eBay

coolthings123 · ‎02-22-2013

This system is totally dysfunctional. Buyer leaves glowing feedback on one hand and torpedoes you with a bunch of 1's on a multiple purchase and there is nothing you can do about it. eBay doesn't care. In fact I think eBay is probably really happy when it happens because they make more money by not having to give you a discount on your final value fees. I called customer support and wasted 10 minutes of my life. Their solution was communicate more with the customer and ask them to leave positive comments and DSR ratings if they are happy. They said it is okay for a customer to leave glowing feedback and yet leave a bunch of low rating numbers. REALLY?? I have been doing this for over ten years and I am seriously considering calling it a day. I have had maybe a handful of negatives over the past ten years but in reality these people were never going to be happy no matter what you did. I can deal with that. What I can't deal with anymore is the fact eBay doesn't seem to give a hoot about the sellers who in my view are the people making eBay rich. Don't get me wrong I don't have a problem with eBay making money. Everyone likes to make money. What really irks me is in my view just about every eBay policy favours the buyer at the expense of the seller. Maybe I am wrong. Would really like to hear your opinion/horror stories relating to DSR.

queenpalmer · ‎02-22-2013

I do not like the DSR either. The word " very" is to trendy sounding. Why is it there? It's like asking are you "male" or "very male"

puckstopshere · ‎02-22-2013

The system is weighted against the seller.

Most buyers don't understand the impact on the seller if they give you low marks.

I have had customers who either gave you a five - or gave you a one - nothing in between.

It is a joke.

Who gains by it? Ebay!

nan*55 · ‎02-23-2013

sucks!!!!

block36 · ‎02-23-2013

This system is very wrong statistically:

I leave feedbacks on all transactions and I am getting only 69.8% returned feedbacks.

At the same time no indication of anything wrong from these who did not add feedbacks.

However, there are quite many regular buyers who do not leave feedbacks, but they return and purchase my items again.

This is a clear indication to me that they are very satisfied with my items and service.

This is very simple logic!

And VERY LARGE NUMBER of buyers just write the note, but they do not attend DSR's lines.

But they still have their opinions!

Generally speaking, the data collected thru DSR system is not sufficient for accurate measurements of seller's performance, and therefore is not fair.

pocomocomputing · ‎02-23-2013

Statistically, the DSR system most likely takes into account what percentage of buyers will submit any feedback and DSR's. So the threshold of where actions are taken against a seller is set according to the expected return rate of feedback and DSRs based on history of the DSR system.

If the percent of feedback and DSRs returned went from say 70% to 90% or from 70% to 50%, then the threshold of where actions might be changed.

What might be unfair is the product that one seller versus another seller. A seller of used books might have less issues with product compared to a seller of used clothing where style, color, size and fit may be an issue more often once the item is received.

A Canadian seller using Canada Post generally is at a disadvantage in the shipping DSR categories compared to USA sellers using USPS. But relative to all other Canadian sellers the DSRs will be the same.

There is enough range in the acceptable values to handle a lower average DSR rate and the occasional low DSR 1 or 2. A seller cannot expect a perfect 5 all the time since DSR is based on buyer opinions. The DSR system takes this into account.

The DSR system has evolved over time to give sellers some protection against some situations. For example, if you offer Free Shipping, then shipping costs is an automatic 5. Report a buyer has been added to the system to allow sellers to report bad buyers who abuse the system.

While not a perfect system, it has and still does force sellers to be accountable for their sales methods and actions. But bad buyers giving low DSRs can hurt any seller good or bad if their DSRs all occur during the same time period. A risk all sellers have.

Overall, I think the DSR has done much more good than bad since it was introduced a few years back.

coolthings123 · ‎02-23-2013

I will agree with you the system is not perfect, in any way, shape or form. I have to disagree the DSR has done much more good than bad. I have absolutely no problem with the premise a seller should be accountable/responsible for their actions. I've been doing that for years. If I make a mistake I have no problem owning up and doing whatever it takes to get it fixed. However, the system is unjust when a person can affect your life by arbitrarily clicking a button anonymously and without consequence to them by virtue of his or her opinion of your performance. Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence or the concept of facing your accuser. Even criminals get this consideration. eBay is nothing more than a conduit between buyers and sellers for which it is very well compensated. The only thing that can be somewhat objectively rated by the buyer is that he or she gets the item they purchased, or in eBayspeak - Item as Described. Shipping Time and Communication ratings are subjective, which is problematic. Shipping Time is out the seller's control once an item is mailed. One person may think 10 business days for delivery is perfectly fine while another may think 10 days is far too long. One leaves a 5, the other leaves a 1. How much communication is enough? Again, totally subjective. Shipping and Handling is the biggest bugaboo of all. By paying for the item the buyer has agreed to the shipping cost. If he/she has an issue with the shipping cost it should be addressed with the seller prior to making payment. Sniping the seller with a 1 or a 2 after the fact is patently unfair. This system needs to be dramatically overhauled.

my-june · ‎02-24-2013

Absolutely agree!!

