bad seller. But, for a lot of people, it does because they think that the badge of part time, hobby or casual gives them license to give poor service. As long as you can give full time attention to your few items on your part time schedule, there should be no reason this affects you.
As a buyer, it makes me happy that eBay is holding everyone to the same quality standards and if you can’t stand the proverbial heat, get out of the proverbial kitchen.
You can totally do eBay as a hobby but, like all hobbies, it’s going to take a little work to keep up.
I have a very low tolerance for whiners this week, can you tell? 
Well said – totally agree.
The only thing I have against DSR’s as a hobby or casual seller is if you happen to get an unfair DSR rating there is nothing you can do about it and with a small amount of sales one transaction that is perceived by the buyer as not 4 or 5 star can kill your numbers. I had one incident of a new buyer who purchase something that needed to ship in an oversized box. I only charged actually shipping and the weight of the actual item was in the description but she hit me with 1′s on shipping costs because it was charged at the 20lbs rate due to the size of the box. I only had about 15 dsr at the time so my numbers really dropped and I didn’t sell enough at the time to bring it up quickly.
That is about the only reason I find DSRs unfair for the smaller seller
Thank
Karen
The DSR debate rages on. I guess eBay Canada’s customer service agent DSRs were too low too. A shame.
I agree with what you are saying for the most part. One of my issues with the DSR system is that it is totally subjective at the hand of the buyer.
I wonder if anyone in power ever considered some sort of automatically calculated shipping DSR that could factor in a time comparison between when a sale was made and when a shipping label was generated.
It also seems criminal to me that you and I could pay the same insertion fee and one of us could have our search standing lowered based on a possible slight difference in DSR’s.
Yes, the law of averages can work against you if you are only selling one or two items a month but, by the same token, all you need to do is wait 30 days for a bad rating to pass or just sell more stuff to get your ratings back up. It isn’t a death sentence, just a minor inconvenience.
I wholeheartedly agree with you! I’ve been on eBay (buying AND selling) since 1999 but I’ve only been on eBay’s message boards for the past six months — the DSR’s and the feedback are the two BIGGEST complaints you see over & over again — all the lousy sellers don’t like to be forced into being honest! Nine times out of ten, if you check the whiner’s ID over @ toolhaus, they were HEAVILY into the retaliatory negative feedback game too, but just TRY telling ‘em that THEY were the cause for these changes and they pounce on you. One post I keep seeing over & over is “eBay is “faking” the DSR scores just to gyp me out of my discount!” lol and recently, there was a seller over there talking about how they’d diligently watch their scores, note a fall in points and then email the buyer who most recently posted FB to ask why they scored them low in a category! Unbelievable! All in all though, it seems that those most unhappy about the changes just quit selling (or have, at least, claimed to), which is FINE by me as they give the honest sellers here a bad name. I noticed a pretty big change in the level of customer service & honesty recently so I’m fairly pleased with the implementation of DSR’s (Shhh. you cannot DARE admit that on the ebay “Soapbox” lol). BTW, I just stumbled upon your blogs & I’ve been reading for hours! Great Blogs!!
I try to never worry about feedback & DSR’s. I just do the best I know how to do and let the chips fall where they may. I am very pleased that the new Top Rated Seller status will be measured using the # of transactions instead of the # of ratings. I can always increase my # of transactions. I have NEVER & will NEVER solicit feedback & ratings but I am ALWAYS trying to increase sales.
.-= Gary Overton´s last blog ..#19 Top Rated Seller Tip-Link to Similar Items You May Have =-.
I hate being lied to, and if an item was listed as New and was not disclosed in the auction description as smelling of smoke, I will leave negative feedback and an extremely low DSR. Any item that reeks of smoke is NOT new. I never bid on smokey items. Want to avoid negative feedback and terrible DSR’s, Sellers? Then never, ever lie to a Buyer!