Hello everyone…over past few months we have been making various changes on the site to improve the buyer and seller experience to make eBay the most preferred online shopping destination for shoppers.
While improving functionality on the site is critical, a big part of the buyer experience is in our sellers’ hands. We recently launched Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) to give buyers more information about the kind of service they can expect from a seller and help differentiate sellers who deliver a great buyer experience from those who do not. While the vast majority of eBay sellers deliver consistently positive experiences to buyers, a very small minority -- just 1% -- of sellers currently cause fully 35% of bad buying experiences. This small minority not only damage their own reputations, but also indirectly damage all of the good sellers who benefit from a strong and vital eBay marketplace. To address this problem, we have begun enforcing our Seller Non-Performance policy in stricter ways than in the past by considering a seller’s buyer dissatisfaction rate.
What is the updated Seller Non-Performance Policy? With the updated policy, all sellers who have more than 5% dissatisfied buyers over the past 90 days will be subject to reduced listing volume or temporary 14-day restrictions in the form of selling sanctions. Sellers with dissatisfaction rates that are 10% or greater will be subject to indefinite restrictions until they improve their buyer dissatisfaction rates to less than 5%. The buyer dissatisfaction will be calculated based on the following:
1. Item not received (INR) disputes 2. Item significantly not as described (SNAD) disputes 3. Negative or neutral feedback.
Why neutral feedback? Some of you have asked why neutral feedback ratings have become a part of measuring buyer dissatisfaction. Through our quantitative research as well as many conversations with community members, we have found that neutral feedback is most often an expression of deep buyer dissatisfaction. Therefore, leaving it out of the calculation would mask a significant part of the issue. Ultimately, only positive feedback is an indication of satisfied customers.
Will DSR’s (Detailed Seller Ratings) be included to calculate Bad dissatisfaction? Detailed Seller Ratings are not used in our buyer dissatisfaction calculations currently, however, as we gain experience and data, DSRs look very promising. We expect them to eventually become an additional input in our calculation of buyer dissatisfaction. We will keep you updated on adding DSRs as part of our calculations, and how they will impact a dissatisfaction rate.
Helping sellers improve their satisfaction rates and become successful is goal #1 Please know that our goal in restricting or sanctioning sellers is always to drive sellers to resolve their business challenges, improve their satisfaction rates, and remain in the marketplace as successful sellers. Our communication to impacted sellers spells out specific actions they should take to improve their rates, such as settling any open buyer dispute issues, refunding buyers when appropriate, asking for mutual feedback withdrawal when disputes have been resolved, etc.
Please remember that this new enforcement impacts the bottom 1% of current sellers, who cause 35% of the negative buying experiences on the site. The vast majority our sellers provide great buyer experiences by following these and other best practices: • They accurately represent the condition, size, and quality of the item directly in the listing. • They accept payment for an item at the end of a successful sale. • After payment is received, they promptly ship the item with proper packaging. • They proactively and professionally communicate with the buyer throughout the transaction.
We believe that the initiative to crack down on bad buyer experience in this way will benefit the whole of eBay India, and especially the 99% of our good sellers. If you have a question around this policy, please feel free to post it here. I will try to revert back on them as soon as possible.
Inspite of 100% positive feedback and always caring for my buyers and gifting them Just due to a fraud buyer perin1812 some Mr.Pyter of trust dept got against me and started stripping down my featured listings and imposed restrictions on listing new items on my account. I used auctivia for the first time. They say there is outside link when I asled to please show me the outside link they have no reply, actually no outside link exists at all. I dont know what to do other then to stop listing anything on ebay again. Its full of frauds. ebay helps fraud buyers and do injustice to sellers. God please help! Crorepati Jewellers
I just wanted to bring to the notice of ebay and others about me being a victim of a fraud. The fraud buyer "perin1812" threatened me that she will leave negative feedback if I dont refund the money without herself returning the item. I didn't got the item returned yet. when I complained ebay some mr.pyter asked me to fax the purchase documents of the item I was selling, strange! moreover the fax number provided is of no where it always asks to check the number. Then he forced me to refund the money without the return of the Gemstones I sold her. Mr. Pyter said he would take action against my account and he stripped down my homepage featured listings which received more than 850 visits and so many questions. Now the fraud buyer perin1812 is enjoying with the gemstones as well as the money. Thanks to ebay. We sellers are here to stay with ebay and generate revenue for ebay and such fraud buyers are once in a while. Just to preserve the dignity of ebay and the fear of any action on my account I had to return the money without getting back the item and what did ebay do to reciprocate!
Jai Shree Krishna Nealratan Agarwala Crorepati Jewellers
I would like to share my views about some of the facts I have in my mind. I will appreciate other community members's thoughts about these facts.
Listing and promotions :
Ebay promotion charges are very high. for homepage, there is no logic to charge double promotion when number of items in a single listing are more then one because the item is promoted only as a single listing then why charge double?
