topic Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE in Selling

Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

djm_fibre — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 03:45:15 GMT

I would like to stress my opinion on the complete failure of the ebay feedback system. As a business seller in all my seller adds i offer a complete refund or product replacement with no questions asked, weather it be postal damage, buyer not happy , whatever the case the option is to return the item and a full refund is granted. with offering a policy like this as business owners in Australia have to by LAW, why is it that a buyer can still out of frustration post negative feedback ??? this is in no way a fair system to business owners who pay thousands of dollars in fees per year.

Also i would like to add that as a percentage on my sales alone only 55% of buyers have left feedback, so with this figure it is not an accurate reading on my seller performance.

Ebay needs to accomodate business sellers with new terms and conditions set out, as being a registered business is already has laws involved and is much differant to a public person selling an odd item here and there, that is where the feedback system creates confidence in buying from a stranger.

In my opinion being a business seller on ebay and with current laws and poilicies from ebay itself it is always a battle and very stressful to be able to trade efficiently. as a business seller the feedback system should be completly overhauled as a buyer is already assured of a secure purchase with current laws.

In summary the system in place is a complete failure and as a business owner i feel like a naughty school child when a complaint is handled by ebay itself.

Regards.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

kopenhagen5 — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 04:43:46 GMT

If it's the bonnet scoop, gotta say, it's listed as new not remanufactured. (nowhere in the listing as remanufactured)

Agree though, the feedback system needs to be overhauled.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

character_parties_aus — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 05:29:36 GMT

I got a right doozy this week. Buyer sent me the wrong address when she purchased and the item was returned to me due to this. I let the buyer know and they promptly refused to pay any return postage when politely asked to, demanded a full refund and left me negative feedback!. it was untracked but ebay wont remove the neg. I courteously let the buyer know and got penalised for it. Stupidity defined by both the buyer and ebay system. The buyer has now left three negs for the last 3 sales now for the same thing. Some people are beyond help. I am now waiting for the claim. Although I doubt said buyer is smart enough to work out that bit.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

davidc4430 — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 05:49:25 GMT

'a complete failure'?

i think prime minister abbott was a complete failure and his replacement is very close to the same.

not sure i can put ebays feedback system in the same catagory as those two.

but i get your point.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

pacotrading — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 06:19:00 GMT

Yes point it is the feedback system is really outdated nowadays as very small percentage of happy buyers come back to leave it, as buyers purchase from websites with out having to leave feedback, so the only ones who mainly use the feedback system are the peed of buyers or knee jerk reaction ones, so it tends to be lop sided nowadays.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

mydiyau — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 07:14:20 GMT

Feedback system fails to expose serial scammers and extortionists. Anybody leaves more than 20% negative feedbacks should be investigated or send a warning to seller and give seller an option to cancel the transaction with a high risk buyer without getting a defect.

See my post on serial scammers, caught quite a few in the last two years from my buyers. When you get a negative feedback or very difficult buyer check their "feedbacks left" first, you could be dealing with a professional ebay scammer. Never drop your pants when facing a scammer. Expose them here and share your experience and blocked lists.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

englishrosegardens — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 08:47:05 GMT

I still have 70 to 75% leave feedback for me. A lot depends on the product sold, I find.

I don't care whether a business offers a full money back guarantee - if they waste my time by sending the wrong item or an item that's not described properly, I think I'm entitled to leave honest feedback to warn others what to expect. It's the same with B&M's - if I don't get proper service from a store I don't see why anyone should have the right to gag me so I can't tell others about my experience.

Too many businesses think that sloppy service is okay so long as they fix it later, but it's not. They object when buyers waste their time but they have no qualms about wasting a buyer's time. A buyer might miss out on a good buy elsewhere and it's extremely frustrating not to get exactly what you paid for. How many people get so turned off they don't bother to return things but just wear the loss.

