eBay

momcqueen · ‎01-04-2017

I know Feedback doesn't count for seller performance any longer but my rate of Feedback Received has dropped from 50 per cent to 30 to 20 per cent of feedback reciprocated over the last three years. It looks like I do no business on an annual basis. I'm feeling a little frustrated. I leave feedback on shipment for EVERY buyer and yet 80 per cent of the people purchasing in my category don't bother to do the same. Sigh. Whining over. I have another order to pack. It just looks like I don't ever have orders to pack. I worry it reflects poorly on my online business presence.

I have 99 followers and more than a hundred items with multiple watchers but I am concerned I look like a lame duck with 59n ratings under Detailed Seller Ratings. Maybe buyers don't bother to look at that, I don't know. It cold be only sellers judging one another that way in which case I guess it really doesn't matter.

momcqueen · ‎01-09-2017

Aw, shucks. Wherever did you find that old picture of me?

Hahahaha. I've bookmarked the Service Alert page. Thank you for that. I was having kittens the day after the day in question due to eight incoming deliveries that never arrived (Boxing Day shopping for all my January birthdays where each item shipped solo) and saw nothing on the tracking pages about service disruption. Certainly, we carried on that day like nothing happened. It's only winter, after all.

rose-dee · ‎01-09-2017

@38e_avenue wrote:

Can you not order CP pick up? It's what I am doing all winter. I am very happy with the service - it costs only 4 CAD. I order it twice a week (Tuesday/Friday), so the total monthly cost is 32 CAD.

I wish I could! I inquired about it, but it's not offered in our area, apparently we're too rural, or at least an insufficient population base. At the rate my sales are dropping, $32/month would be out of the question at the moment anyway. Our neighbour has a tractor-snowplow contraption, so we usually pay him to dig us out (once the snow finally stops, which it hasn't yet). Otherwise, DH will be trudging the 2km to the P.O. tomorrow (and I don't pay him ).

lady.stark · ‎01-09-2017

I experience the same thing here, although not for the same reason. I used to have at least a rating of 80 feedback (stars) on my page (sometimes higher). And since June, it dropped to less than 40. However, it's not because my buyers don't leave feedback, they do. It's because I don't sell as much as I used to. November and December used to be VERY lucrative months for me in term of sales. Not this year. I can count on one hand the items I sold in 2 months. As I predicted, my buyers don't understand the Canadian currency. I will have to transfer all my listings on .com soon if I want to keep my TRS. 😞

momcqueen · ‎01-09-2017

I have had literally one American buyer out of the thousand that I've served since starting to sell who didn't understand the currency conversion. Maybe it's a demographic. But he (the person in my example who wrote this Product Review that wasn't a comment on any product but a complaint he didn't understand the currency conversion) is the only one who required extra assistance on his second purchase from me. The first is where he left the review that wasn't a review. And it's still there. I marked it thumbs-down for usefulness and that is gone too.

Product Reviews are useless if they aren't curated. On any site.

sylviebee · ‎01-09-2017

@recped wrote:
I often never get around to leaving feedback for sellers.

_________________________________________________

When buying I've all but stopped leaving FB as well and see it as a good thing that the practice is gradually biting the dust.

I almost never leave FB when buying on other sites.

On eBay, many buyers prefer sellers with more FB so I sometimes leave FB for sellers to get my numbers up a bit.

On the other hand, I always leave FB for buyers because many have the illusion that it actually means something.

The whole process is so twisted that it should have been done away with long ago.

momcqueen · ‎01-09-2017

That's just it. I leave feedback for every buyer because most do feel it's a mark of some kind of accomplishment. And I agree that many buyers choose sellers they believe must be successful based on their feedback count. That's the reason I'm so worried mine has dropped to where it is now. It sits at 57 DSRs for some of those categories, I don't think that looks good at all. But I can't think of a thing that I could do to fix it other than to madly remind buyers to leave feedback which would surely be a bad idea.

momcqueen · ‎01-09-2017

My sales were steady but not remarkable this year. It's the Feedback Received that dropped, not my sales performance. I used to see 150 - 200 per year as a seller in the 12 month column and always 100+ in DSR.

momcqueen · ‎01-09-2017

That's 150-200 minimum per 12 months, it used to go as high as 360-400.

momcqueen · ‎01-09-2017

Also, I'm dutiful about leaving feedback as a buyer. I do, no matter what. Sometimes late but still I do.

recped · ‎01-09-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
That's just it. I leave feedback for every buyer because most do feel it's a mark of some kind of accomplishment. And I agree that many buyers choose sellers they believe must be successful based on their feedback count. That's the reason I'm so worried mine has dropped to where it is now. It sits at 57 DSRs for some of those categories, I don't think that looks good at all. But I can't think of a thing that I could do to fix it other than to madly remind buyers to leave feedback which would surely be a bad idea.

I'd change that a bit....to "some buyers" and they are probably mostly the long time eBayers.

I can tell you one thing, I rotate listings across a bunch of id's, most of them have pretty low feedback, the one I used for the latest promo has just over 100 (in 4 years) and none for the past 12 months. I sold more on that ID in the past 5 days than I sold on this id in the previous 3 weeks with the exact same listings.

For every buyer who wants to see that a seller has a good amount of feedback there is a buyer who doesn't like to buy from "big" sellers.

What exactly is meant by "small" or "big" sellers is impossible to guess, some people seem to think that if you sell enough to be above the poverty line you are a "big seller".

"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.

momcqueen · ‎01-09-2017

That's reassuring.

momcqueen · ‎01-11-2017

The matter of feedback left on ebay's biggest online competitor was raised earlier in the thread. I had to order from there recently (needed an item located within Canada for speedy delivery and none were elsewhere, checked ebay first) so the order was placed and fulfilled and today I got an email from the Third-Party Merchant whose item it was, asking me to leave feedback with a promise I'd be entered to win a $100 gift card et cetera.

I thought that was interesting.

Not necessarily a good technique, but interesting.

recped · ‎01-11-2017

Don't know about Amazon but on eBay offering an inducement unrelated to the listing in exchange for feedback is against policy!

Feedback Extortion Policy

Offer monetary compensation, like a partial refund, to the buyer in exchange for positive Feedback or revising negative or neutral Feedback. (a coupon is monetary compensation)

Feedback Manipulation Policy

Offering to sell, buy, barter, or give away Feedback (a coupon is offering to buy)

What do you bet that the seller in your case is or was an eBay seller?

"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.