How one bad feedback affected my ratings

[katoro-4]

Hello all,

During the Canada Post strike, I messaged a buyer asking them to consider another shipping method to CP. When I didn't hear back from this buyer, I refunded their money in full.

Yesterday, the buyer left me a negative review saying that I said that 'I no longer had that item'. I never said any such thing - I dont know where they got that info from. What I said was to choose an alternative to CP. No response back.

This buyer did not read the message I sent. Now my ratings have gone from 100% positive to 75%. The automated response from eBay is 'If they decide not to respond or decline your request, please respect their decision.'

It's hard to respect a decision that was not based on facts. 

What do you all say?

*I'm generally a nice person. I treat customers very well, offering lovely packaging, notes and gifts. I'm happy to do so. But this feedback bothered me so much and caught me off guard that I didnt react kindly to it. Dont do what I did...like replying with exclamation marks! and sounding harsh to any customer 💛

Thanks everyone

[ricarmic]

Really you've simply encountered bad luck early on. There are always going to be difficult customers, you've simply had the bad luck to receive one of the early on. As you build your presence here you'll encounter more and what you've learned from this one will help with others.

Regarding the feedback you left it really isn't that bad at all. It is factual and explains your side. Personally when I'm responding I try to avoid using words like "you" etc, I substitute "buyer" to depersonalize it. You didn't use caps or harsh words (I've seen some sellers leave ALL CAPS CALLING THE BUYER A LIAR, WASTE OF SPACE etc, over and over again, they don't even change the wording between them!!)

Anyway you did what you could, you've responded quite well for a "first timer" and you've learned from it. Just keep doing your best and as you sell more this will fall off the radar. The feedback doesn't hurt you at all aside from buyers seeing a lower %, how you refunded might, it depends on what reason you used (buyer asked to cancel or problem with address are the only safe ones) if it counts as an out of stock you can't have many of those, they will cause you selling grief if you do - your "seller level" report on the home myebay page will tell you that....

PS coming to the boards here is also a very good idea, I've been on ebay over 25 years now and I continue to learn from stuff on this board!!!

[byto253]

And to add to @ricarmic 's excellent response, the audience for replying to feedback is not the person who left it but for future buyers.  You want to indicate that you are reasonable and concerned with ensuring buyers have a good experience.  

[femmefan1946]

FWIW - most buyers are using phones and see the first four words of your title only, until they open the listing.

So if you are selling shorts, make "shorts" the first word in the title.

Clothing is  the hardest sell, especially with the recovery of the economy. People can now afford to buy new.

And for what it's worth, the lower the price the more demanding the buyer.

I'd suggest listing more, avoiding clothing, and doing a little buying from sellers who leave feedback on shipment.

[ilikehockeyjerseys · Accepted solution]

There is an account on Twitter and Facebook called AskeBay. This is eBay's dedicated customer service team of employees. My advice would be to contact that page with the details you provided in the post (you could not fulfill with Canada Post due to the strike, messaged the buyer to resolve, buyer ignored you).

Link them to this page - https://pages.ebay.ca/canadapoststrike2024/

Include the item number.

For their convenience you could also include a screenshot of your message to the buyer and the feedback. But they can find it on their end.

You should be protected from negative feedback relating to the strike. They might be able to initiate the process to remove it. 

They may direct you to use the feedback removal page. I don't believe there is one on the .ca website. You can find the .com one here: https://www.ebay.com/sellerhelp/feedback

Feedback generally isn't a big deal, but because you are a casual seller and have such a small sample size of sales, 75 percent could look bad.

The other thing to consider is that if you selected "out of stock or broken" as the reason for cancelling, you will also want to ask the customer service team to "remove any defects related to the transaction". 

I don't use Twitter or Facebook, but it's worth having a dummy Twitter account just for eBay (and other company) customer service accounts. Your experience getting this resolved might be completely different if you use the customer service linked on the eBay website because apparently that is contracted customer service, and the AskeBay account on Twitter/Facebook are actual eBay employees.

[byto253]

I also suggest to any new seller to buy some very cheap items from high volume sellers to generate some positive feedback.  

Something like these for $.99 with free shipping.  For $20 you can crank up the positive feedback and get feedback % back up to a reasonable level. 

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/355709543575

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/405073012311

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/265623703219

or more useful 10 magic erasers for $1.75 with shipping

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/356370474914

Interesting that when I do a general search for "cord" the really cheap 99 cent with shipping are not displayed, as the results have been "streamlined"  I had to select show all results to get the real cheap ones.  Also sort by lowest cost item first. 

[katoro-4]

Very good, thanks so much.

[katoro-4]

I'm learning from you as well, thanks 👍