Buyer Not Rating Seller?

[ausgeoff1946]

I recently sold an item to a buyer, which was confirmed

as delivered—with the tracking note—two weeks ago.

A week ago, I contacted the buyer to ensure they were

happy with the item, and politely suggested they leave

me a 5-star positive rating.  I have yet to get any response

from this buyer, and no seller rating.

I'm a new seller with only half a dozen successful sales so

far—all with positive ratings—so it's important for me to

be increasing my favourable seller status as soon as possible.

So... do I send another request to the buyer for a rating?  Or

do I just write this off as a failed seller/buyer relationship?

BTW, does eBay send any sort of prompt to buyers who fail

to rate sellers for successful transactions?     Is there any

exigency  for buyers and sellers to rate each other?      Is

it just etiquette, or are there generally accepted "rules" about

this?

—Thanks in advance.       👍

[ausgeoff1946]

Thank you.  Yes, I agree that a positive feedback rating is important to

new sellers like me with only six sales.  And I certainly can't see anything

wrong with politely asking a buyer for a rating the one time.  When I did

that with one of my buyers once, they actually gave me a seller rating

and apologised for forgetting to do so—which was nice!

I really think common courtesy should apply to all buyer-seller transactions

rather than the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" mentality that often

pervades the issue of giving timely ratings as both a buyer and/or a seller.

I've purchased 381 items on eBay, and have always given the seller a +ve

rating—for 378 of them—with one negative and 2 neutrals.  Why can't other people

be as courteous as me?  Or am I ultimately wasting my time giving sellers a

rating—as another respondent here suggested, as ratings purportedly don't

matter all that much?

[sugar249]

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@ausgeoff1946 wrote:

You say  "If I had a seller badgering me for feedback and

5 star rating, they'd be getting an instant negative and 1 star...".

Well, I certainly have not "badgered" the seller.  I asked them only the one time

as a politely-worded request for a positive rating.  I didn't even ask specifically,

or "demand" a five-star rating.  If you (apparently regularly?) fail to give your

buyers any rating, and then give them a one-star rating for asking is really beyond

the good faith and civil nature of the buyer-seller relationship here on eBay.

Your question was should you send a second request,  that's badgering or to me harassment (the first request would be as well.

I am assuming that you are talking about a different account to this one.

Why is giving a one star rating beyond good faith if you badger them, isnt the buying experience, more then just paying money and receiving an item.  Its the whole interaction.    I don't want to walk into myer, pay my hard earned, get the item.  And than as I am walking out the sales assistant runs after me asking for feedback,  than if that fails,  they do it again.    Not everyone is into giving feedback. 

I do give feedback,  but it could be a month after my purchase,  not for any other reason than thats just how I do it,  we do things on our timeline not yours.   I dont need the seller harassing me.

[domino-710]

Personally I'm turned off by the ' politely suggested '.

Perhaps an ' ask ' more suitable.

[ausgeoff1946]

As I said earlier, I did NOT "harass" the buyer.

I sent a perfectly reasonable, politely-worded request for a positive

rating—the ONE time only.  Why is it that a few people here have

described this as harassment when it's clearly not?

As a long-term eBay buyer, I've often got reminders/requests for

positive feedback from sellers, and responded immediately with

same.  I've never been annoyed with those requests—why should I?

In most cases it was simply because I'd forgotten to give feedback,

or it'd slipped under my radar in the longer term.

I note that one forum member here is happy to "weaponise" their

ratings response.  If they receive a rating request, they apparently

automatically rate them with a negative because it pees them off.

Which, in my opinion is not on!  A negative rating threat is NOT meant

to be utilised as a retaliatory response in any way—it's meant to reflect

poor service and/or the poor quality of the item received.

Personally speaking, I'd never threaten and/or apply a negative rating

simply because someone contacted me with a reasonable request.

It's petty, and reflects poorly on the person making the threat.

[ausgeoff1946]

I'm not into playing semantics games, so your response

is not really relevant to the thrust of my posting.     Sorry.

[domino-710]

Indeed it is - one does not ' suggest ' - one asks politely.

If they feel the need to at all.

[sugar249]

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@ausgeoff1946 wrote:

As I said earlier, I did NOT "harass" the buyer.

I sent a perfectly reasonable, politely-worded request for a positive

rating—the ONE time only.  Why is it that a few people here have

described this as harassment when it's clearly not?

There you go, you admit you asked for a positive rating,  thats implying thats what should be given.

Maybe they didnt feel they had a positive experience,  but don't like giving negatives.  So give nothing,

Again I guess you are talking about a different account,  you didnt politely answer that question?

[countessalmirena]

I’d like to give some context to the buyer feedback experience.

I’m a buyer only, but not as inveterate a buyer as many others on eBay. Even for me (as a person who is happy to give feedback and has very rarely given anything other than a positive), it is a little annoying to give multiple feedback ratings and comments for a multi-item purchase. If everything was fine in that purchase, I’d like the option to give one all-encompassing “Excellent purchase; wonderful seller; all is fine” with a green dot automatically given against each item — but eBay doesn’t enable that.

I can only imagine the relentless pressure unconsciously experienced by buyers who buy far more on eBay than I do, especially if the purchases are made (and arrive) in waves. Items to the left of me, parcels to the right… stuck in the middle with feedback… (sorry, Stealers Wheel). Another point to consider is that if they’re buyers who have been on eBay since the time when it was more of a community where rare and odd items were bought and sold by individuals, they are more likely to have an expectation of feedback being meaningful.

But the old meaning of feedback has dissipated, and it’s now a more businesslike atmosphere.

Feeling pushed to give a LOT of feedback has led some buyers to ignore the eBay reminders to give feedback at all (except of course when there’s a problem!).

For some, it’s “Yeah, yeah, when I feel like getting around to it.”

For many, it’s just not something they want to do. They don’t have to give feedback; it’s also not an indicator of whether or not they are courteous people. It is NOT the equivalent of a “thank you” as one pays for goods in a shop. It’s feedback - an artificial construct within the eBay environment. Voluntary. 

At any rate, it’s safe to say that the first flush of feedback fever has gone.

Yet sufficient numbers of buyers will still leave feedback to enable sellers to build their reputation - more slowly than some would like, but quite steadily. You can’t push it, and you can’t encourage or force (or anything inbetween) buyers to give feedback. Some will; some won’t, and thereby ends the tale.

Disclosure: I have almost always given feedback. The exception is when a transaction has been insufficiently bad to earn a neg, but not so good that I’m comfortable recommending the seller — or if circumstances intervene for whatever reason it may be.

[davewil1964]

Lucky you.

I'm down to around 20%.

It can be irksome to sell a  thousand items per year and not get enough feedback to get a new seller level. The $$ tend to cushion the pain, though.

[*sons_n_daughters*]

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@ausgeoff1946 wrote:

Thanks for your response.       😊

When you're a new seller—like me with only 6 ratings—every positive rating

is needed in order to establish an attractive seller history.  If a seller has

hundreds of +ve ratings, say five hundred or a 1,000 it's ultimately neither

here nor there whether a buyer rates them or not.  In my case it's different.

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The thing is, you may only have 6 feedback as a seller, but given that majority of buyers don't check feedback (heck, they can't even read an item description!), all they're going to see is you having nearly 400 feedback with 100% positive. That's good enough for them.

As for sending messages, ebay sends multiple automated messages about leaving feedback. If a buyer gets a number of those reminders, then a message from you, even only one, they may see that they are being badgered. Leave the reminding up to ebay.