Not saying it applies to the OP but a lot of online businesses operate on this principle nowadays. Apparently a lot of bigger sellers never answer questions either because even though they may lose a sale they see it as an inefficient use of their time. This has been the case for several years on ebay.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

mydiyau — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 09:16:39 GMT

Brick and mortar stores don't have to deal with level of **bleep** ebay sellers face. "free postage" "full refund" "fees on postage" "6 months money back guarantee if paid with Paypal" "can't leave negative feedback to buyer" "cyber bulling with negative feedback" "ebay / paypal as judge / jury" etc

Not saying brick & mortar business are risk free from obnoxious buyers, some of them now operate on ebay. But it's a matter of scale, bargaining / purchasing power, level of warranty support from suppliers. We small businesses don't stand a chance on ebay with such tough operating conditions.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

character_parties_aus — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 09:25:17 GMT

To me and to most people its a matter of whats fair and reasonable. I find most buyers and sellers fit this mold. Unfortunately ebays one size fits all approach to siding with the buyer basically all of the time simply causes resentment by sellers and opens them up to fraud by the few unfair and unreasonable people. The approach to me is a self defeating prophecy but is not going to change. So as a seller if you dont like it then you know what to do!

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

pacotrading — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 09:30:47 GMT

Ha worked as a delivery driver for a B&M store years ago, they had there share of customers from hell, i remember the sales staff would run and hide behind large screen TV s or behind refridgerators when those customers would enter the store. LOL

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

digital*ghost — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 09:50:27 GMT

I'll preface this by saying I understand where you're coming from, and agree that the feedback system leaves a bit to be desired, but ultimately (JMHO) it's not quite as bad as it can feel when someone leaves a neg out of the blue, especially now that neutral and negatives no longer impact a seller's account standing with eBay.

The thing is, any business - whether they are online, B&M only, or a combo of both - can receive publicly posted negative feedback, be it through review sites or social media, and the person posting the feedback is under no obligation to alert the business to their dissatisfaction (no matter how nice it would be - personally I consider it a matter of respect, I don't expect to always be able to make it so the problem never occurred at all and to receive glowing positives after an error), I just appreciate knowing what's happened so I can A) offer options to help as much as possible, and B) try to ensure it doesn't happen again), but my point is that these kinds of scenarios are not exclusive to eBay, it's just that the feedback is a little more accessable to prospective buyers.

I get all kinds of less than perfect feedback on the sites I sell, (I don't mean I get heaps of negative reviews, just that the ones I do get are about all sorts of different things). I recently had one where the length of the item is kinda the primary item stat, so was in the title, in the description, along with pictures of it next to a ruler. A person who had previously bought a different length purchased these (obviously) shorter ones, then left the equivalent of a neutral because they weren't as long as they would have liked. I spent the day intermittently entertaining myself with the various replies I could post (my two favourites were "sorry to hear that, just out of curiosity, how long would you like 40mm to be?", and "I know how you feel, I wish 6" was longer than 6", too" Cos, you know.... a 6" Subway sandwich is never quite enough.... ). But ultimately I just left it as, really, that feedback reflects more on the other person than on me.

In the case where the feedback accuses or blames me of something, I simply leave a calm, factual response intended to show other customers (not the FB leaver), how I handle and respond to such things. It probably comes as no surprise, but sometimes having something to recommend you after a problem is actually worth more than 100% feedback, so to be perfectly honest.... I no longer care anywhere near as much as I used to about maintaining a perfect record. (I won't say I don't care at all, because I definitely do, and I have had more than one buyer just straight out lie in FB which really grates, but I also recognise that the more I let their actions bother me, the more effect I allow them to have on my performance).

What I would really like to see in an extra stat on the seller info summary on listings, and their feedback profiles, one that shows the total number of completed transactions - this is done on another site where I sell, and shows at a glance that I've had a respectable number of sales, that the feedback I've received is for less than 30% of them, and (via an average star rating) that customer satisfaction is high, which is easy enough for prospective buyers to interepet as very positive overall.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

davewil1964 — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 10:51:36 GMT

I tend to treat members who have been with eBay for 11 years and only come to the boards today for a whinge with ignore.