My 'shipping' stars have little grey ends because:

Buyers don't look at the Postage label to see When it was shipped & How Much I paid for the Postage alone.

If Canada Post & USPS or whatever don't get it to them on time, I get penalized.

Believe it or not, I had a buyer in Ontario who gave me a Neutral ~ all because she thought I charged too much for shipping ~ Even though the price of postage was on the labell.

I contacted her but she refused to revise her feedback ~ takes all kinds!

I've given up an ever have 5 full stars!

pitai45 · ‎02-24-2013

I recently lost my Top Rated Seller status because of a few bad scores on my DSR and for a short period my Power Seller. This last one has come back quite rapidly but I'm still out of the first.

I agree fully that sellers needs to be accountable. There was a time where an important number of sellers were making much money from S&H over their sales. Too many were abusing the feedback system with retribution,etc...The system was gradually moved towards the buyer's protection to the point that abuse was coming right and left against sellers.

So my point of view comes this eBay act of trying to balance between sellers and buyers. Recently eBay has introduced new protection for the sellers. As an example I received yesterday an eBay message telling me that they had removed 2 neutral/negative in the last month and removed also Low DSR in communication (3),Shipping time (1) and S&H(3).To explain the context, I ALWAYS write 3 PERSONNAL messages to my buyers, all of them, besides the automated messages sent by eBay; I ship within 24 hours of payment 100% of the time and all shipping costs are eBay calculated unless I'm using a low flat rate for padded envelope.

Normally I should not receive low DSR but it does comes from time to time and it seems that eBay is acting on my behalf and I feel good about ity.

My regret do, and it is a major,major element in my analysis and opinion is the secret snitching aspect to it all.

As a seller, whatever good I do, I'm subjected to secret judgements, a form of inquisition that profits only to eBay since I lost my discount by losing my Top Rated Seller icone.
Make it public; make buyers who choose to leave low DSR accountables as well as the sellers.

Furthermore if a buyer is abusive you can put him/her on your block bidders list to protect you in the future.

It sometimes hard to keep faith in eBay and I still hope they would be more responsible towards honest sellers that have maintained splendid records over the years.I saw only yesterday a seller who has received 298 negs in the last year, 34 negs plus 27 neutral in the last month but still maintain is Top Rated Status. Only a question of statistics as a very large seller. I would wish for a more sensible approch if possible.We are not all multinationnnals with thousands of sales to alleviate shaddy work.

coolthings123 · ‎02-25-2013

So, anyone got any great ideas on how to get eBay to change this to a better system?? Would love to hear your ideas because this is not right!!!

cumos55 · ‎02-25-2013

The percentage of bad ratings is based on total sales.....

Those buyers not leaving a rating are assumed to be leaving a "5".

With this approach it is better not to receive ratings, as opposed to ratings from all buyers.

Things do average out over a 12 month period.... The percentage of low ratings used to be calculated over a much shorter period of time

However, even with that many buyers do not understand the correct application of Shipping time and Shipping and Handling.

A Lot of problems do have to do with communication with respect to how long it would take to have a postal service(s) deliver a parcel, while the cost is more perception than anything else.

Many US buyers.... buy and then forget it is coming from Canada.....and ding goes that rating...

Canada buyers want shipping to cost less, and forget that Canada Post can be perceived as expensive....

i*m-still-here · ‎02-25-2013

I think that one reason ebay started the DSR system was because they realized that buyers do not like to leave NFB because it reflects poorly on the buyer as well as the seller.

If you think about it........ when a buyer leaves PFB and trashes DSRs..........

.......... then that buyer must be really disappointed with something because since the seller does not know who left the DSRs (at least in theory) the "revenge" motive has pretty much been taken out of the mix.

Since ebay is so huge and draws all kinds of sellers ebay had to find some way to control the bad guys.

Unfortunately, the good guys are often casualties of the system.

I's just part of ebay's complicated system of rewards and punishments to control sellers.

The same type of system is used for training dogs and teaching children to become responsible adults.

