Buyer Not Rating Seller?
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. 👍
springyzone
·3 years agoI'm a buyer, and quite often in the past, I have received little cards in with my purchase, that say something along the lines of, 'If you are happy with your purchase, please consider leaving positive feedback for us. If you have a problem at all though, please contact us directly so we can rectify it.'
I have absolutely no problem with those sorts of notes. I do not take it as harrassment.
I wouldn't really like to be asked to leave '5 star feedback' though & I am not sure exactly why that puts my back up whereas the other message doesn't. Probably because it is too needy or just that bit too coercive.
So be careful how you word any request. And after one request, just leave it. Drop it.
Most businesses these days seem to ask for feedback. I am constantly being asked.
A few months ago I lost my temper with one request from Target and I left feedback alright. I wrote something like-I have been asked to give feedback about my purchase. Pity they don't follow up on their sales as carefully as they follow up with feedback requests or they would see from tracking that they haven't even posted it off to me yet. Very poor service.
So requests for feedback can misfire. I would not have given that feedback at all if they had not sent a request.
What some others have said is true anyway. You've got almost 400 in feedback score. That will be good enough for most buyers, it shows you've been around ebay a while. Only a few will check how many of those scores are for sales and if all the sales are positive, then all is fine. You'll eventually get more feedback from some buyers, Stress less.
oldtiger2016
·3 years agoI've considered all the responses to my initial question,
and I thank those people for taking the time to help me.
This is my final word on the topic, and I post it here verbatim
from eBay's site:
Leaving Feedback is an important part of buying and selling on eBay.
If you are a buyer, leaving a review for your purchase is a great way to rate your experience with a seller on eBay and help other buyers make informed decisions. If you're a seller, leaving Feedback for your buyer is a great way to say thank you. This mutual feedback process enhances the eBay shopping experience for everyone and also helps eBay be the best possible platform for you.
sandypebbles
·3 years agoAnd still, despite eBay's 'feel good' copy and paste footnote
The fact remains that feedback is voluntary (as said numerous times)
Plus, since buyers can only be left positive feedback or nothing at all, that in it's makes a mockery of their 'enhancing the eBay experience' line
sugar249
·3 years agoAnd where in the Ebay cut and paste does it say it is compulsory, or that sellers (or buyers) should harass the other party insisting on 5 star feedback. I must have missed that part.
countessalmirena
·3 years agoAs I said earlier in this thread, eBay’s feedback policy had been reworded — several times, actually. In none of the iterations of the policy has it been stated that feedback is compulsory. Rather, the original wording specifically stated that feedback is voluntary.
When I went to the feedback policy pages again for this thread, I noted that the latest changes had removed the word “voluntary” from the respective pages, even though it is still voluntary.
What you have quoted in no way negates this. Feedback is still voluntary. And eBay’s saying that feedback from a SELLER is a thank you does not make it so. It’s in fact a ridiculous thing for eBay to say; sellers can only leave positive feedback so there are only two options for a seller: green dot or no dot. Positive comment or no comment. Proscribed type or nature of content cannot reflect how every seller feels about every transaction.
As far as a thank you from sellers goes, most of my purchases include a thank you somewhere along the line. (Often at the actual time of purchasing, with “Thank you for your purchase”.) That rather knocks eBay’s suggestion about seller feedback being a thank you right out of the water.
eBay’s reason for removing the word “voluntary”…? Probably to encourage feedback as much as possible without making it mandatory.
domino-710
·3 years agoPersonally I'm turned off by the ' politely suggested '.
Perhaps an ' ask ' more suitable.
ausgeoff1946
OP3 years agoI'm not into playing semantics games, so your response
is not really relevant to the thrust of my posting. Sorry.
domino-710
·3 years agoIndeed it is - one does not ' suggest ' - one asks politely.
