Mutually fair feedback

[mewzishen]

It seems that sellers always want, expect or ask for 5 star feedback, and sometimes I find this awkward if I'm giving fair (to myself) and honest (with the seller) feedback. Quite often the item description is very little or even nothing, and sometimes inadequate or even useless, whatever length it is. That can only rate 1 star, and even that would be a gift in some instances. Communication -- well sometimes there isn't any. I pay for the item(s), they are shipped, I get an email to say so from the merchant, and eventually I receive it. Does that rate 5 stars -- very satisfied? At least 4 -- I am satisfied to the extent that it was adequate and I'm happy. So I am just simply "satisfied". And how quickly a seller posts and item varies quite a bit. Most of my content here relates to Chinese websites, where item descriptions are little or nothing, and often gibberish if anything of substance; communication between English and Mandarin doesn't always go too well; and postage can be within a day or two, or up to two weeks in one instance. So 5 stars are often not warranted, meaning not really fair to myself if I had difficulties -- but sellers expect 5 stars. I rate within a few days as "quickly", not "very quickly". That, to me, means same day or next morning. So in most, and nearly all cases, 4 stars is fair enough for the dispatch times I see. As with communication satisfaction, the dispatch times are adequate and I'm happy -- 4 stars. And then postage costs -- how can I determine if the cost is reasonable or not? I don't always know what the weight of it is, or probably didn't notice, and don't know the postage rates in their country. I have no idea if it is reasonable or not -- so a very neutral stance. So 4 stars for postage costs is generous when I don't have a clue. 3 stars would be fair to myself.
So, in most cases these sellers only deserve 4 stars for each of the feedback criteria, and if they don't get 5 stars every time they are not happy, and don't always give positive feedback to the buyer even when payment is made immediately through PayPal. Payback in kind it seems. They seem more concerned with having good feedback for the sake of their business, not whether they deserve to get 5 stars.
So giving fair and reasonable feedback ratings is very difficult when 4 stars IS fair and reasonable but 5 stars are always expected as a given, no matter how bad their service is. The star rating system is supposed to entice them to lift their game, and that doesn't happen if they get 5 stars undeservedly.

[arnl7178]

It seems that sellers always want, expect or ask for 5 star feedback, and sometimes I find this awkward if I'm giving fair (to myself) and honest (with the seller) feedback. Quite often the item description is very little or even nothing, and sometimes inadequate or even useless, whatever length it is. That can only rate 1 star, and even that would be a gift in some instances. Communication -- well sometimes there isn't any. I pay for the item(s), they are shipped, I get an email to say so from the merchant, and eventually I receive it. Does that rate 5 stars -- very satisfied? At least 4 -- I am satisfied to the extent that it was adequate and I'm happy. So I am just simply "satisfied". And how quickly a seller posts and item varies quite a bit. Most of my content here relates to Chinese websites, where item descriptions are little or nothing, and often gibberish if anything of substance; communication between English and Mandarin doesn't always go too well; and postage can be within a day or two, or up to two weeks in one instance. So 5 stars are often not warranted, meaning not really fair to myself if I had difficulties -- but sellers expect 5 stars. I rate within a few days as "quickly", not "very quickly". That, to me, means same day or next morning. So in most, and nearly all cases, 4 stars is fair enough for the dispatch times I see. As with communication satisfaction, the dispatch times are adequate and I'm happy -- 4 stars. And then postage costs -- how can I determine if the cost is reasonable or not? I don't always know what the weight of it is, or probably didn't notice, and don't know the postage rates in their country. I have no idea if it is reasonable or not -- so a very neutral stance. So 4 stars for postage costs is generous when I don't have a clue. 3 stars would be fair to myself.
So, in most cases these sellers only deserve 4 stars for each of the feedback criteria, and if they don't get 5 stars every time they are not happy, and don't always give positive feedback to the buyer even when payment is made immediately through PayPal. Payback in kind it seems. They seem more concerned with having good feedback for the sake of their business, not whether they deserve to get 5 stars.
So giving fair and reasonable feedback ratings is very difficult when 4 stars IS fair and reasonable but 5 stars are always expected as a given, no matter how bad their service is. The star rating system is supposed to entice them to lift their game, and that doesn't happen if they get 5 stars undeservedly.