................ You bet it isn't fair, but maybe it's necessary. I'm not sure.

coolthings123 · ‎02-26-2013

The system in its present form is definitely not necessary. It is eBay's version of killing a fly with a sledge hammer. The fly metaphorically being the seller. As I mentioned before I have absolutely no problem with being accountable to the buyer for the quality of the item I sell. I do have a huge problem if the buyer wants me to be responsible for the time the item spends in the postal system. I do have a huge problem if the buyer thinks I charged a dollar or two too much for shipping and handling after they have agreed to the purchase price. I also have a problem if the buyer expects an ongoing dialogue with respect to the purchase. I have just checked my dashboard and yahoo I am now "below standard." My power seller is gone and eBay now sees fit to hold the money on my sales. Thank you very much eBay. One of my buyers was going to leave negative feedback and trash me on DSR no matter what I did. He was just a totally unreasonable buyer. He purchased something mid December and was upset it didn't arrive in time for Christmas. Because the item hadn't arrived in time for Christmas he demanded I send him another via overnight priority mail. I refused. A few days later the item arrived but according to the buyer had been broken in transit. That is still open for debate in my opinion. He then opened a dispute for "Item not as Described" and alleged I had sent the item in the broken condition and that was why it was delivered late. I am still trying to figure out the logic in that statement. Regardless I asked the buyer to provide photographic proof of the damage which he finally did and I refunded all of his money. His feedback included words that I had refused to make things right. Go figure. Every other buyer has left positive feedback. But some anonymous sniper decided it would be great fun to leave positive feedback on a multiple item purchase and rate 1's on shipping and handling which was combined at a much lower rate but apparently in his/her mind wasn't low enough. Now it's not bad enough the system is dysfunctional but it adds insult to injury by instead of the multiple purchase being considered one transaction because of the combined shipping I receive multiple 1's against my DSR. I am assuming it will take almost a year to get rid of these to get back to a reasonable level. So I have gone from a Power Seller to a nobody in a few short weeks. So, again I would like to thank eBay for making this seller's eBay experience one I will cherish for a long, long time.

zoomrr69 · ‎02-26-2013

Heck..u know my thoughts on this..

Kicks the chopping block around.......

Who's next....................

Save the DSR's..but stop the punishment..........

Bring back the Negative............

rose-dee · ‎02-27-2013

Wow, the fact that this string has almost more posts than anything else must say something about how sore a subject the DSR system is with sellers - no kidding!

DSRs probably have a place on eBay, but IMHO, there are serious problems with the DSR concept as it now stands:

1) The DSR system is skewed against the smaller seller (and for that matter, almost any Canadian seller). As one poster importantly pointed out, multinational sellers of cheap whatnots with thousands of transactions can mitigate shoddy salesmanship statistically.

2) Allowing buyers to rate sellers on anything to do with shipping after they (the buyers) have agreed to the cost and the item has been shipped is ludicrous and irrational. It turns DSRs into simply a ranting forum for buyers.

3) Buyers have no real grasp of how critical those little stars are to sellers. They either hit all "5s" robotically to get it over with if they're relatively happy, or they use the tool as punishment, often for elements of the transaction completely out of a seller's control. I've seen my numbers fall in the "shipping cost" section despite the fact that I almost always provide my buyers with a discount on shipping.

4) DSRs are not linked to FB. A buyer can post positive FB and blast a seller in DSRs, and vice-versa. This is completely illogical.

5) The only DSRs that should count toward a seller's overall rating should be "Item as Described" and (possibly) "Communication" (perhaps weighted lower than "IAD" overall).

6) EBay is too draconian with their DSR limits - it should instead recognize that buyers are much more flippant than sellers are where DSRs are concerned, and give sellers more leeway when tallying their performance.

My suggestions to eBay are (is anyone out there listening????)

(1) Get rid of DSRs that allow buyers to rate shipping time and shipping costs. You've done enough to curtail outrageous shipping charges by hitting sellers with FVFs on shipping. Don't punish us twice for matters beyond our control.

(2) Link the DSRs logically to the FB once the FB has been entered -- if a buyer leaves negative FB, then leaves 4 or 5 star DSRs, oblige him to revise his FB to positive, without any text. If he leaves positive FB, allow him to only leave 4+ DSR points.

(3) Don't permit multiple DSR entries for a single combined shipping transaction, ever;

(4) Lastly, have a simple DSR that rates overall satisfaction with the transaction and the seller's service;

Surely eBay, your computers can handle this!

coolthings123 · ‎02-27-2013

I honestly can't believe this issue doesn't make more people angry. I have been an eBay seller for over 10 years and they end up treating you like crap. eBay is being incredibly myopic with their judgement of sellers. The best judge of future performance is past performance. It seems to me past performance ( and I mean performance over the past 10 years) means absolutely nothing to them. They will take the word of a couple of disgruntled buyers as gospel and then punish the seller. This is GARBAGE!!!!

pierrelebel · ‎02-27-2013

"eBay is being incredibly myopic with their judgement of sellers. '

???

eBay does not give sellers feedback or DSR. Buyers do.

"The best judge of future performance is past performance"

That is correct. On the other hand eBay understands mistakes happen. As such, many years ago, they switched their feedback rating calculation to be based on the last 12 months only. Negatives received more than twelve months ago are no longer counted in the feedback rating percentage.

