I just got off the phone with a friend who is a fairly large Power Seller in the USA and he posed some interesting thoughts on the new system's lack of transparency for the seller.
The first concern was since we are not privy to the actual buyers, items or transactions that make up the DSR's, how do we know the DSR's are actually correct? There is actually no way for sellers to validate or confirm the numbers that eBay is posting what so ever. We just have to trust eBay?
The second, is that not knowing which items were purchased by whom and from where that received poor ratings, sellers will not know where they can make or should make improvements.
What struck me after the our conversation was that I seem to remember that one of the main themes of the new system was to make eBay more transparent. Seems a bit one sided to me. - Any thoughts?
The first concern was since we are not privy to the actual buyers, items or transactions that make up the DSR's, how do we know the DSR's are actually correct? There is actually no way for sellers to validate or confirm the numbers that eBay is posting what so ever. We just have to trust eBay?
The second, is that not knowing which items were purchased by whom and from where that received poor ratings, sellers will not know where they can make or should make improvements.
What struck me after the our conversation was that I seem to remember that one of the main themes of the new system was to make eBay more transparent. Seems a bit one sided to me. - Any thoughts?
Only that a number of people have contacted there local States Attorneys offices, who are investigating whether or not it violates anti-trust laws.
I feel it's ridiculous to think that eBay is manipulating the ratings.
I don't need to know which specific items are related to a particular rating, my shipping time star is 4.5 I know full well why it is, my description star is 4.9 and I know exactly why that is as well. It's not a ratings change caused by a single transaction that is important it's the trend. I would also think that in many cases (for me anyway) if I have a buyer who dramatically downgrades me (leaves a 1 or 2) I'm usually well aware of the problem.
In the OP's case I know exactly what is causing your dsr ratings. What I don't know (only the OP knows) is if it's possible for you to do anything about it of if the "return" of improving your rating is worth the "cost".
Take my shipping time star at 4.5, there are two reasons it's low, first is that I don't ship often enough, some orders sit for a week after payment before being sent. Second is that I sell a high proportion Internationally. I could ship more frequently and I may start to do this on the other hand I wouldn't give up any of my International business in exchange for a slight uptick in my rating.
As for transparency,is possible that the Sellers Dashboard which will be available soon will provide us with the info to better monitor and understand the ratings. That is it's proposed intent so I'm going to wait and see what they provide. When they remove the ability for sellers to leave retaliatory negs perhaps they will allow us better access to the background data.
One thing I do fear is that sellers that abused the current system will start to abuse the new system, if it gets bad enough with enough unjustified "false positive" comments being left we may lose the ability to leave any comments at all.
"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.
I don't need to know which specific items are related to a particular rating, my shipping time star is 4.5 I know full well why it is, my description star is 4.9 and I know exactly why that is as well. It's not a ratings change caused by a single transaction that is important it's the trend. I would also think that in many cases (for me anyway) if I have a buyer who dramatically downgrades me (leaves a 1 or 2) I'm usually well aware of the problem.
In the OP's case I know exactly what is causing your dsr ratings. What I don't know (only the OP knows) is if it's possible for you to do anything about it of if the "return" of improving your rating is worth the "cost".
Take my shipping time star at 4.5, there are two reasons it's low, first is that I don't ship often enough, some orders sit for a week after payment before being sent. Second is that I sell a high proportion Internationally. I could ship more frequently and I may start to do this on the other hand I wouldn't give up any of my International business in exchange for a slight uptick in my rating.
As for transparency,is possible that the Sellers Dashboard which will be available soon will provide us with the info to better monitor and understand the ratings. That is it's proposed intent so I'm going to wait and see what they provide. When they remove the ability for sellers to leave retaliatory negs perhaps they will allow us better access to the background data.
One thing I do fear is that sellers that abused the current system will start to abuse the new system, if it gets bad enough with enough unjustified "false positive" comments being left we may lose the ability to leave any comments at all.
"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.
If I don't understand WHY I get so low ratings
Why do you say this? Your ratings are not "low".
"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.
Why do you say this? Your ratings are not "low".
"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.
Hi,
I have around 400 different items to keep track of. Not as many as some but a lot. I ship 5 days a week. I use the least expensive means of shipment usually Light packets, or small packets. I charge $1.00 - $1.50 above actual shipping costs as a handling fee depending on the item. Now on most items I am getting feedback that often says fast shipping. I know that is mostly Canadian and European buyers that respond such. Since I ship 5 days a week with next day shipping after payment clears, I really can't get them out the door any faster. And I am totally out of control of the shipping times. We are at the mercy of our location and Canada Post and USPS and USA Customs. But I would like to know exactly which items that are going where are getting hit on Shipping costs and Shipping time. Is it my small packets or light packets going to the USA or both? Without knowing this or who they were purchased by how can I possible develop an informed strategy to fix the problem? It may be that I'm stuck with low ratings and miss the 15% discount and really can't do anything about it but without that information it's really just a crap shoot.
