topic Re: Heres an idea in Selling

Heres an idea

outback_blends — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 07:52:51 GMT

How about buyers HAVE to contact a seller first before they can leave a neg. At least give us half chance to protect our seller accounts (Because ebat sure as hell cant)

Just got a neg (another account) for an item not recieved. It was a $3 item which I would have had no problem replacing if the buyer had contacted me first. But no, this putz blunders in, drops a big red one on me saying item not recieved.

Buyers should HAVE TO contact a seller to sort it out before they can leave neg.

Just a thought.

Re: Heres an idea

rocket2retro — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 08:08:13 GMT

Whilst it is a good idea I can't see eBay ever implementing it. I also think that is the event of a full refund, a buyer should not be able to leave neg/neutral feedback.

Re: Heres an idea

*sparklz* — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 08:20:47 GMT

This has been suggest so often you think ebay would take notice when a suggestion is give many many multiple times.

But nope it is all about helping the buyers as they think with out buyers there is no ebay.

Never mind if there is no sellers then there would be no buyers.

Re: Heres an idea

kopenhagen5 — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 08:21:51 GMT

That's what it used to be nearly 10 years ago.

But buyers would send a fullstop in a message and then they could leave a neg.

Re: Heres an idea

*tippy*toes* — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 08:42:24 GMT

Let me guess, a low feedback buyer?

Re: Heres an idea

clarry100 — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 09:39:17 GMT

@*sparklz* wrote:
This has been suggest so often you think ebay would take notice when a suggestion is give many many multiple times.
But nope it is all about helping the buyers as they think with out buyers there is no ebay.
Never mind if there is no sellers then there would be no buyers.

Agree 100% on this point.

Do you see a huge crowd of people wanting to buy stuff just rock up at the local showground in the hope there may be some sellers there.

Nooooooo....

If there are sellers already there first then the buyers rock up and part with their hard earned $$$.

Sooooo... yes... without sellers you will have no buyers. So look after us.

Re: Heres an idea

ridyruki — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 10:02:23 GMT

Yes sometimes they contact you but are unreasonable ive had my first return request for an item not being authentic--First reason no hallmarks funny colour ---When i pointed out it has 3 hallmarks .Then its well you must of stuck those hallmarked bits onto another bit.Then it was taken to a jewellers or maybe the photos of it were taken to a jewellers who said' its Junk' While im saying please return my original item and supplying my return address 3 times and waiting on it being sent back to happily give a refund . Instead ive caused some terrible hurt that will probibly get a red

I think if you refund they can only leave a neutral at most as youve done what theyve asked . Even when the reason isnt fair or true

Re: Heres an idea

davewil1964 — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 10:32:04 GMT

@ridyruki wrote:
Yes sometimes they contact you but are unreasonable ive had my first return request for an item not being authentic--First reason no hallmarks funny colour ---When i pointed out it has 3 hallmarks .Then its well you must of stuck those hallmarked bits onto another bit.Then it was taken to a jewellers or maybe the photos of it were taken to a jewellers who said' its Junk' While im saying please return my original item and supplying my return address 3 times and waiting on it being sent back to happily give a refund . Instead ive caused some terrible hurt that will probibly get a red

I think if you refund they can only leave a neutral at most as youve done what theyve asked . Even when the reason isnt fair or true

You think wrong. A buyer can leave a neg for any (or no) reason on an active transaction. The only way to avoid a red is to complete a UPI, which obviously doesn't apply in your case.

There are remedies, but they almost certainly involve ACORN. eBay certainly won't help you.

Re: Heres an idea

digital*ghost — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 10:52:30 GMT

@outback_blends wrote:
How about buyers HAVE to contact a seller first before they can leave a neg.

Just speaking personally, I think this is one of those ideas that sounds good in theory, but wouldn't work so well in practice.

Let's say, for example, the option to leave a neut or neg does not become available until the buyer sends an enquiry to the seller... Not only do more than half of the (current) messaging options actually result in an MBG request being opened, but what's the bet sellers would start receiving obligatory messages with one word or two just so a buyer could then go and leave their FB.