Feedback and DSR are not a perfect system. However, they are an important tool allowing potential buyers to gain a certain level of confidence towards a seller offering to sell something they do not see. Trust is important.

Canadians also have to keep in mind, whether we like it or not, that eBay Inc is an American based corporation with the bulk of its users (both buyers and sellers) and employees and management located in the USA. Canadians represent a very tiny fraction and problems arising from being in Canada (higher shipping costs, longer delivery time, delay and costs through Customs) are not taken into account. We have seen over the years multiple examples where Canadian eBay staffers and managers have been unable to change policies made by Americans for Americans favouring Americans.

If someone could come up with a better (*) feedback/DSR system I am convinced eBay would pay millions of dollars for it. A system that would attract more buyers or allow current eBay buyers to spend more money with eBay sellers.

And yes folks, the purpose of feedback and DSR is to help buyers determine the reputation of a seller. And that is the way it should be. Feedback for buyers is almost irrelevant other than to indicate some experience buying on this venue.

(*) better = something that would bring more sales to eBay sellers and more revenue to eBay. Nobody at eBay really cares about sellers ego bruised by a low DSR or occasional negative feedback. Too many expect a score that reflects perfection at all times.

mr.elmwood · ‎02-27-2013

Mgmt may be USA based, but Americans are a minority compared to the rest of the world. Germany has always been the second largest market.

Canada is not even a country to eBay. We are an "adjacent market". Up until six years ago there was a VP for adjacent markets. We are more the 51st state, kinda on par with Montana.

How important is Montana to the global eBay? Cdns that complain need to consider their place in the pecking order. We are way far down the line of importance.

I have a different perspective. I am a worldwide seller who just happens to ship from Canada. I do not view that as a negative. Just a factor to be dealt with.

Interesting that the long time, higher FB, sellers are more moderate. We work the system, the system does not work us.

I look at what has happened, what is happening and what will happen. Then I discard it all. Why? Without my access to parts, supplies, shipping, etc, it would not matter what eBay does or does not do.

There are a lot of things that factor into how I conduct my business. DSR is darn near at the bottom.

Rating systems are in every retail business. Senior mgmt says the same thing to everyone who complains: "Come up with a better system and present it to us". Crying "It's not fair" is not coming up with a better system.

I dealt with:

units per man hour

dollars per sq ft

gross profit

net profit

sales per salary dollar

dollars per sale

units per sale

average sale

inventory turnover rate

dollar sales per category

shelf management

Cry me a river over DSR.

.
.
.

coolthings123 · ‎02-27-2013

Honestly Pierre it sounds to me as if you are just regurgitating the eBay "party line." I am fully aware eBay doesn't give feedback or DSR. It does however choose to be judge, jury and executioner when it comes to DSR ratings without so much as a trial for the seller. I have never, ever,mentioned in any of my responses that I disagree with the feedback system. I only disagree with the DSR because it is the thorn in the side of most sellers. So, who cares about negatives received more than 12 months ago no longer counting. In most cases it is irrelevant because in most cases the majority of good sellers might only have one or two negatives. I also understand Trust is important. Buyers should be able to figure the "reputation of a seller" and who they can trust by the feedback scores. Otherwise there are enough other safeguards in place with buyer protection offered by both eBay and PayPal. eBay does not need to punish the sellers for making a "mistake," if in fact it was a mistake or perhaps in reality it was an unreasonable buyer leaving unrealistic ratings on the DSR.

pocomocomputing · ‎02-27-2013

I honestly can't believe this issue doesn't make more people angry. I have been an eBay seller for over 10 years and they end up treating you like crap. eBay is being incredibly myopic with their judgement of sellers. The best judge of future performance is past performance. It seems to me past performance ( and I mean performance over the past 10 years) means absolutely nothing to them. They will take the word of a couple of disgruntled buyers as gospel and then punish the seller. This is GARBAGE!!!!

Perhaps many sellers are not concerned with the DSR system as much as you are. They have adapted to it and improved their selling practices to meet the requirements of the DSR system. They just get on with selling on eBay and do not waste time or energy on worrying about DSRs and feedback.

The DSR system works. Some buyers may abuse DSRs but they is enough leeway in the system to take care of that for most sellers. eBay changes the system when they see patterns of abuse that sellers point out. For example, an auto 5 for shipping cost when Free shipping is used. There is a Report Buyer button for sellers that is easy to access to report abuse from buyers..

A Canadian seller has challenges with Canada Post as a shipping service. Rates are high. But you have to consider that most sales are to the USA and are cross border sales. So shipping is high and delivery times longer. So the USA buyer perception is correct that it takes longer and is more expensive than from sellers within the USA. That is the reality of a Canadian seller selling in eCommerce and not just eBay.