Recently Tagged with "buyer"

This will become more of an issue in the future, because eBay is making it an issue.

With the changes announced by eBay earlier this year, buyers are now rating your performance for -

item as described
communication
shipping time
shipping & handling charges

(We don't believe that these 4 categories are of equal importance to buyers. And we don't believe that eBay made these rating categories equal in importance as a result of considerable volumes of interviews with buyers.)

The scale is 1, 2,3, 4 or 5 stars. There is no 4.5, 4.8, 4.2 rating from a buyer. Only full numbers.

5 is very satisfied
4 is satisfied
etc.

So, if you are doing your job as a seller, you should earn a 4 star rating - the customer is satisfied.

eBay has announced that they will reduce the recent 20% to 50% increase in seller's fees if the seller maintains a buyer feedback higher than 4.5.

If the seller's cumulative feedback falls below 4.5, there will be no discount off the seller's fees for that month.

Many buyers will not give a seller a 5 star rating, even if you did everything properly and maybe even did efforts 'above and beyond' what someone could or would expect if they were the seller instead of the buyer. Some people just don't give '5s' or leave big tips in restaurants.

(We know a seller who ships for FREE and still got a 4 from some of their customers!)

It doesn't take many 4s to really bring down a whole bunch of 5 ratings from buyers. And we don't believe that eBay has told buyers how their feedback scores can cost a seller money, cost the seller to not have their items show up on search results and lose the seller their hard earned Power Seller rating.

This issue is involved with other aspects of your business, too. So, I will add to this post to give all sellers more information that they need to know about the new feedback ratings and how it can affect your business.

If you know more facts about this topic or can share personal experiences, please add your comments that may be helpful to the seller community.

The purpose of this discussion thread is for sellers to know important information that can affect your online business. If we do our jobs well, we will be able to share ideas of what we can do to help sellers and even buyers in a fair and honest manner.