The MLP Arena
TCB => Trader & Shipping Support => Topic started by: bluerose9978 on October 08, 2017, 05:52:54 AM
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This is kind of a complaint/topic. I'm curious as to the lack of feedback lately in my eBay transactions both as a seller and as a buyer. I'll buy something on eBay and get the item and leave glowing feedback and the seller won't leave feedback in return. It's strange. And as a seller I have been selling ALOT of ponies and yet getting very few feedbacks lately. I have probably been receiving one feedback for every 7-8 transactions. It's strange because it never used to be like this. I also wanted to find out if there is anything that you have done that has been successful to remind your buyers/sellers to leave feedback for you?
So I wanted to poll my fellow pony people about your eBay feedback habits. Mods, please move this if it's in the wrong place.
Post Merge: October 08, 2017, 06:00:22 AM
I leave feedback for every transaction good or bad. I rarely leave negatives or neutrals but I feel feedback is an integral part of eBay and our forums.
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Mostly. Usually, I leave it right away so the seller knows I have received my package. If I forget, I will catch it the next time I go in to leave feedback.
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Mostly, unless I forget. There have been a few times I had real life stuff going on and by the time I remembered to leave feedback Ebay wouldn't let me. I try to leave it as soon as I can after getting my item and making sure it's as described. :) I've had a few seller on Ebay not give me feedback in return or be really slow in returning feedback (up to a month later) I've only given 1 negative on Ebay when I was charged for Priority Shipping an the seller sent the item Media Mail.
Ponyfan
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I always leave feedback, the transaction just doesn't feel complete otherwise. I know not ever seller has left me feedback in return.
This has been noticed on Etsy as well. People are saying they get a review for 1 out of every 4-5 transactions. My store is really slow/small, so I've only had 2 sales, but no reviews yet. Gotta get a few more sales and maybe I'll get one.
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I always leave honest feedback. Sometimes I'll bet the seller wishes I hadn't disclosed their selling/packaging tactics! ;)
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Most of the time unless I forget or circumstances come together in such a way that I couldn't. I do leave feedback as appropriate.
I remember leaving neutral feedback because this store showed a picture of one thing, sent us another thing entirely and the only reasons I didn't leave a negative was because the fast shipping from overseas and my boyfriend really liked it. So I mentioned all of that.
The one time I left negative feedback was because I bought something from amazon, the seller musta thought we were blind because he put a different item in entirely, refused to answer our emails and only deigned to answer after we took our case to amazon and told us that the item was out of stock. I called him out on his dishonesty and told him that he should have told us from the get-go and either offered a refund, or offered to let us pick an item of the same value.
Other then that, I like leaving good feedback, as I almost never have problems with sellers and on the occasion that there is a problem with an item, we're both willing to work together.
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I admit, I am disorganised and I often forget to do it when I receive the item. Or more likely I'm here and not at home and so I get items in bulk when I go home and only then can review what they're like.
I will always leave feedback for a buyer when I know the transaction is done successfully but when I do feedback it is usually in bulk and so it might be a few weeks later but then I'll do twenty or so at once, buying and selling.
I try and leave feedback on here more regularly because the system works better, though I admit sometimes I forget and sometimes the other person forgets and I don't lose sleep about it. But the feedback on here to me is more valid than that on ebay, thus matters more in my mental trading world. On the other hand, Arena feedback also has its limits, because it only represents transactions done here in a specific time period of the site. I had to build it from zero even though I had a lot of prior trades. Most of those (as opposed to sales or buys) were done in the years before there was an Arena or any kind of feedback and where we kept lists of email addresses of past trade partners and people sent emails asking for personal recommendations before they dealt with someone. Maybe that's part of the reason I have a sort of old fashioned view of what 'feedback' really is :/.
I realise the importance of feedback to community safety, but I don't obsess about it and if I don't get left feedback it doesn't hurt my feelings. I make more of an effort to leave good feedback for a member with less feedback already because it matters in their case more than it does in mine.
Frankly, though, I find ebay feedback largely worthless these days for the following reasons.
A seller cannot always leave honest feedback as the negative option is debarred them.
