unexpected negative feedback & DSR from a buyer who is also a Top Seller

[gizmoclearance]

my seller account maintains 100% positive feedback with 4000+ points and a current Top seller

today i received a negative feedback from a buyer. he bought a keyboard with express postage. but didn't leave a colour choice (black or white). - the category is mobile accessories where colour option is ok.

I could despatch quickly without asking the colour but I did. the 2nd day he replied with a colour. the 3rd date he started to complaint why it took 2 days to post. (my driver pickup is 2pm). and I replied explaining color choice and driver pick up time etc 

today he left me a neg feedback 

"Paid for xpress took 2 days to post, arrived late, poor comms"

I also checked my DSR everyday. today someone left me 1 star on all criteria

then I had a look at his ID he's also a top seller in a completely unrelated category

He clearly understand how upset a seller would be to see something like this happens and still do it to the other seller.

I know how difficult to have a feedback revised especially from a person like him.. so there is really nothing i can do

after 14 hours a day it's already 2:16am it's a bit too much

[gizmoclearance]

i suspect it might be a competitor. His behavior is very hostile, no negotiation, no response. just want to bring me down (in fact, my sales dropped 1/3 today. might be coincident). 

neg feedbacks happened to my shop a few times before, the buyers were always willing to negotiate, you know, at worst,who doesn't want the item for free?

on eBay there are many top performing sellers who are acutally just divisions of one giant drop-shipper. I have been contacted before by some big time sellers asking if i want to do drop-shipping.  you can also "grow" a new ID into a top-seller quickly with your main ID. just place a link in your hot-selling item to the listings of the new ID and offer a discount there. that way a new top seller can be made in a couple months. then the new ID can list in other categories without competing with the main ID, or just become a tool for many purposes including driving out competition. that's what they do on the shopping comparison sites - many first page sellers are actually just one company with different names. I have seen it before it's totally legal on ebay. 

[phorum_junkie*]

If multi variant listings are available in that category then you should be offering the choice of colours that way. If they aren't then if you have a store why not have seperate listings for the different colours? No confusion then.

[kirphi]

I had the same problem lots of time with different coloured hammocks that I was selling.  In the end I just listed all the colours separately to avoid confusion and delays.

Doesn't help for this case, but might be an idea for the future.

[gizmoclearance]

thanks for the advice.

creating separate listings will divert traffic and as a result the item won't be at top position. maybe it's ok for the other less-competing categories. but the keyword searches for my items will generate thousands of results, if i can't maintain a first page position, the inventory will remain dusted.