I have around 400 different items to keep track of. Not as many as some but a lot. I ship 5 days a week. I use the least expensive means of shipment usually Light packets, or small packets. I charge $1.00 - $1.50 above actual shipping costs as a handling fee depending on the item. Now on most items I am getting feedback that often says fast shipping. I know that is mostly Canadian and European buyers that respond such. Since I ship 5 days a week with next day shipping after payment clears, I really can't get them out the door any faster. And I am totally out of control of the shipping times. We are at the mercy of our location and Canada Post and USPS and USA Customs. But I would like to know exactly which items that are going where are getting hit on Shipping costs and Shipping time. Is it my small packets or light packets going to the USA or both? Without knowing this or who they were purchased by how can I possible develop an informed strategy to fix the problem? It may be that I'm stuck with low ratings and miss the 15% discount and really can't do anything about it but without that information it's really just a crap shoot.
I hit post rather that edit on my last post - need more coffee.
I could see the situation that I have particular item that for what ever reason the shipping cost is in error and too high. It's possible that I might be unaware of this and go on blissfully unaware of this error and finally come to accept my low shipping cost rating. Now if I were privy to ratings on particular items and destinations I could quickly see that there is a problem with that particular item and take steps to correct the error and then make the buyers experience a great one. But now it's just a crap shoot.
I could see the situation that I have particular item that for what ever reason the shipping cost is in error and too high. It's possible that I might be unaware of this and go on blissfully unaware of this error and finally come to accept my low shipping cost rating. Now if I were privy to ratings on particular items and destinations I could quickly see that there is a problem with that particular item and take steps to correct the error and then make the buyers experience a great one. But now it's just a crap shoot.
Rose,
For you customer that is threatening you with negative feed back I would report him immediately! There should be no tolerance for that kind of behavior from anyone.
I took a look at your listings as well as others a lot lately over the past week and I think we all could do a bit more about educating the buyer. Anyway what I am not seeing is shipping costs to the various destinations and delivery times in peoples listings. This would at least try to set expectations and cover our butts at the same time. Also I would state that I charge x amount over actual shipping costs as a handling fee. Then state my packaging standards if your sending expensive items.
Also I find many listings hard to read. People do not read anymore they just scan. We need to make our listings as easy to read as possible without elaborate backgrounds and fonts and make more use of bulleted descriptions rather than paragraphs. But that is just my humble opinion.
With the new system coming up I think we all need to make a point of reporting any customer that is behaving badly in the slightest way to eBay at all times. They promised better support lets hold them to it.
Over the past week I have edited all my listing templates and listings as well as my email templates to reflect the upcoming environment in an effort to get that 15%. I have also started to give feedback when I ship. I am willing to play by eBays new rules just to see what falls out. I don't think we have a choice.
Having said that I am also actively looking at what other venues have to offer as well as in the process of coding my own website with shopping cart.
Hope that is of some help
Best Regards to all
Gehres
For you customer that is threatening you with negative feed back I would report him immediately! There should be no tolerance for that kind of behavior from anyone.
I took a look at your listings as well as others a lot lately over the past week and I think we all could do a bit more about educating the buyer. Anyway what I am not seeing is shipping costs to the various destinations and delivery times in peoples listings. This would at least try to set expectations and cover our butts at the same time. Also I would state that I charge x amount over actual shipping costs as a handling fee. Then state my packaging standards if your sending expensive items.
Also I find many listings hard to read. People do not read anymore they just scan. We need to make our listings as easy to read as possible without elaborate backgrounds and fonts and make more use of bulleted descriptions rather than paragraphs. But that is just my humble opinion.
With the new system coming up I think we all need to make a point of reporting any customer that is behaving badly in the slightest way to eBay at all times. They promised better support lets hold them to it.
Over the past week I have edited all my listing templates and listings as well as my email templates to reflect the upcoming environment in an effort to get that 15%. I have also started to give feedback when I ship. I am willing to play by eBays new rules just to see what falls out. I don't think we have a choice.
Having said that I am also actively looking at what other venues have to offer as well as in the process of coding my own website with shopping cart.
Hope that is of some help
Best Regards to all
Gehres
But yet sellers are still in the dark as to how the scores are REALLY calculated and attributed to your account.
Try taking grade 8 mathematics! calculating DSR's is really pretty simple.....
the sum of all ratings divided by the total number of ratings then round up or down to the nearest tenth.
Once you understand this basic math you will understand why your ratings don't move much (or ever).
More importantly, we assumed that once the two negative feedbacks were removed that our DSR ratings would also improve (YA right) no such luck - infact the Shipping and delivery time remain unchanged so we are assuming that even if you get a negative removed that the DSR score that the buyer left (which we assumed that those who left us a negative would have scored us low on shipping and delivery time) remained unchanged.
Do you know for sure if the buyers who left you negs even rated your stars? In my case only about 40% of those that leave feedback also leave dsr ratings.
Try taking grade 8 mathematics! calculating DSR's is really pretty simple.....
the sum of all ratings divided by the total number of ratings then round up or down to the nearest tenth.
Once you understand this basic math you will understand why your ratings don't move much (or ever).
More importantly, we assumed that once the two negative feedbacks were removed that our DSR ratings would also improve (YA right) no such luck - infact the Shipping and delivery time remain unchanged so we are assuming that even if you get a negative removed that the DSR score that the buyer left (which we assumed that those who left us a negative would have scored us low on shipping and delivery time) remained unchanged.
Do you know for sure if the buyers who left you negs even rated your stars? In my case only about 40% of those that leave feedback also leave dsr ratings.