A buyer who leaves feedback on a case where a claim was made for a refund or whatever can have their feedback revoked and removed. I had this happen on someone selling counterfeit stuff which ebay knew was the reason for my claim. I wanted to destroy the counterfeit and not send it back to the seller to sell to anyone else and the only way that was permissable was that my feedback about the counterfeiting was removed, no action was taken against the seller.
Feedback % no longer counts for the whole of your history but a recent period of it. So you can scam a bunch of people in amongst good feedback, wait a few months and then start over and get a 100% record before scamming folk again. Not everyone reads through the feedback of sellers, though they should...they look at the % and it's not always right. Also, because of the above restrictions on sellers, it's not always right when it comes to buyers. I have 100% positive feedback since 1998 on ebay and the only negative I ever had was someone who wrote a positive comment, ticked the neg box, had a mental breakdown over it trying to apologise and ebay removed it when they saw what had happened. In spite of that, Ebay limit how much you can sell based on how much you sold recently, not how good your overall feedback is. In the past one negative could damage your whole reputation. Now it's a passing inconvenience so long as you meet the speed stats, and faster is not always better.
I also hate when people send me a message asking for feedback. That's ugly in my view, asking for feedback to be left. We all do things in our own time and in our own order. We have busy lives, we buy online because of that. I am less inclined to leave feedback for someone who asks for it than I am someone who doesn't. I usually get around to it, I rarely don't do it - but I'm going to do it in my own time, because as I said above, as far as I am concerned it's a very minor thing and much more important that the buyer or seller had a good experience. And I'd rather have an email from a buyer telling me they loved the pony than a shiny comment on my feedback profile. The buyer loving the pony is more important to me than increasing my stats.
And as we've seen in the past, you can be a power seller and have thousands and thousands of feedback...and be lousy at customer service.
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I admit, I am disorganised and I often forget to do it when I receive the item. Or more likely I'm here and not at home and so I get items in bulk when I go home and only then can review what they're like.
I will always leave feedback for a buyer when I know the transaction is done successfully but when I do feedback it is usually in bulk and so it might be a few weeks later but then I'll do twenty or so at once, buying and selling.
I try and leave feedback on here more regularly because the system works better, though I admit sometimes I forget and sometimes the other person forgets and I don't lose sleep about it. But the feedback on here to me is more valid than that on ebay, thus matters more in my mental trading world. On the other hand, Arena feedback also has its limits, because it only represents transactions done here in a specific time period of the site. I had to build it from zero even though I had a lot of prior trades. Most of those (as opposed to sales or buys) were done in the years before there was an Arena or any kind of feedback and where we kept lists of email addresses of past trade partners and people sent emails asking for personal recommendations before they dealt with someone. Maybe that's part of the reason I have a sort of old fashioned view of what 'feedback' really is :/.
I realise the importance of feedback to community safety, but I don't obsess about it and if I don't get left feedback it doesn't hurt my feelings. I make more of an effort to leave good feedback for a member with less feedback already because it matters in their case more than it does in mine.
Frankly, though, I find ebay feedback largely worthless these days for the following reasons.
A seller cannot always leave honest feedback as the negative option is debarred them.
A buyer who leaves feedback on a case where a claim was made for a refund or whatever can have their feedback revoked and removed. I had this happen on someone selling counterfeit stuff which ebay knew was the reason for my claim. I wanted to destroy the counterfeit and not send it back to the seller to sell to anyone else and the only way that was permissable was that my feedback about the counterfeiting was removed, no action was taken against the seller.
Feedback % no longer counts for the whole of your history but a recent period of it. So you can scam a bunch of people in amongst good feedback, wait a few months and then start over and get a 100% record before scamming folk again. Not everyone reads through the feedback of sellers, though they should...they look at the % and it's not always right. Also, because of the above restrictions on sellers, it's not always right when it comes to buyers. I have 100% positive feedback since 1998 on ebay and the only negative I ever had was someone who wrote a positive comment, ticked the neg box, had a mental breakdown over it trying to apologise and ebay removed it when they saw what had happened. In spite of that, Ebay limit how much you can sell based on how much you sold recently, not how good your overall feedback is. In the past one negative could damage your whole reputation. Now it's a passing inconvenience so long as you meet the speed stats, and faster is not always better.
