topic Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller? in Selling

Buyer Not Rating Seller?

ausgeoff1946 — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 02:06:24 GMT

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. 👍

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

twyngwyn — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 02:12:21 GMT

feedback 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

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

sandypebbles — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 02:12:52 GMT

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'

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

padi*0409 — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 02:14:05 GMT

No, 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.............

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

countessalmirena — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 02:21:03 GMT

Feedback 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.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

countessalmirena — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 02:30:29 GMT

Snappity snap.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

sugar249 — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 02:31:04 GMT

On 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.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

*sons_n_daughters* — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 13:11:39 GMT

I 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.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

siddieswans — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 01:56:41 GMT

What 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.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

ausgeoff1946 — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 03:30:30 GMT

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.

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.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

ausgeoff1946 — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 03:56:38 GMT

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?

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

sugar249 — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 04:03:37 GMT

@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.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

domino-710 — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 04:47:25 GMT

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

Perhaps an ' ask ' more suitable.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

ausgeoff1946 — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 04:56:24 GMT

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.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

ausgeoff1946 — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 04:58:46 GMT

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

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

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

domino-710 — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 05:02:42 GMT

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

If they feel the need to at all.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

sugar249 — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 05:07:58 GMT

@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?

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

countessalmirena — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 05:38:33 GMT

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.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

davewil1964 — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 09:01:50 GMT

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.

Re: Buyer Not Rating Seller?

*sons_n_daughters* — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 11:12:51 GMT

@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.

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.