Mewzishen, I just wanted a comment on a couple of the points you've made. (I've bolded them).

1) You then rate the item description to what YOU think is fair. If buyers want 5 stars on their item description, then they need to write a 5 star description. If they are vague, they should expect a vague rating.

2) You need to understand why you think you're not getting communication from your sellers. From a sellers point of view, we're encouraged to NOT communicate with buyers unless there's a problem. If sellers don't communicate with buyers for a set amount of days before a purchase and all the way up until feedback is received, they automatically get 5 stars for communication so sellers aim for that. If you bought from me, your "communication" is me marking your item as posted. I've acknowledged your order, and it's on it's way. Most sellers do it this way, and it's not to be nasty. It's because we HAVE to aim for 5 stars at all time, other wise, we should give it away now.

3) When you rate for shipping time, you should be rating on how long it takes your seller to post your item, NOT how long it takes to arrive. Once a seller pops your item in the post, they can't control the delivery time. You need to rate ONLY on the former.

4) You ask how you can deem what's reasonable? You already have when you've bid or purchased. You can't agree to pay an amount, and then mark a seller down for it later. That isn't fair. If you think the quoted postage isn't reasonable, find another seller selling something similar. BUT, if you've paid a different price to what's actually on your parcel when it arrives, that's a different story. You should then rate accordingly. But it's common courtesy to message your seller first before marking stars down and/or leaving neutral or negative feedback before you'd be surprised how a low score can really affect a seller. We're not all bad.

5) You're right, we aren't happy with anything but high stars. They are VERY important. Not only does it show we're doing the right thing, but it keeps us here, able to sell. Too many lows and we could be gone. Some people rely on eBay sales to make a living.

6) Not sure what you mean by Payback. Sellers cannot leave buyers anything except positive feedback. It's been that way for years.

All in all, the ratings you give sellers are a reflection on how YOU feel the transaction went as a WHOLE. But you should give sellers the option to fix anything if it went wrong and you should give sellers a little understanding when it comes to things like postage time and communication.

There's always two sides, and all that 🙂

[*crikey*mate*]

does anyone remember that humorous thread started a few weeks ago about getting too much communication throughout the transaction process?

It still cracks me up.

That line about "I don't email my boss every time I turn up to work, because, hellooo, it's kind of expected"

This thread just made me think of that.

[judyztreasurez]

BBL :O:O

Absolutely 😮

[arnl7178]

I remember that! I was cracking up. It was gold!

It's like Dave's comment the other day about fonz for "phone" or something like that. Made me literally laugh out loud. :^O

[*crikey*mate*]

I must have missed dave's, but in case anyone wants to revisit this buyer's take on communication when considering mutually fair feedback, here is the link

Too much communication

[shypansy]

😮 Even before I read any responses to the OP, I was headed towards my BBL

Or could this be a windup?

[digital*ghost]

The cheese stands alone.... :^O Not rushing to my BBL, anyway.

mewzishen - kudos to you for at least giving some consideration for what DRSs to leave a seller, at least in the sense that it's not something every buyer does. You can see that the ratings sellers receive are quite important to them, and it's true that 4 stars seems like an above average rating when you leave it, but sadly if every buyer left their sellers 4 stars across the board, the seller wouldn't last very long. Your post has actually highlighted quite a few frustrations sellers have with how DSRs are rated - specifically, "no opinion" becomes a 3, generally, and that can actually damage a seller's standing. 

When I rate stars, I look at it more from the perspective that less than 5 stars means I think they could have done better, and I don't mean by my personal standards, I mean by the expectations the listing information gave. eg as mentioned above, if they say 'will post within 5 days' and they do post within 5 days, they couldn't have done any better because they informed me about the postage time and fulfilled that expectation.

Postage cost DSRs are perhaps the most widely open to interpretation. There are some buyers that will neg / complain / leave a 1 for anything charged over the stamp cost, and to a lot of other people that would seem completely unreasonable. Personally, as P&H cost is something I am informed about up front, I generally don't take issue with the cost to the seller vs the cost to me, unless I pay for an expensive service (eg express) and the item is sent regular.

