topic Re: I have stopped leaving feedback in Selling

I have stopped leaving feedback

stampingpaws — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 13:59:01 GMT

I have stopped leaving feedback for items I sell.

You may wonder why? Well, here are my reasons.

1 - It is optional

2 - It cannot be neutral or negative. Or even positive with a negative tone. It can only be positive.

3 - Buyers are generally, reluctant to leave feedback til they receive the goods and feedback.

4 - Not leaving feedback discourages buyers leaving feedback for me.

5 - If the buyers do not leave feedback it cannot be negative or neutral. So no defects.

6 - If there is no feedback there cannot be value of stars. So no defects, again.

7 - Also, they cannot answer if the item arrived within the time set by eBay. So no judging me on postage which is out of my control.

I will keep doing this until the new system is introduced next year. I will re-consider it them.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

justajunk — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 14:37:39 GMT

I like leaving feedback as it helps me keep track of whether buyers have bought off me previously or not.

I do, however, wait until I receive feedback from buyers before leaving it myself.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

polly.the.cat — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 15:00:01 GMT

l could not agree with you more. Like a shop, if you get no service, goods are poor, you voice with your feet and never go back.

Every reason you brought up was sensible, correct, and well thought out.

Yes, voice your right, after all it is only optional. l do the very same as you now, have done since BIG BROTHER EBAY, dictatored the game plan, so l decided NOT TO PLAY THEIR GAME,......I DO NOT LIKE THEIR RULES.

PLUS, ebay change the Rules in the middle of the Game. WRONG !!!!!!

Will look at the whole GAME PLAN yes, next year, who knows, there might be a New Coach ???

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

maranock — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 19:12:27 GMT

??? Sorry but this post makes no sense to me, none of these reasons explain why not leaving feedback is going to help you at all.

I have not had any experience of not leaving feedback has made buyers not choose to use their feedback rights.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

harley_babes_hoard — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 19:36:55 GMT

I don't even think about leaving feedback, I have it set to auto. if someone's leaves pos feedback they get pos feedback in return.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

clarry100 — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 20:31:33 GMT

We always leave feedback for the buyer when we complete packing their order.

We also use it to leave a followup comment just in case there is something wrong with the transaction down track that warrants a comment.

Whether or not we receive feedback from the buyer to us is neither here nor there unless its not POS. Then we want to know why.

Most often tho if bad FB is left for us (rare event thankfully) it's done with no prior contact from the buyer and they never respond to questions about it either. Usually if you look at their track record it is littered with bad FB for other sellers over all kinds of nit-picky things, so in such cases we just leave a suitable non-emotional response add them to our BBL and move on.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

saarzi — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 22:10:17 GMT

This doesnt make much sense to me either, but each to their own.
I give feedback to almost everyone.

If they leave me positive feedback, great.

If they give me a defect thats unwarranted, I followup my feedback with their name and something to warn other sellers.

If you leave no feedback at all, how would anyone know if a buyer is bad or not?

You cant leave a negative positive but you can certainly get around that with if youre smart about it.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

dotm2004 — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 22:35:43 GMT

I leave feeddback as soon as I receive payment ... it has never been a problem or caused any hassles. At that stage the feedback states that the payment has been received and a thank you.

Any problems later can be sorted out between the buyer and myself (if item isn't received, etc) or through eBay.

Like saarzi, I would leave follow up feedback if a problem arises .... and Yes, in the case of non-payment, you can always say that payment wasn't received or no contact, "in the nicest possible way" 🙂 There has to be some way to warn others, and that's the only way I know how.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

lane-ends — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 22:44:20 GMT

If they are thinking of giving you a bad feedback, why do you think by withholding it will prevent that?

In fact it can only encourage them. Only feedback it may prevent is positives, so your % is going to suffer.

I like feedback, as it gives me a heads up when something may need a rethink.

I leave it at soon as packed as order is packed, and its never done me any harn in last 12 years.

You can provke unecessary disputes simply by having a defensive attitude

Stop worrying about shadows and just provide the best service you can, it will improve your experience and mindset.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

4wd_products — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 23:45:21 GMT

We feel the same on the double-standards, but have automated feedback - only left when the buyer leaves a positive.

Whilst it doesn't change the fact we can't leave bad feedback for a drop-kick, it does encourage the good buyer to return as you have acknowledged that you appreciate their business.

Even just an automated "we appreciate your business" works well, with no risk or effort.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

*tippy*toes* — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 02:00:05 GMT

I tend to agree with you. I don't leave feedback until it's been left for me first. If a buyer leaves positive but trashes my stars (yes, I check every single transaction), they don't get feedback in return. All they get from me is a reply to the feedback they left, with their username, stating they trashed my stars.

Generally as a rule I don't leave false positives for non payers. Why contribute to their feedback score? I'm happy with the dispute process. If other sellers don't have their blocks in place and get caught by the same weasel, that's their problem.

I agree wholeheartedly about the "did the item arrive within the estimate" question. That is absolute carp. A few months ago a buyer admitted that they had ticked no, as well as leaving 1 star for postage time and as described. She gave raving positive feedback. I have a 5 day handling time, I posted within an hour of payment, she lived interstate and it was there within 2 days (even though the estimate said 7-10 days)......still well before my handling time had even expired.

