Ebay Rant
Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 1:03 am
Okay not a rant so much, I got that out of system with customer support. But I do want to talk about the wonderful star system, or Top rated seller.
When you leave feedback do you leave stars? Do you know how important they are? For those who don't the stars are used by ebay to determine Top Rated Sellers, which does come with a fee discount, but more importantly is used to determine how far down the list ebay places your items. And let me tell you that getting stuck on page 3 is a good way to sell nada, nothing, zitch. So making TSR is very important.
But ebay in all its wisdom, (obvious fee hike), has decided that although they give discount based on your average, you are AUTOMATICALLY DISQUALIFIED if you receive 2 1-2 star scores in any category within A YEAR, or .5% of your total transactions, which means 3 1-2 stars for 600+ sales!!!!!!!!!!!! And if the buyer bought multiple items and left a 1 star for shipping for each item, they all count as separate stars. Although only 1 point toward your feedback total, way to be consistent ebay!!!! And ebay has made the star score anonymous, even to themselves. So the seller doesn't know who left it or why. Which makes it totally useless as a way to encourage better service. If I don't know what the problem is how can I fix it?
But ebay does not make it clear to buyers how ROYALLY SCREWED a seller can be by 1 star score. Now hey I'm not saying never to give a 1 or 2 stars. But realize its MUCH worse than leaving negative feedback. So if you never contact the seller with any problem, and you left positive feedback, does the seller deserve a hit to the tune of hundreds of dollars in fees and a huge decrease in sales?
And there is no recourse to the score even if TOTALLY unfair. Just ask the sellers who ship every item FREE and DON"T have a 5 star rating for shipping cost!!!
Okay, so it was a bit of a rant. But I didn't swear like I did when dealing with ebay support.
When you leave feedback do you leave stars? Do you know how important they are? For those who don't the stars are used by ebay to determine Top Rated Sellers, which does come with a fee discount, but more importantly is used to determine how far down the list ebay places your items. And let me tell you that getting stuck on page 3 is a good way to sell nada, nothing, zitch. So making TSR is very important.
But ebay in all its wisdom, (obvious fee hike), has decided that although they give discount based on your average, you are AUTOMATICALLY DISQUALIFIED if you receive 2 1-2 star scores in any category within A YEAR, or .5% of your total transactions, which means 3 1-2 stars for 600+ sales!!!!!!!!!!!! And if the buyer bought multiple items and left a 1 star for shipping for each item, they all count as separate stars. Although only 1 point toward your feedback total, way to be consistent ebay!!!! And ebay has made the star score anonymous, even to themselves. So the seller doesn't know who left it or why. Which makes it totally useless as a way to encourage better service. If I don't know what the problem is how can I fix it?
But ebay does not make it clear to buyers how ROYALLY SCREWED a seller can be by 1 star score. Now hey I'm not saying never to give a 1 or 2 stars. But realize its MUCH worse than leaving negative feedback. So if you never contact the seller with any problem, and you left positive feedback, does the seller deserve a hit to the tune of hundreds of dollars in fees and a huge decrease in sales?
And there is no recourse to the score even if TOTALLY unfair. Just ask the sellers who ship every item FREE and DON"T have a 5 star rating for shipping cost!!!
Okay, so it was a bit of a rant. But I didn't swear like I did when dealing with ebay support.