The other thing is, when it comes to communication, it doesn't have to be direct messages between yourself and the seller. Often times there is vast amounts of information communicated to you through the listing details; not the description, but in the terms of sale, postage and payment information etc, all things that can help you make a fully informed purchase decision, and which often makes direct messaging completely unnecessary, and to me that's good communication and the rationale behind auto-5 stars from eBay.

I don't like it when sellers practically beg for 5 star ratings, occasionally I get leaflets in parcels, and in one instance I go a sticker that just told me to leave 5 stars for everything - I find it annoying, on a range of levels, but I also understand why sellers are so keen to protect their ratings so try to tolerate the over-zealous ones. By all means rate your sellers according to what you feel is fair, but IMHO fair is taking into consideration all those things that have been mentioned in the listing, and in this thread

[*new2vintage]

Would we be any worse off if ebay hadn't brought DSRs in ?

                Have they never heard of Keep It Simple Stupid ?

[polocross58]

@ Mewzishun

Maybe you've had previous IDs with hundreds of Feedback and commensurate ebay experience, I don't know.  Or maybe your 55 Feedback are the sum total of your ebay life.  Whatever the case, erring on the side of the seller won't compromise your integrity

Ebaying is not an exact science, although ebay appears to believe otherwise

These are, generally speaking, people like you, like me, who do their best to conduct reasonable transactions with total strangers, via an online site, with all the attendant issues

What will it take from you personally if you give someone five stars when a laboratory examination of the transaction might decide it's only worth 4.5 ?  What will happen if you award the seller an extra half a star out of the generosity of your heart ?  What -- will the Star Nazis suddenly appear before you, disapproval in their eyes ?

The time to quibble over star-percentages, imo, is if you have done YOUR best and the seller has grievously failed you

I gave a Neg to a seller a few months ago for playing dirty and manipulating the ebay system like a smartie.  It cost me valuable time and energy and prevented me from purchasing other comparable items.  My only regret in that instance lay in the fact the seller either genuinely was a new seller, or had created a new selling ID.  Either way, they had such low Feedback, they could afford to scrap that ID for 12 months or always and my Neg was of minimum impact.  The seller had deliberately screwed me on that occasion

But, if a transaction or item ends up being just so-so and is of minor dollar and time value, you can opt to give no feedback at all.  Or, just tick the stars full value, allowing you and the seller to both head off to your respective destinies

It's not an exam, where you need to be precise because others are judging YOU at the same time as you judge the seller.   Ebay don't 'rate' you for how you rate sellers

Yes, ebay in its wisdom has allowed you to hold the sword of Damocles above sellers' heads.  The power can be intoxicating for some.  But let's try to resist exploiting the advantage provided buyers at sellers' expense.  Because Aussie sellers are becoming an endangered species.  And the Asian sellers don't give a fig for your star allocation because ebay gives them free passage

If someone messes you around because they're a nut-job or just don't care and/or haven't tried to fix whatever you deem to be wrong -  fair enough, ebay has provided you redress.  But if their biggest failing is something very minor, it might be best to leave no feedback at all and to ignore their begging emails or whatever, rather than grade them like an anally retentive schoolmarm.  Or, if their endless begging for Feedback finally cracks your patience, send them an email to say they have a choice:  NO feedback, or a Neutral, say.  And that should restore their perspective

They're ebay sellers.  They have kids.  Their husbands have shot through. Their mother in law is a cow.  They've just learned they (or someone close) has a serious health problem.  Their car has died or worse, been repossessed.  They lost their job.  Thousands of people out there with real problems.  Haven't been trained.  Are not professional retailers.  Are dealing with quicksand re: eBay's ever-changing policies etc.  They're just people.  Give them a break if it's not going to damage your nail polish, ok  🙂   (and please, all you 20 year experienced retailers, etc..  don't break my ovaries if I've failed to recognise your qualifications)

[***super_nova***]

mewzishen , when judging cost of postage by the sticker on the parcel it is important to remember that the $value there is only the basic postage; it does not show the cost of SOD ($3 something) and insurance.  recently, I posted a parcel and these extras were almost $10.  When counting the  cost of the box and copious bubble wrap, the parcel cost me $20 on top of the basic postage.  I imagine you would give me 0 *  for the postage cost, wouldn't you?  ]:)

You are not welcome to buy from me either.