I sent her a polite message asking if there was a problem and if there was, is there anything I can do to rectify it. She said that she was happy with the item, but wasn't blown away by it. She said that usually for items like that, she leaves feedback but doesn't leave a star rating. I pointed out that she had left 1 star for 2 categories and she didn't recall doing that. She also admitted that she had ticked no for the postage estimate question. She then asked me if there was anything she could do to rectify it. I said she could contact eBay and state she had left those ratings in error and ask for them to be removed, however, she wasn't obligated to do so.

I took it upon myself to contact eBay and pointed out the above and also directed them to the messages between myself and the buyer. They agreed that the tracking showed that it had been posted within an hour of payment, it had arrived well within the postage estimate and that the buyer had stated she left the description star in error. They removed the bad ratings and the associated defects. I sent the buyer a message saying it had all been sorted.

It makes me wonder how many other buyers tick no purely because they can, even when the tracking clearly states it arrived well within the estimate.

The only time I leave feedback for a buyer before they leave it for me is for a new buyer with 0 feedback. I feel they have bought and paid straight away, so I'm giving them a kick start to their feedback score.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

heihachi_73 — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 07:03:26 GMT

I leave positive feedback when I see the blue $ next to the sold item. If I don't see a blue $ next to the item, they receive an email (courtesy of "Send invoice"), a friendly reminder message (also offering them to cancel if they didn't want it, just in case their pet goldfish decides to hop out of the fish tank and travel all the way from the living room to the second bedroom in order to browse eBay for half an hour and click on a dozen things while magically avoiding the section that requires them to pay), and eventually an unpaid item case if they do not respond whatsoever.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

dotm2004 — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 07:12:41 GMT

I agree with you Clarry.

I leave feedback when I receive payment, the buyer leaves feedback when they receive the item .... can't see that there's an issue with that.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

amber-eyed-girl — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 08:01:35 GMT

That's interesting about the buyer ticking no. I just had an item arrive one day later than the window, and as everything was above marvellous I ticked yes...because I didn't know what the true ramifications of a no might be. Also, we had a public holiday in there too. So to my mind that meant giving them an extra day anyway.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

*tippy*toes* — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 09:22:54 GMT

She said she ticked no because it arrived outside of the estimate. She couldn't apologise enough when I told her it had actually arrived before my handling time had even expired, therefore well before the first date of the estimate. I mentioned that ticking no can have ramifications for the seller and also mentioned about the defects associated with the low star ratings.

She had no idea about defects and said she will take that into consideration when leaving feedback in the future. She also said she will not answer that question, even if her item arrives outside the estimate. She was very grateful for the info I gave her and said the last thing she wanted to do was affect a sellers rating if there was a risk it could see them shut down. I had no reason not to believe her as she seemed like a genuinely nice person.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

clarry100 — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 10:13:04 GMT

Tippy we have also educated a few buyers in a similar way in the nicest possible way.

And their response has been very close to what you describe here.

They really have no idea that what they do can have serious ramifications for a seller.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

*tippy*toes* — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 10:44:11 GMT

I educated a high feedback seller the other day. My husband bought a pre sale DVD, which was clearly stated in the listing, but the seller still sent a message letting us know that it wouldn't be sent until Nov. 11th. I thanked him for his message and said that I am one of the few buyers that does actually read the description. He replied that he now sends those messages as a matter of course for those types of orders because buyers haven't read the listing and given him negative feedback. I said that as a seller myself, nothing burns me more than buyers not reading the description.

I then decided to look at his negatives and took it upon myself to send him another message saying that almost all the negs could possibly be removed because some had a very positive comment e.g "absolutely over the moon with my item, fast shipping, great seller" and the others were saying that he was slow to post even though both the title and the description said they were pre sale. He replied saying he didn't know that you could contact eBay to have them removed, he thought once they were there, that was it. I said that if they do remove them, be sure to ask them to remove the associated defects as well.

A few emails went back and forth about different things and I mentioned about buyers leaving glowing positive feedback and then trashing your stars really annoying me. He asked how I knew who had trashed them. I replied with instructions on how to run a detailed seller rating report to see who had left what. If he thanked me once, he thanked me 50 times!

It made my day (or days as it was) knowing I had helped someone. It really did. Especially a someone who has sold quite a lot of stuff.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

catlovertony — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 15:29:01 GMT

I do not agree with your logic I am sure it will stop some buyers who would of left positive feedback from leaving it but I doubt very much it would stop any unhappy customer leaving negative feedback and due to the fact your happy customers did not leave feedback the negative will show as a much higher percentage.

Personally I have it set to automatically leave feedback when a customer pays my reason is as a buyer I feel safer with sellers who do that and as far as I see if once I am paid it is down to me to do my best to make that customer happy. Yes of course there will always be people unhappy no matter what you do but that is part of sales both online and in a B+M business

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

latina4621 — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 18:55:21 GMT

The only time i don't leave feedback is when a seller demands it via email.

Re: I have stopped leaving feedback

247newdeals — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 22:53:47 GMT

opps wrong post