It would also increase the "before I leave a negative...." kinds of messages, which has a long history of p***ing off sellers and putting them off-side (Most sellers will suck it up and respond as if that phrase wasn't in there, but some can not ignore it and so will respond to that rather than respond to the problem, which in turn would escalate things rather than resolve them).

What they would actually have to do, in order to mitigate all of these issues, is implement a dispute resolution system that's a pre-cursor to a formal request, and which needs to be resolved or escalated before the option to leave bad feedback becomes available, which systemises commuication and resolution options, something I'm not very fond of, and could mean the end result would be less encouraging of buyers and sellers communicating amicably with each other than what would be intended by this idea (JMHO), so I would be reluctant for eBay to introduce anything like that.

What they have done, though, is eliminate all negative effects of receiving neutral and negative feedback, in terms of account standing at least. It's not a defect anymore, and a feedback rating of 99% or even 75% etc won't get you suspended or result in having selling privileges affected. I get that it's a tarnish to someone's reputation, and easy to take personally - lord knows I've had some interesting reactions when I've seen a red dot on my profile - but I think in the long run they're a completely ineffective measure on all counts these days, and should be regarded the same way as any other situation where one receives criticism - if it's valid, take it on board, if it's not, respond and move on.

Re: Heres an idea

ozstockman — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 06:16:39 GMT

How about preventing those buyers who asked to cancel or done something wrong which led to cancellation from leaving any feedback as a start?

A buyer asked me to cancel their purchase. It happened because they failed to read even a short item title.

Their reason was that they misunderstood postage cost while it seemed they did not read the item title not to mention its description at all. This item was for my customers who received quotes from me and I specifically ask in the item title not to buy the item without getting a quote from me first.

I cancelled and suggested politely that it is always better to read a title and description before purchasing. Just to make sure they understand what they are buying.

And yet this buyer was allowed to leave me a neutral feedback blaming us for their mistakes.

Re: Heres an idea

ridyruki — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 06:55:54 GMT

Help now theyve sent a picture of the hallmarks that they said wernt there and asked 3 times for my address and said customer service told them to take their tracking number in manually to the resolution centre ???????? in the Phillipines ??? .And they dont trust me That ill break it all apart when i get it I just want it back AAAAHHHHHHHHH

Re: Heres an idea

digital*ghost — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 07:29:19 GMT

@ozstockman wrote:
How about preventing those buyers who asked to cancel or done something wrong which led to cancellation from leaving any feedback as a start?

I definitely think there's a little too much room for buyers to leave bad feedback in circumstances like that. On the one hand, in some cases, leaving bad feedback might actually be appropriate, but on the other hand it can be argued that that can also be the case if a buyer doesn't end up paying for an item, and feeback in those cases can be prevented or removed (eg think situations where the seller sets it up to make a PayPal payment unacceptable and tries to instruct the buyer to only pay by bank deposit, which they refuse and don't end up paying at all).

Ideally, ebay would be more amenable to reviewing these situations on a case-by-case basis and apply logic and reason to a decision of whether or not to allow a neg / neut to remain, but in the glaring absence of that, I suspect there's more instances where it would be appropriate to disallow bad feedback for a cancelled transaction than there is to allow it.

Re: Heres an idea

springyzone — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 21:24:25 GMT

I think DG has given a really interesting twist to the whole discussion & shown exactly how there can be exceptions to every rule. That it comes down to ebay sometimes needing to make a sensible decision on a case by case basis.

Overall, I would say that the whole process has to be as simple as possible though. Making buyers jump through hoops before leaving feedback probably isn't going to be a great idea. It could annoy them more, if anything.

I know a lot of sellers feel upset when feedback is not about the transaction itself but about things outside the seller's control eg item didn't fit, they didn't like it as much as they thought they would, 3mm was narrower than they thought, Aust post was slow etc but while feedback remains in its present form (ie individual comment, not just tick the box options), you will always get some of this. It's the nature of the beast.