LANE END Would have agreed with you once as low stars for postage were just an indicator for future buyers it wasn't classed as a defect. Now its different, they are allowed a handling time, but if you mark DSRs down it is not just an indicator for future buyers that it will take a while to recieve your item, it is a defect now. How can they be defected and hence ultimately have their account restricted when they are trading within their allowable policies?
The real problem as you can see DSRs are no longer just for information for potential buyers. They are punitive punishments. So in the case of your seller who had the 5 week wait rule. They would be defected out of business, rather than just have depressed shipping stars.for whatever legitimate reason. as not every buyer would take into account listed shipping dates.
Reality is some buyers wil always mark shipping down if it feels like (perceptions) they were waiting a while, even if it is just buyer impatience, or AP hold up. Both out of sellers control.
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I fully understand what people are saying here, that buyers should read the terms and abide by them and that some buyers are totally unreasonable in what they consider a fair postage time. Moreover, i understand about defects & sympathise. I always give 5 stars now to my sellers.
But the thing is, I don't think most buyers do understand defcts, I doubt 90% have the slightest clue. I wouldn't have either, except I have been on the boards a while now and I found out that way.
Look, some buyers are just unreasonable, nasty pieces of work that no seller could hope to please even if the item was delivered within 30 mins of a sale. I've been on the selling side and still recall (a positive, luckily) where the buyer wrote it was good but it took too long to come, 11 days after purchase. What she hadn't added was she didn't pay for her purchase till day 8!
But even your fairly reasonable buyers are going to make a subjective judgement on a sale. In that example I gave, where a seller outlined a wait time of 5 weeks. yes, they were her sales terms. I never bought from her but I did snoop at feedback she had and although some bought, they obviously didn't like the wait terms. they bought under sufferance and a lot did comment-things like "Slow, took over 6 weeks". I am betting they would ding the stars too and okay, that might cause a defect (although the seller isn't on ebay any more, or not selling under the same conditions) but as i said, buyers aren't always aware of that!
I think that small sellers on ebay probably need to have an average postage time of 1-3 days and a fairly organised approach to answering queries or else they could cop defects and less than enthusiastic comments in their feedback. It may not be right, it may not be fair, but I don't think ebay could care a toss about small sellers.
If it is any comfort, i have noticed even the big players have had to lift their game after copping savage beatings on product reviews. Catch of the Day used to take 3 weeks, now they take about one week. Various photobook companies have a one week tunraround and one that took a lot longer went to the wall last year after possibly the most savage beating I have seen online.
The trouble isn't slow turnaround in itself, it is customer worry-they are scared they might not get their item. That's the core problem.
