Hi Ramblingrose,
This is less a piece of advice rather than commiseration because, as a newbie seller I feel you! I think it's a good thing for people to both buy AND sell on Ebay so that they understand things from a seller's perspective. I sold an item not long ago and I had to open an unpaid item case because the buyer wasn't communicating with me and wasn't paying. As this was the first time I had sold an item I was actually a little stressed about it. As a buyer I pay as soon as I know that I've won an item and I always leave positive feedback; any issues have been sorted out directly with the seller. So it's hard for me to understand people who would leave a negative without trying to resolve things... Touch wood that I don't have negative feedback from a buyer in the future, but I just don't think it's possible to rule out altogether. From what I have read on this and other forums such as Whirlpool, negative feedback does happen occasionally despite accurate descriptions, good communication, etc.
All the best 
@bsal6160 wrote:Why? Because feedback is a buyers opinion on the sale process.
yes but does the feedback process not also call for a rating for communication? Seems its becoming a lost art on ebay....
Feel for you OP all I can say is things will get better! Dont give up.
If you would like to encourage buyers to contact you before leaving negative feedback, do you mind if I give some advice?
Please excuse me if you've tried these things and it hasn't worked.
I'm wary of bringing the ire of the forum down upon me, but in my experience:
Some buyers, like sellers, are just jerks. They can't communicate properly and will leave negs because they can, or because they can't be bothered, or whatever. There's always feedback revision requests... 
But some negs can be avoided. I find that:
1. A big sign underneath the listings helps. As a buyer, when I read those signs that say something like, 'if you're not happy, contact us!' etc, I usually will.
2. If I'm considering leaving negative feedback because of a seller's mistake, being offered return postage helps A LOT; and knowing in advance, that this is likely to happen, will get me emailing straight away.
If you have a comment on the listing which clearly states your returns policy in the case of faulty goods, you might open up the lines of dialouge to your customers.
Many sellers do this. They have banners which state their intentions and ask that buyers contact them before leaving negative feedback.
When a seller talks about 'compromising' after they have sent me something that is clearly so faulty or bad as to be unusable - it is hard to engage, hard to 'compromise'. I want them to pay return postage, because unless it was damaged in the post, it should be checked before posting!
Sometimes I feel that ebay store policies are too restrictive. I buy clothes off ebay much less now, as other online stores have customer friendly returns policies, so I never need to give them negative feedback - if they send me something bad, or ugly, or broken, I will know it can be fixed easily.
I hope this might help. I do wish that buyers had better manners too sometimes, because it sometimes feels like both buyers and sellers become defensive from too many negative interactions.
@retailtherapist_8 wrote:
@bsal6160 wrote:Why? Because feedback is a buyers opinion on the sale process.
yes but does the feedback process not also call for a rating for communication? Seems its becoming a lost art on ebay....
Feel for you OP all I can say is things will get better! Dont give up.
Lost art? If eBay doesn't notice any communication between the two trading partners at all then the seller automatically gets 5 stars for Communication!
Work that one out!
To me, DG hit the nail on the head.
Sometimes buyers may not know what other options are available or may not want to go through the hoops.
I've both bought and sold on ebay. I guess my sister and I sold close to about 2000 items a few years ago (under another name) and although we never got a negative or neutral, one thing we found is buyers aren't always rational, reasonable people. Some are real doozies to deal with. Thank god some of them didn't give us feedback at all, I suppose, because I am sure they blamed us anyway even when problems are their own doing. Like the person who gave us positive but said post out was slow and took 17 days. The only reason it took 17 days from the end of auction was because they didn't pay till day 14!!!
But back in those days, sellers could also give a negative and maybe that is what kept them in check to some extent..
Even if they do contact you and you do all you can to fix it, you might still cop a negative or neutral if someone wants to show how the feel about a transaction. I usually never give neutrals or negatives unless I don't get an item, but I was sorely tempted to give a neutral to a garden pot seller after a series of incidents. In the end, I just withheld any feedback on one of the items.
Can I just say one thing though, from my own experience. If a buyer has had a series of experiences where a lot of little disappointments have built up, then they may put up with it, give positive feedback but still feel disgruntled a little bit.
Then maybe they buy something from you and some small thing is wrong. It can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. They think, "Right, I have had it, I'm going to tell it how it is this time."