We all know the system. Those of us who actually use the boards know all the pitfalls.

Consider yourself lucky. My feedback is running around 30%. And I am sure I'm not the only one who would love 55%.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

saarzi — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 03:37:49 GMT

Having a law in place that requires sellers to refund faulty or poor quality goods doesnt make receiving poor quality or broken goods a positive experience. I dont understand how you could possibly think that sending customers poor quality or broken items is ok to begin with, let lone think that giving a refund makes everything better?!

When someone buys a product they have a legal right to expect it to be *exactly* as described, and expect to be told of any issues etc beforehand, and expect it to be of reasonable quality in line with the price paid (yes, quality vs. price is part of the refund laws in Australia).

Clearly with your items this isnt happening. Giving a refund doesnt mean they didnt have a sh*tty experience with you / your store. It doesnt magically erase all the time and energy they WASTED in buying something from you and the disappointed they felt when they received a **bleep** item, or what a terrible seller that makes you look like.

Therefore, have a right to leave you a negative review when they have gone through a negative process / experience. Giving them a refund is not the point.

This really isnt complicated. Don't give customers negative experiences, like sending them items that are faulty, poor quality or dont do what they are supposed to do, then you wont have so many refunds, and you wont have so much negative feedback.

Everyone here is in the exact same boat as you ...... and for the small number of items youve sold, you have a huge amount of negative feedback.... thats not normal. All the feedback even has similar complaints - poor quality or broken or doesnt do what its supposed to. Surely you realise something youre doing isnt quite right?

I dont think youll have to worry though, I suspect eBay will shut your store for you soon.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

heihachi_73 — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 03:44:18 GMT

Not only that, negative feedback doesn't do anything to seller accounts anymore. If I was the OP I would be more worried about their detailed seller ratings.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

casbit33 — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 04:07:15 GMT

I wish they would get rid of the feedback system altogether.

It's not a true representation of anyone because not everyone gives feedback, and sellers can ONLY give positive feedback.

I would like to see it all gone and replaced with a puplic board that shows serial bad sellers and buyers. A real name and shame showing their real names as well.

This way the sellers could block all the pests and buyers not buy from bad sellers. Then we are left with the good ones.

On another note, I would like to see Aust post put simple tracking on letters. It wouldn't be hard to do and would save a lot INR false claims.

oh well it's nice to dream when everything else is just scary.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

*tippy*toes* — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 04:31:21 GMT

AP can put tracking on letters, it's called registered post.

The sellers can only give positive feedback rant is starting to get old now. It's been like that for years and it's about time people started accepting that. If anything, it has cut the amount of negs a seller gets because buyers aren't leaving them negs out of spite because a seller left it for them first. Buyers having negs does absolutely nothing to their ability to buy. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. It does nothing to "warn" sellers because a lot of buyers use the buy it now option these days, so even if they had lots of negs, there is nothing a seller could do to stop them buying.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

mydiyau — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 06:26:42 GMT

The feedback system is a fking disgrace.

http://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Selling/Serial-Scammer/m-p/1787752#U1787752

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

bestbuyaus — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 08:20:51 GMT

The feedback is derogatory and non specific regarding the reason it was left. There would be a case for having it removed on that basis as it gives other eBay members no reason or information for the negative comment. If you still have the returned item packaging I would take a photo as it will have most likely a postage date, the incorrect address the buyer advised and the post office reason for returning the item to you. That should be sufficient to have what appears to be unreasonable feedback removed.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

casbit33 — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 00:50:45 GMT

I know about registered post, but no-one wants to pay extra for it, uless it's for something expensive which most of my items aren't.

I would like to see Free tracking.

Re: Feedback System is a complete FAILURE

imastawka — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 01:40:31 GMT

Wouldn't we all?

But looking at some of your 'inexpensive' items, how is it that a silk scarf

is $6.50 standard postage?

That's a $2 large letter if ever I saw one.

Same for the embroidered placemat and others

Your postage may be hindering sales. I know I wouldn't pay that much for standard post

Just sayin'