I am very tired of eBay directing buyers to open requests when having a question. I have had two buyers recently using the resolution center to ask me a question regarding orders that hadn't been received yet. Not because they were upset but because they are checking with me about their status. When I explained to them that in doing so (instead of using eBay messaging) it is counted as a defect towards me they were both mortified. They had no idea whatsoever. Each time this happens it adds .33% towards my defect total. That in itself doesn't sound so bad until you consider that you are only allowed 2% before having your seller status lowered. If it happens enough we all know that any seller discounts are lost and that is a big deal to me.
Sales are down because of the cart issue between the U.S. and Canada sites that eBay seems to neither care about or has any plans on fixing. It has really impacted my sales as most of my customers are in the U.S. The DSR's kill sellers as well as they are so subjective. I have had a couple not as described because the color didn't match their project exactly or because they couldn't be bothered to read my detailed description and expected something else. How fair is that? I have very reasonable shipping charges (no handling charge)and almost always end up paying more for postage then I collect yet I get lower dsr's on that as well. Also many buyers do not know that shipping time means the time it takes us to get our orders out, not the time it takes the post office to deliver them!
I have talked to a few buyers and I can say that all of them had no idea how dsr's impact a seller. They need to revamp or dump dsr's completely. There has to be a better way. Ebay also says how important leaving feedback is but isn't willing to make any changes there either, especially in regards to buyers who can't be bothered leaving any at all. There is no reason they can't institute an automatic positive feedback system if a buyer has not left any feedback after a certain time period. If two months has passed it is fairly safe to assume that the buyer does not have any issues with their purchase.
I'm starting to think that eBay really doesn't care about little sellers like me. One day the only sellers left will be the big ones who can absorb these losses. The ones that can get 100 negative feedbacks in a month and not blink an eye. It's all very depressing. I still haven't given up on eBay completely just yet but must admit it is getting harder and harder to hang in there.