I also hate when people send me a message asking for feedback. That's ugly in my view, asking for feedback to be left. We all do things in our own time and in our own order. We have busy lives, we buy online because of that. I am less inclined to leave feedback for someone who asks for it than I am someone who doesn't. I usually get around to it, I rarely don't do it - but I'm going to do it in my own time, because as I said above, as far as I am concerned it's a very minor thing and much more important that the buyer or seller had a good experience. And I'd rather have an email from a buyer telling me they loved the pony than a shiny comment on my feedback profile. The buyer loving the pony is more important to me than increasing my stats.
And as we've seen in the past, you can be a power seller and have thousands and thousands of feedback...and be lousy at customer service.
I wish it were true that feedback didn't matter but as a seller it actually does. Your items become more visible and eBay will give you more perks. As a buyer it doesn't matter as much, though.
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I wish it were true that feedback didn't matter but as a seller it actually does. Your items become more visible and eBay will give you more perks. As a buyer it doesn't matter as much, though.
Only if you meet a certain quota of sales in a set period, though. I used to be able to list as much as I wanted when I wanted, but since I don't sell regularly, now my listing power gets restricted because of the feedback % resetting to 0. It's an unbalanced way of rating sellers based on quantity of sale (ie how much money they are making for ebay), not their quality of sale. I am obviously not saying you're not a good seller, I know you are - but there are plenty of people with a lot of feedback but not much interest in the customer, and they have more right to sell on ebay in spite of that (like my counterfeiter, mentioned above, also a power seller who had been doing this a long time and probably still is).
If Ebay went back to their old system whereby a record was from scratch and you were rewarded according to your feedback tally and not penalised for periods of not selling, I'd go back to leaving feedback more diligently. But right now it's really not about feedback but quantity of sales.
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I was annoyed when I left great feedback for the seller that sold me my MLP Sunny Daze wallet a few years ago and even though I had paid promptly and everything and had been a great buyer, the seller didn't leave me any. I really could've used some too because this was a new ebay account with no feedback at all. On the business side of things, he was great. Got me my item on time and as described and everything but I think not leaving me feedback was a jerk move.
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I was annoyed when I left great feedback for the seller that sold me my MLP Sunny Daze wallet a few years ago and even though I had paid promptly and everything and had been a great buyer, the seller didn't leave me any. I really could've used some too because this was a new ebay account with no feedback at all. On the business side of things, he was great. Got me my item on time and as described and everything but I think not leaving me feedback was a jerk move.
In a situation like that with a new buyer with no or low feedback I always make an effort to leave feedback because it does matter when you are starting out.
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Apparently it didn't matter to that guy but oh well. Still using that wallet all this time later and it's nice and sturdy still.
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You aren't alone in noticing people not leaving feedback on eBay lately. I was just talking to my friend about my experience with people not leaving feedback from items bought months ago!
Ebay has evolved a lot since inception and while reputation is still important most buyers don't even realize it is important to sellers. They get their item and move on just like they would if it were an Amazon purchase. I think it's just lack of knowledge honestly, but I get a little frustrated too, so we are in the same boat.
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I leave feedback in batches at a time, to both buyers and sellers.
That said . . . although I do like getting feedback as a buyer, it's also pretty pointless. Like, wow, you've rewarded me for doing the bare minimum: paying for a thing I bought, lol. It's not like you get feedback when you shop on HasbroToyShop or Amazon or anywhere else, but we are so conditioned to expect it on eBay.
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I always leave feedback unless unusual circumstances leave me unsure of what sort of feedback to leave. I think that's only happened twice:
On one a occasion, a seller waited something like ten days without shipping my item. I opened a case requesting a refund as it would be past when the item was needed by the time I'd have received it. He disregarded the request and finally mailed the item.
On another occasion a seller had a misleading listing where the item was not as described. She agreed to a partial refund, but then jerked me around with sob story excuses for a week. She finally issued the refund when I told her I would open a case if she didn't resolve the matter.
Other than those two instances, I've always left feedback.
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I do always leave feed back except once to one buyer in the UK who went to a load of trouble for me arranging for tracking postage specially. I felt terrible but it took more than 3 months for the items to arrive and eBay would not let me leave feedback. I didn't know that this was going to happen and when it did I did my best to contact them to try to resolve it, but if you have a request even slightly out of the norm it seems to stump them completely and they just send you the stock-standard reply of "how to send feedback". Yes, that I know. But it was not what I asked you. Siiiigh...
