eBay

cc_stamps · ‎01-11-2014

I opened a store a few months, always pay attention to feedback & criteria ratings, and generate report everyday.
Recently I have 4-star for all criteria from a buyer, I asked what happen, the buyer said item is great, quick delivery, just the shipping fee is expensive, so all 4 s'.

I feel interesting. Sounds like I decided to smoke and I got sick, then I sue government because they let shops sell cigarettes and allow me to buy. All government's faults !

Now, I understand why some sellers has this statement 'If you do not agree with the shipping fee, please do not bid/buy.'.

I need a bit more time to get used to all the interesting things.

pierrelebel · ‎01-11-2014

"I asked what happen,"

I am sorry you had to deal with a "4" across the board but, please keep in mind sellers are not allowed to communicate with buyers and question DSRs. It is clearly against the rules on eBay.

rose-dee · ‎01-11-2014

Well, "interesting" is one word; "disgusting" is what I'd use.

Your experience is an example of why so many of us sellers say the DSR system is broken.

My particular view of the problem is that the buyer's impression of DSRs and the seller's impression are completely at odds: buyers really have no concept how critical those little yellow stars are to a seller and eBay has done nothing to disabuse buyers of the idea that the DSRs are just an "opinion survey" with any consequences. How we sellers all wish it were so!

You won't want to get sellers here started on the question of "shipping cost" DSRs -- it will start a firestorm!!

One of my personal criticisms of the DSR system (aside from the usual) is that word 'very'. What's the difference between "reasonable" and "very reasonable"? Or "satisfied" and "very satisfied"? It's either reasonable or not, a buyer is either satisfied or not. By giving a buyer too many shades of gray, you end up with a lot of "4 star" ratings for no good reason.

My only hope is that eBay will take a more careful look at the DSR system and maybe, just maybe, make some revisions in the Spring Seller Update. Or even better -- maybe they'll get rid of it completely and go to a reviewing system like other ecommerce sites.

All I can say is that in the meantime, all sellers have to watch out where shipping costs are concerned, since I think this is the area where buyers are most likely to give less than 5 stars. If they are upset about the shipping cost, they will then punish you elsewhere, as your buyer did. Consider rolling some of your shipping costs into your items and offer lower (or free) shipping wherever you can.

rose-dee · ‎01-11-2014

By the way, I took a look at some of your listings, and you may want to consider doing the following:

Remove the old, blank "Auctiva" scrolling gallery -- unless you plan to continue using Auctiva, in which case you should update the eBay token on your Auctiva account (you'll find the eBay token feature under the "Account" tab on Auctiva). If you no longer have an Auctiva account, this won't work, in which case you really should remove the useless gallery -- it doesn't look good on your listings.
Insert some sort of description in the description frame, some information that might be helpful or useful to your buyers about the particular item -- use a large enough font (say 16 or 18 point) so that it doesn't look line a few miniscule words floating in a huge blank page
Consider completing the "item specifics" section when you list each item. This is supposed to help in searches -- at least that's what eBay says.

mr.elmwood · ‎01-11-2014

4's do not count. Anyone who pays attention to uncontrollable DSR has far too much time on their hands. Many people, myself included, do not believe in the concept of "PERFECT".

Widget, communication, shipping cost, etc was perfect? Hard to imagine.

Op? Are you here to sell and make money, or, are you here to get pretty numbers? Those concepts are competing, one is at odds with the others.

I could care less. I check mine maybe three times a year. Mine average 4.8-4.9. Powewrseller level is 4.6. Are you, on average, above 4.6?

DSR, FB, are going away as they have been proven to be unreliable.

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rose-dee · ‎01-11-2014

Well, Mr. E., I guess this is our day to disagree. DSRs do count -- it all depends on a seller's volume, and I think you're looking at this from only your own situation. If you have enough turnover, you can afford to be less concerned about DSR numbers.

Although my yearly sales (in dollar terms) are way over the TRS level, because I sell quite a number of higher-priced items (in the $200 - $300) range, my transaction numbers per month are low, and so every one of those DSRs has a higher significance percentage-wise, than in the case of someone selling $20 or $30 widgets 50 times a month.

Put another way, those of us with lower volume really do have to work harder to make sure we don't get that one or two low sets of DSRs that will knock us flying off the shelf. And by low, I mean 3's or 4's. So, yes, I think many sellers do have to care seriously about DSRs. Obviously sellers with thousands of transactions a year can afford to let the numbers absorb a few bad hits.

rose-dee · ‎01-11-2014

@mr.elmwood wrote:

Widget, communication, shipping cost, etc was perfect? Hard to imagine.

I don't think "perfect" is the way to look at it. EBay doesn't use that term in the DSR feature (thank goodness for small mercies).

Actually, I think most buyers, if generally happy, will just hit the 5 stars all the way through. I think it's the ones who have a particular gripe that really bother to look carefully at what else they can say with those stars.

mr.elmwood · ‎01-11-2014

one or two low sets of DSRs that will knock us flying off the shelf

There is anecdotal evidence that this is based on TOTAL sales and not rated sales. I have two, on the same day, last spring. Nothing happened.

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cc_stamps · ‎01-11-2014

Yes Miss rose-dee, this is exactly my concern. I do not have many transactions per month, 1 4's can 'knock me flying off the shelf'.

Actually, I have 4 buyers gave me 4's in the last 6 months because of the shipping fee. I didn't know I cannot ask ! ........ Sssshhhhhhh.......

Thanks for the suggestions, I am changing Turbo Lister removing that empty Auctiva bar.