If they feel the need to at all.
siddieswans
·3 years agoWhat everyone else has said. EXCEPT I can’t blame a new seller for thinking it is OK to contact a buyer requesting a rating when every retailer, business, service provider I deal with seems to ask me to do just that. I have 2 requests drop into my In Box in the last hour, one from a motor dealer, the other from a ride share.
ausgeoff1946
OP3 years agoThank 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?
*sons_n_daughters*
·3 years agoI agree with what everyone else has said. If a buyer leaves me feedback, I'll return the favour. Otherwise, I don't bother. I don't care if I get feedback as a seller or a buyer. I am here to sell items, not get some pretty green tick on a screen. It's not like you can take the green ticks out to dinner and a movie.
Besides, these days, I'd take a guess and say MINIMUM 75% of buyers don't look at a seller's feedback. That is evident by the amount of buyers coming here thinking they have been scammed, where, if they'd looked at the feedback, they'd have never bought there in the first place. Yet, they do.
If I had a seller badgering me for feedback and 5 star rating, they'd be getting an instant negative and 1 star for everything. It would be worded something like "here's the feedback you wanted so desperately" (yes, I've done it). That feedback does not qualify for removal under the ebay policy. I have had sellers put a card in my parcel basically demanding 5 star ratings. They get a 1 star, if I can be bothered. I figure a 1 star is going to hurt them more than not leaving a rating at all.
Be careful what you wish for............
Let it go. If your items are good, people will buy without you having a high seller feedback rating.
ausgeoff1946
OP3 years agoThanks 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.
So, it's not just "a pretty green tick" to me. And as a long-term buyer, I always
check a seller's feedback rating—after all that's exactly why it's there, and why
it can be decisive in dealing with them. If I'm buying an item at the same price
and checking several sellers, who am I going to buy from? The person with an
89% rating, or the person with the 99% rating? Obviously the latter.
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.
Incidentally, as soon as I received the item from the seller in good order and as
advertised, I immediately gave them a five-star positive rating. Should I not, at
the least, expect a return favourable rating? After all, eBay suggests this sort of
buyer-seller etiquette is what makes the site so successful.
When all is said and done, it takes all of 20 seconds to leave a feedback rating,
and is hardly any reason you should be "bothered" doing this. Is your time really
that valuable? It would seem you're happy to spend that 20 seconds leaving a
one-star rating, but not a five-star rating? Strange indeed.
sugar249
·3 years agoYour 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.
ausgeoff1946
OP3 years agoAs 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.
sugar249
·3 years agoThere 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
·3 years agoI’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.
*sons_n_daughters*
·3 years agoThe 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.
sugar249
·3 years agoOn my real account I think I average that 30% of buyers leave feedback. Some only give it after I have left feedback. Others just don't.
If you harrassed me to give you feedback, it would guarantee either no feedback or downgraded feedback
If like you are asking you asked a second time, neutral or nagative.
davewil1964
·3 years agoLucky 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.
countessalmirena
·3 years agoSnappity snap.
countessalmirena
·3 years agoFeedback is entirely voluntary.
It used to be stated specifically in the Help pages about feedback; those pages have since been reworded and it’s not as clear, but it remains purely voluntary.
If you contact buyers asking them to leave feedback (and moreover to make it 5-star feedback), anecdotally it annoys buyers and may even cause some to give a negative or neutral.
padi*0409
·3 years agoNo, do not pressure the buyer for feedback or you may well end up with feedback you don't want - like a neg or a neutral.
Feedback is voluntary..................
Edit. Snap again Sandy and Twyn.............
sandypebbles
·3 years agoNo
Feedback is 100% voluntary
and if you keep harassing the buyer to do so, they may end up giving you a neg
You will find very few buyers bother to leave feedback
So I'd be racking it up as 'quite normal'
twyngwyn
·3 years agofeedback is voluntary.....a lot of buyers don't bother nowadays, a lot forget where they purchased items from....some leave f/b late, once ebay remind them....
Leaving Feedback for sellers | eBay