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I do always leave feed back except once to one buyer in the UK who went to a load of trouble for me arranging for tracking postage specially. I felt terrible but it took more than 3 months for the items to arrive and eBay would not let me leave feedback. I didn't know that this was going to happen and when it did I did my best to contact them to try to resolve it, but if you have a request even slightly out of the norm it seems to stump them completely and they just send you the stock-standard reply of "how to send feedback". Yes, that I know. But it was not what I asked you. Siiiigh...
I think you can go into your seller account dashboard, under feedback and go back farther than 2 months.
I usually go out of my way to meet my buyers' needs when they request it off me. Unlike your circumstance, it doesn't usually fall out of the two-month time period, but it has fallen out of the shipping time expected (like when I am supposed to ship within 3 days after payment but my buyer wants to wait for an auction to end a week away so they can combine shipping and hadn't contacted me ahead of time). Yet, after I have gone out of my way doing things like that, they still won't leave feedback, it's irritating.
And I have had a couple in the past few months who have sent me messages about how they loved the ponies and the customer service and were going to leave positive feedback but then never did..... I don't get it?
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I do always leave feed back except once to one buyer in the UK who went to a load of trouble for me arranging for tracking postage specially. I felt terrible but it took more than 3 months for the items to arrive and eBay would not let me leave feedback. I didn't know that this was going to happen and when it did I did my best to contact them to try to resolve it, but if you have a request even slightly out of the norm it seems to stump them completely and they just send you the stock-standard reply of "how to send feedback". Yes, that I know. But it was not what I asked you. Siiiigh...
I think you can go into your seller account dashboard, under feedback and go back farther than 2 months.
I usually go out of my way to meet my buyers' needs when they request it off me. Unlike your circumstance, it doesn't usually fall out of the two-month time period, but it has fallen out of the shipping time expected (like when I am supposed to ship within 3 days after payment but my buyer wants to wait for an auction to end a week away so they can combine shipping and hadn't contacted me ahead of time). Yet, after I have gone out of my way doing things like that, they still won't leave feedback, it's irritating.
And I have had a couple in the past few months who have sent me messages about how they loved the ponies and the customer service and were going to leave positive feedback but then never did..... I don't get it?
That must be so frustrating!
I don't sell, only buy, and I wasn't allowed to even contact the seller to let her know what happened. We had a postal strike and go-slow combined with Christmas which really delayed everything. :(
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I do always leave feed back except once to one buyer in the UK who went to a load of trouble for me arranging for tracking postage specially. I felt terrible but it took more than 3 months for the items to arrive and eBay would not let me leave feedback. I didn't know that this was going to happen and when it did I did my best to contact them to try to resolve it, but if you have a request even slightly out of the norm it seems to stump them completely and they just send you the stock-standard reply of "how to send feedback". Yes, that I know. But it was not what I asked you. Siiiigh...
I think you can go into your seller account dashboard, under feedback and go back farther than 2 months.
I usually go out of my way to meet my buyers' needs when they request it off me. Unlike your circumstance, it doesn't usually fall out of the two-month time period, but it has fallen out of the shipping time expected (like when I am supposed to ship within 3 days after payment but my buyer wants to wait for an auction to end a week away so they can combine shipping and hadn't contacted me ahead of time). Yet, after I have gone out of my way doing things like that, they still won't leave feedback, it's irritating.
And I have had a couple in the past few months who have sent me messages about how they loved the ponies and the customer service and were going to leave positive feedback but then never did..... I don't get it?
That must be so frustrating!
I don't sell, only buy, and I wasn't allowed to even contact the seller to let her know what happened. We had a postal strike and go-slow combined with Christmas which really delayed everything. :(
Well, you may be able to go under your dashboard, account, feedback and go back that way. It would be the same place as if you wanted to reply to a feedback. EBay's search engine isn't helpful at all and neither is their "help" option. Sometimes you just need to explore their dashboard.
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I leave feedback in batches at a time, to both buyers and sellers.
That said . . . although I do like getting feedback as a buyer, it's also pretty pointless. Like, wow, you've rewarded me for doing the bare minimum: paying for a thing I bought, lol. It's not like you get feedback when you shop on HasbroToyShop or Amazon or anywhere else, but we are so conditioned to expect it on eBay.
