I have stopped leaving feedback

[stampingpaws]

I have stopped leaving feedback for items I sell.

You may wonder why? Well, here are my reasons.

1 - It is optional

2 - It cannot be neutral or negative. Or even positive with a negative tone. It can only be positive.

3 - Buyers are generally, reluctant to leave feedback til they receive the goods and feedback.

4 - Not leaving feedback discourages buyers leaving feedback for me.

5 - If the buyers do not leave feedback it cannot be negative or neutral. So no defects.

6 - If there is no feedback there cannot be value of stars. So no defects, again.

7 - Also, they cannot answer if the item arrived within the time set by eBay. So no judging me on postage which is out of my control.

I will keep doing this until the new system is introduced next year. I will re-consider it them.

[*tippy*toes*]

I tend to agree with you. I don't leave feedback until it's been left for me first. If a buyer leaves positive but trashes my stars (yes, I check every single transaction), they don't get feedback in return. All they get from me is a reply to the feedback they left, with their username, stating they trashed my stars.

Generally as a rule I don't leave false positives for non payers. Why contribute to their feedback score? I'm happy with the dispute process. If other sellers don't have their blocks in place and get caught by the same weasel, that's their problem.

I agree wholeheartedly about the "did the item arrive within the estimate" question. That is absolute carp. A few months ago a buyer admitted that they had ticked no, as well as leaving 1 star for postage time and as described. She gave raving positive feedback. I have a 5 day handling time, I posted within an hour of payment, she lived interstate and it was there within 2 days (even though the estimate said 7-10 days)......still well before my handling time had even expired.

I sent her a polite message asking if there was a problem and if there was, is there anything I can do to rectify it. She said that she was happy with the item, but wasn't blown away by it. She said that usually for items like that, she leaves feedback but doesn't leave a star rating. I pointed out that she had left 1 star for 2 categories and she didn't recall doing that. She also admitted that she had ticked no for the postage estimate question. She then asked me if there was anything she could do to rectify it. I said she could contact eBay and state she had left those ratings in error and ask for them to be removed, however, she wasn't obligated to do so.

I took it upon myself to contact eBay and pointed out the above and also directed them to the messages between myself and the buyer. They agreed that the tracking showed that it had been posted within an hour of payment, it had arrived well within the postage estimate and that the buyer had stated she left the description star in error. They removed the bad ratings and the associated defects. I sent the buyer a message saying it had all been sorted.

It makes me wonder how many other buyers tick no purely because they can, even when the tracking clearly states it arrived well within the estimate.

The only time I leave feedback for a buyer before they leave it for me is for a new buyer with 0 feedback. I feel they have bought and paid straight away, so I'm giving them a kick start to their feedback score.

[heihachi_73]

I leave positive feedback when I see the blue $ next to the sold item. If I don't see a blue $ next to the item, they receive an email (courtesy of "Send invoice"), a friendly reminder message (also offering them to cancel if they didn't want it, just in case their pet goldfish decides to hop out of the fish tank and travel all the way from the living room to the second bedroom in order to browse eBay for half an hour and click on a dozen things while magically avoiding the section that requires them to pay), and eventually an unpaid item case if they do not respond whatsoever.

[dotm2004]

I agree with you Clarry.

I leave feedback when I receive payment,   the buyer leaves feedback when they receive the item .... can't see that there's an issue with that.   

[amber-eyed-girl]

That's interesting about the buyer ticking no. I just had an item arrive one day later than the window, and as everything was above marvellous I ticked yes...because I didn't know what the true ramifications of a no might be. Also, we had a public holiday in there too. So to my mind that meant giving them an extra day anyway.

[*tippy*toes*]

She said she ticked no because it arrived outside of the estimate. She couldn't apologise enough when I told her it had actually arrived before my handling time had even expired, therefore well before the first date of the estimate. I mentioned that ticking no can have ramifications for the seller and also mentioned about the defects associated with the low star ratings.

She had no idea about defects and said she will take that into consideration when leaving feedback in the future. She also said she will not answer that question, even if her item arrives outside the estimate. She was very grateful for the info I gave her and said the last thing she wanted to do was affect a sellers rating if there was a risk it could see them shut down. I had no reason not to believe her as she seemed like a genuinely nice person.

[clarry100]

Tippy we have also educated a few buyers in a similar way in the nicest possible way.

And their response has been very close to what you describe here.

They really have no idea that what they do can have serious ramifications for a seller.

[*tippy*toes*]

I educated a high feedback seller the other day. My husband bought a pre sale DVD, which was clearly stated in the listing, but the seller still sent a message letting us know that it wouldn't be sent until Nov. 11th. I thanked him for his message and said that I am one of the few buyers that does actually read the description. He replied that he now sends those messages as a matter of course for those types of orders because buyers haven't read the listing and given him negative feedback. I said that as a seller myself, nothing burns me more than buyers not reading the description.

I then decided to look at his negatives and took it upon myself to send him another message saying that almost all the negs could possibly be removed because some had a very positive comment e.g "absolutely over the moon with my item, fast shipping, great seller" and the others were saying that he was slow to post even though both the title and the description said they were pre sale. He replied saying he didn't know that you could contact eBay to have them removed, he thought once they were there, that was it. I said that if they do remove them, be sure to ask them to remove the associated defects as well.

A few emails went back and forth about different things and I mentioned about buyers leaving glowing positive feedback and then trashing your stars really annoying me. He asked how I knew who had trashed them. I replied with instructions on how to run a detailed seller rating report to see who had left what. If he thanked me once, he thanked me 50 times!

It made my day (or days as it was) knowing I had helped someone. It really did. Especially a someone who has sold quite a lot of stuff.

[catlovertony]

I do not agree with your logic I am sure it will stop some buyers who would of left positive feedback from leaving it but I doubt very much it would stop any unhappy customer leaving negative feedback and due to the fact your happy customers did not leave feedback the negative will show as a much higher percentage.

Personally I have it set to automatically leave feedback when a customer pays my reason is as a buyer I feel safer with sellers who do that and as far as I see if once I am paid it is down to me to do my best to make that customer happy. Yes of course there will always be people unhappy no matter what you do but that is part of sales both online and in a B+M business

[latina4621]

The only time i don't leave feedback is when a seller demands it via email.

[247newdeals]

opps wrong post