Mr E., all my 3-month and 12-month average are 4.8-4.9.

Once I got hit by a 4's, I needed to have 10+ 5's to move from 4.8 back to 4.9 !

If the DSR is not good, you will not have business. Not easy running a eBay store ! Keep fighting !

rose-dee · ‎01-11-2014

@mr.elmwood wrote:
one or two low sets of DSRs that will knock us flying off the shelf

There is anecdotal evidence that this is based on TOTAL sales and not rated sales. I have two, on the same day, last spring. Nothing happened.

I expect nothing happened because your volume was high enough to absorb the numbers without affecting the overall percentage, whether total sales or rated sales. Those lower DSRs will mix in with all the 5's in cases where there is enough volume, to give something very close to a 5.0. You sell a lot more individual items per month than I do.

My situation is different, as I said, because I'm only at around 150 transactions per year, making each individual rating a great deal more significant.

For example, I had one buyer -- just one -- several months ago who completely misread the description of an item, then left low DSRs for the "As Described" topic. The reason I knew was because the rating in that category suddenly dropped from 5.0 to 4.6 (by the way, I didn't approach the buyer about the DSRs; he emailed me himself to tell me he was not completely happy, and why, and that he'd left ratings accordingly). I'm still seeing the effects of that one hit. It should finally drop off the back end of my DSRs in another 8 or 10 transactions.

Yet if I were to get one more like it, let alone two, my TSR status would be in jeopardy (it's the discount I care about, not the badge). So I do have to pay careful attention to keeping my customers in the "very" zone on all counts. I envy sellers who have enough volume that they can be blasé about DSRs.

Still, you're probably right about DSRs disappearing soon. I only hope it gets replaced with something better, not worse.

cc_stamps · ‎01-21-2014

Found another interesting thing. Most of my Singapore buyers gave 4's, recently I received 4 x 4's from the same buyer.

A big drop to 4.7 (3-months) and 4.8 (12-months).

Even though it's positive feedback, how can I remove that 4 rows of feedback ?

froogal_electronic_parts_and_overstock · ‎01-21-2014

The point of the OP, if I read correctly is that ALL the DSR's were 4, not just shipping.

That is a failure of the DSR system, where it expects that the buyer will put their ratings carefully based on each category..... but many don't. If they are unhappy about 1, then all DSR's get the lower rating.

Further, if you get an unhappy negative, then you often get 1's for all DSR's

For large sellers, this can be absorbed over a short period of time, but for small sellers it can take a long time to absorb and rebalance. This wouldn't be so bad, but the time taken for a low rating can be longer than the 3 months that ebay allows if they make a seller fall below their minimum requirements. Of course, don't expect that to change any time soon as the large sellers are OK with small sellers being limited/suspended or discouraged. This is not ebay's fault. All large businesses actively lobby wherever they are selling to tilt the table in their favour.

Ebay will also place restrictions based on FB and DSR separately so that you can be hit twice for the same issue.

My biggest issue with the whole DSR system is that if a buyer actually investigates what DSR's are in ebays faqs, it sounds all rosy and pretty and how it provides 'constructive criticism' and helps create a better seller....blah blah blah, when as a seller, I feel that is so far from the truth.

femmefan1946 · ‎01-21-2014

OP

Since you are selling inexpensive items, have you considered going to Free Shipping at least domestically and to the USA?

Offering 'free' domestic shipping gives you automatic 5s for shipping cost and also makes for happy customers.

Before you panic, "Free Shipping" is adspeak for "Shipping included in price."

At a glance most of your items seem to be inexpensive stamps. Because these can go letter rate, charging $1.99 USD for an envelope that could go for $0.63 will annoy the receiving customer. Others will hit the backbutton when they see you are charging more for shipping than for the item. Lost sales are hard to calculate.

And if you are making multiple sales to each customer, which I really hope you are, then the cost of packaging and shipping drops even further.

rose-dee · ‎01-21-2014

@femmefan1946 wrote:
OP
Since you are selling inexpensive items, have you considered going to Free Shipping at least domestically and to the USA?
Offering 'free' domestic shipping gives you automatic 5s for shipping cost and also makes for happy customers.

Not only that, but if you confine your customer messaging to the boxes within your sales record (i.e. don't use eBay's messaging system unless you have to), you'll get the automatic 5 stars for communication -- provided the buyer doesn't require you to communicate for some reason. This means there is only the shipping time and item as described DSRs left, and even if buyers give you a "4" on those, the other two "5's" will average the total out in your favour.

I should say that personally I have a bone to pick with eBay over rewarding sellers for non-communication, but it is what it is, and these days anything to get those 5 stars seems to be justifiable.

tobyshitzu · ‎01-21-2014

op could never qualify for auto 5 star for communication being it requires uploading tracking too. Not that it would make any difference to get 5 for it and a lower amount for the others. There is no "average" between the different criteri

Not that getting 4s has any meaning either.. Its avoiding getting 3 1s or 2s a year in any of the 4 criteria that makes a difference

rose-dee · ‎01-21-2014

@toby**bleep**zu wrote:
op could never qualify for auto 5 star for communication being it requires uploading tracking too. Not that it would make any difference to get 5 for it and a lower amount for the others. There is no "average" between the different criteria

Right -- I forgot the OP was selling postage stamps (and a lot of individual stamps at that), and probably rarely if ever uses tracking.

You're also correct of course that there is no averaging between DSR categories. There is averaging within categories, which is what I was thinking of, but which would be of no help to the OP anyway.

Sorry -- I stand corrected on both counts.