Its not just that. Getting good feedback by paying quickly and by not being a jerk lets others know they can risk selling to you without fear of getting screwed over.
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Most of the time. I'm pretty vigilant with feedback really. Sometimes I won't leave feedback if I'm conflicted about the purchase. Then I'll usually air my grievances to the seller privately, via PM, rather than potentially confusing their future customers with my wishy-washy feelings!
For example I recently bought a MLP DVD not available in my region (My DVD player is multi-region). I had to import it, so postage cost was heavily taken into account, and whether or not they used the GSP, because I am NOT paying $30+ to ship a freaking DVD. Just NO. So all I could get my hands on was a really nicely priced DVD, which was listed as in Very Good Condition, but they'd changed the description to be much less detailed than the standard ebay spiel about the condition of the disc and case. Now as I said, the price was really good, but they used a stock picture, so I had no reference for the condition. Please guys, only use stock pics if the item is new. Otherwise it's just not okay!
When it arrived, it was not something I would have listed under that condition pier. I would leaned towards 'acceptable', going by the standard ebay condition descriptions, as there were both scratches on the disc, and some light damage to the DVD cover insert. I list DVDs myself, and I only list something as Very Good if it's like new, but without the plastic wrap! But they did have a rather vague condition description, and the stock picture, plus the price should have added up in my head. I took a gamble, and it didn't pay off. It's as much my fault as the sellers, and that's why when I received it, I messaged the seller with my impressions, rather than leaving a neutral, or dinging stars, because really, I got something that *could* have been as described, and the product I received was worth what I ended up paying. Mind you, I'd never buy from that seller again, because I consider moving the condition goalposts and using a stock picture kind of shady, especially when dealing with mediocre-quality items. But maybe it's different overseas, too. Maybe using your own condition terms is acceptable, or the done thing even. In the end I got an item for the going rate of something in that condition. We're even, and I'm happy with the condition of my item being what it is, because it still works.
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I always leave feedback.
Only one time did I not, and it was because I pre-ordered a figure, and it took many weeks before it was even released, and then shipped to me.
I actually didint even know that theres a time limit to leave feedback. :huh:
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I'm very diligent about leaving eBay feedback. It's so quick and simple to do! I'm just a buyer on eBay these days, so I don't really mind if I don't get feedback in return. I'm probably a bit lenient with my feedback: if I got the item, I leave positive feedback (I do say if postage was slow or whatever though, but it's generally not the seller's fault). I've only ever once had to leave a negative. It seems I've been lucky and done all my buying from nice helpful people.
I admit I am really bad with Etsy feedback. It takes longer because you actually have to write a review with a certain number of words instead of just giving them five stars and saying 'it's great, thanks'. I also don't buy much on Etsy, and they have a weird rule not allowing you to leave feedback until about a month after you order, so I often forget. But I do try to be a good, feedback-leaving person in general!
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I always leave good or great feedback ( sometimes the copy paste is great). Except one time when the pony got lost in the process and l never got it. It was not the seller fault so l didn't want to say anything bad for him or she, but l thought leaving good feedback would've been false.
Recently l left some great feedback to a seller that was new and with no comments on his account. So that he had some for the future. Besides he was really great so why not helping him a bit?
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I leave feedback in batches at a time, to both buyers and sellers.
That said . . . although I do like getting feedback as a buyer, it's also pretty pointless. Like, wow, you've rewarded me for doing the bare minimum: paying for a thing I bought, lol. It's not like you get feedback when you shop on HasbroToyShop or Amazon or anywhere else, but we are so conditioned to expect it on eBay.
Its not just that. Getting good feedback by paying quickly and by not being a jerk lets others know they can risk selling to you without fear of getting screwed over.
Agreed. It also lets you know that this person buys, they pay, they are trustworthy, and if they like your item they may come back to you again for something else.
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I always leave feedback on Ebay, and here. I also always leave star ratings for Taobao transactions. It's kinda similar to ebay but the ratings for logistics, customer service and I forget the 3rd catagory - item description maybe?, they show up for each individual seller. Due to the language barrier, I usually don't leave written feedback other then to say Thanks in Mandarin.
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I admit that if I am not happy at all with the way an item was shipped to me but it arrived okay, I typically will not leave feedback. The way a seller wraps and ships items I buy is a big deal to me. For example recently I bought a mib pony. The seller just wrapped it in bubble wrap and a paper sack. This boxed item should have gone into another box. I was livid even though it had no damage. I cant get myself to give this seller any feedback at all. Sure I got it and it is okay, but neglecting to use proper shipping materials is big deal to me. There is no reason to write them either. If the item is okay they will just get in a twist and tell me to quit telling them how to sell, they have sold for 10 years yadda yadda yadda. I always leave feedback for anything else, problematic sales where items are not described well, if I plan to return it I will leave feedback if that goes okay. If I can't return it because it was an international purchase or the seller didn't box it right and I am going to lose more money boxing it correctly to ship it back...well, that again no feedback. It is hard for me to leave a negative. I have but not often. Feedback is one of those things that I feel is important for the whole transaction not just your item arriving, but was it packed right, was it as described, was there any communication, did you get tracking, did they mark it shipped...all of this is a factor. Many sellers do a great job, but lately people have been super lazy. It doesn't warrant a negative or a neutral, but I am not going to leave feedback that is positive when I feel the seller did very little to respect my purchase and send it properly, in a decent amount of time and described correctly. To me no feedback is better than a negative. This doesn't happen often, but its just a thing with me.
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As a buyer, I usually leave feedback within 24 hours of receiving the item (unless there's a problem that I need to contact the seller to resolve... in that case I'd wait to see how the transaction works out in the end).
As a seller, I leave feedback after it's left for me. If the buyer doesn't leave feedback after 30 days, I usually leave feedback for them. If there were any issues with the transaction I won't leave feedback at all since you can't leave negative or neutral for a buyer.
I also find that more than 50% of eBay buyers don't leave feedback for sellers these days. :huh: I'm not sure that anything can really be done about it... it is just the way a lot of buyers are.
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I admit that if I am not happy at all with the way an item was shipped to me but it arrived okay, I typically will not leave feedback. The way a seller wraps and ships items I buy is a big deal to me. For example recently I bought a mib pony. The seller just wrapped it in bubble wrap and a paper sack. This boxed item should have gone into another box. I was livid even though it had no damage. I cant get myself to give this seller any feedback at all. Sure I got it and it is okay, but neglecting to use proper shipping materials is big deal to me. There is no reason to write them either. If the item is okay they will just get in a twist and tell me to quit telling them how to sell, they have sold for 10 years yadda yadda yadda. I always leave feedback for anything else, problematic sales where items are not described well, if I plan to return it I will leave feedback if that goes okay. If I can't return it because it was an international purchase or the seller didn't box it right and I am going to lose more money boxing it correctly to ship it back...well, that again no feedback. It is hard for me to leave a negative. I have but not often. Feedback is one of those things that I feel is important for the whole transaction not just your item arriving, but was it packed right, was it as described, was there any communication, did you get tracking, did they mark it shipped...all of this is a factor. Many sellers do a great job, but lately people have been super lazy. It doesn't warrant a negative or a neutral, but I am not going to leave feedback that is positive when I feel the seller did very little to respect my purchase and send it properly, in a decent amount of time and described correctly. To me no feedback is better than a negative. This doesn't happen often, but its just a thing with me.
If you don't think it was packed properly, if people look through a seller's feedback, they will see a comment like "Item wasn't packed properly." I look through sellers' feedback because I am curious from whom I am buying. If you don't feel a neutral or a negative is warranted, then you can ding one star for shipping. It won't hurt the seller's score but at the same time you can leave your message for other buyers so they know that this seller is lazy when packing their items so that they may not want to take that risk. It'll also send a clear statement to the seller that you weren't happy and that there is something on which they can improve if they so choose.
Post Merge: October 11, 2017, 05:11:17 AM
I also find that more than 50% of eBay buyers don't leave feedback for sellers these days. :huh: I'm not sure that anything can really be done about it... it is just the way a lot of buyers are.
I wonder why that is? It seems most people here who are on eBay leave feedback. So I wonder why the "average eBay buyer" feels that they are not entitled to finish the transaction? It would be nice if eBay would step up and see this and make some changes with the feedback system to reflect this trend.
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I leave feedback in batches at a time, to both buyers and sellers.
That said . . . although I do like getting feedback as a buyer, it's also pretty pointless. Like, wow, you've rewarded me for doing the bare minimum: paying for a thing I bought, lol. It's not like you get feedback when you shop on HasbroToyShop or Amazon or anywhere else, but we are so conditioned to expect it on eBay.
Its not just that. Getting good feedback by paying quickly and by not being a jerk lets others know they can risk selling to you without fear of getting screwed over.
eBay feedback USED to be vitally important because people used to pay by check and money order before Paypal. With checks / money orders, eBay could not 'force' a buyer to pay or a seller to refund, nor could they 100% know who was telling the truth if a buyer said "I paid" and a seller said "they didn't". But if the buyer had a string of negative "didn't pay" feedbacks, yeah, that was a big warning to sellers.
But now sellers can't leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers.
So it's meaningless. All buyers have 100% positive feedback for buying (except very old legacy accounts) because it is impossible to get anything else.
Edit: I mean, I get that positive feedback is nice to receive; I like getting it too. But as far as conveying anything useful to sellers, it just doesn't anymore.
The way to spot problem buyers these days is to check their "Feedback Left For Others" tab. If they've LEFT a ton of negatives, then they're to be avoided.
Similarly if they've left a high percentage of "there was a problem, but the seller made it right" positive feedback then they are probably a serial "pretends there's a problem and begs / threatens for partial refunds" buyer.
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I leave feedback in batches at a time, to both buyers and sellers.
That said . . . although I do like getting feedback as a buyer, it's also pretty pointless. Like, wow, you've rewarded me for doing the bare minimum: paying for a thing I bought, lol. It's not like you get feedback when you shop on HasbroToyShop or Amazon or anywhere else, but we are so conditioned to expect it on eBay.
Its not just that. Getting good feedback by paying quickly and by not being a jerk lets others know they can risk selling to you without fear of getting screwed over.
eBay feedback USED to be vitally important because people used to pay by check and money order before Paypal. With checks / money orders, eBay could not 'force' a buyer to pay or a seller to refund, nor could they 100% know who was telling the truth if a buyer said "I paid" and a seller said "they didn't". But if the buyer had a string of negative "didn't pay" feedbacks, yeah, that was a big warning to sellers.
But now sellers can't leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers.
So it's meaningless. All buyers have 100% positive feedback for buying (except very old legacy accounts) because it is impossible to get anything else.
Edit: I mean, I get that positive feedback is nice to receive; I like getting it too. But as far as conveying anything useful to sellers, it just doesn't anymore.
The way to spot problem buyers these days is to check their "Feedback Left For Others" tab. If they've LEFT a ton of negatives, then they're to be avoided.
Similarly if they've left a high percentage of "there was a problem, but the seller made it right" positive feedback then they are probably a serial "pretends there's a problem and begs / threatens for partial refunds" buyer.
And this is why eBay needs to overhaul their feedback system once again. If they want to leave it where sellers can't leave anything but positive feedback, then they should have a box that can be checked by the seller to inform eBay that the buyer was a problem buyer. That they harassed the seller, were a non-paying buyer or that they made threats for partial refunds, etc. There needs to be something more put in place for the sellers. After all, they are the ones paying the fees.
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As a buyer, I usually leave feedback within 24 hours of receiving the item (unless there's a problem that I need to contact the seller to resolve... in that case I'd wait to see how the transaction works out in the end).
As a seller, I leave feedback after it's left for me. If the buyer doesn't leave feedback after 30 days, I usually leave feedback for them. If there were any issues with the transaction I won't leave feedback at all since you can't leave negative or neutral for a buyer.
I also find that more than 50% of eBay buyers don't leave feedback for sellers these days. :huh: I'm not sure that anything can really be done about it... it is just the way a lot of buyers are.
+1 to this. As a seller this is basically what I do. Usually feedback being left is the only way I know that the buyer received the item. I ask them to let me know (I worry about things arriving as I sent them). So usually I leave feedback when I get feedback.
I also don't leave feedback if there is an issue. eBay did change their feedback page now, so it brings up a "report your buyer" button if there was a problem. I just don't see that it actually does anything.