Unpaid item concerns : Unpaid items for the listings that were promoted or in auction formats, are a great loss to sellers. FVF is reversed but still promotion charges are not reversed. I would like to suggest the following to avoid this. 1. For auction format, The bidder should first open his/ her account with paisapay and should deposit some money into it. when he/ she wins the auction, this amount should be transfered to sellers paisapay account immediately after the seller sends invoice for the item. 2. if the bidder bids for Rs 1000 and he has less then 1000 amount in his paisapay account, he should not be allowed to bid and should be asked to deposit that amount in his own paisapay account to qualify for a bid. 3. The buyer should get clear warning that the item is still available to other buyers untill you pay for this. 4 The item listing BIN should not end untill it is paid by the buyer.
Genuinity of sellers :
Ebay never verifies its sellers. Anyone with smuggled, stolen items, can offer for sale. There are sellers with multiple ebay ids with fake addresses and contact mobile nos. Even if some of them have good feedback but why they are stealing their actual contact address ? If ebay make it necessary to have atleast one landline number in the sellers name, then many fraud sellers can be avoided as having a landline phone estiblishes some genuinity of address. Before any seller starts selling, ebay should personally call him/ her and should verify all the related details.
Feedback Issues :
No need to say that Feedback system is very important part of ebay. Every buyer or seller has full right to express his view whatever he feels about the other transacting partner. But when this view affects negatively one's reputation when he/ she does not deserves it, then really something should be positively done to stop it. I would like to share my views with the community about this.
I believe that the disputes between the buyer and the seller, can arise due to any of three reasons :
1. buyer is at fault or 2. Seller is at fault or 3. None of them is at fault but a situation beyond their control has created a confusion between them.
For all the three reasons above, the suffering party may give negative feedback to opposite party if they are unable to reach any mutual acceptable solution but actually who is at fault, the disputed parties can not always decide it because it is human tendency to assume that I am right and the other person is wrong, hence need of an impartial mediator.
ODR is here an impartial mediator but I would like to say one more thing here.
I believe that ebay, buyers and sellers can be assumed as parents and children, ebay being parents and buyers n sellers its children. When children are fighting with each other with or without sufficient reason, will any responsible parents let them fight and will say nothing to any of them? Or will they say that go to any third person to get your dispute resolved? If both the buyers and sellers, are part of one ebay community, then why should we look towards an outsider to help us incase any dispute? Are we not compitent enough to resolve our disputes ourselves? Is our ebay community so weak? or Are we falsely assuming ourselves as part of ebay community but actually we are not?
Ebay should take moral responsibility to resolve feedback issues rather then passing it to ODR like expensive systems. Ebay has everything to support all its system then why pass feedback disputes to third party ? If Ebay says that it wants to be impartial at this point but this is something similar to two children fighting with each other in presence of their parents and the parents let them fight.
Justice and honesty will not allow this then why ebay is allowing?
Hi Everybody! This has reference to my earlier posting on the Non Performance Of Seller Policy.
Out of Curiosity, I had gone throgh my Feedbacks, wherein, I noted,that I have not a single Neutal or, Negetive Feedbacks are there in last 3 months.
Howver, it may please be noted that, I only have, in my entire history of 6 or 12 months, only 3 red marks.
I had mentioned clearly earlier also that, apart from Selling, I do buy items from eBay, & I am not ashamed to do so.
In my Blog, if you get time, do browse, when & how I got these negetive/neutral feedbacks. It was during the tenure of th recent promotion:- "road to success", wherein I could not manage to increase the bidding history, as, I am not at all in the ball game of selling items in AUCTION, & sell them either through Buy It Now or Easy To Buy mode, as I find these to be more tension free. & that, to my eyes is not a criminal offence.
Now, after, I posted my 1st reply on this particular issue, I had asked, 2 or 3 of my co sellers, as to what may I do, if I cant find out 90 day old history of both buying & selling??
Hi! In the recent past, I had posted a humble reply that I honor this decision & shall try & improve on the same. Honestly, I do not understand much of calcutions or rules & regulations in details & depth, but I know about my own self as a Seller. But, what does one do, even if, with all sincerity & good intensions, tries to perform better to get out of the label of Non Performing Sellers, & gear up their performance, & say, as an example, - from 98.3% improves to 98.5%, with a Feedback Score of 189, as of date, taking into account that 9 days are left for a completion of 30 days, without a single neutral or negetive feedback? Further, if one is restricted to relist or sell similar benefits of atleast their present items which would be ending one by one in next few days, & there would not be a single item to sell, & thus even if the question of improvement performance is left aside, the question of existence remains in a state of utter confusion? My question may appear to be very very SILLY, as, either I could'nt understand the implications of the rigidity, & it may be considered that if one does not know anything about anything in eBay, what does one do? - WRAP UP WITH ALL IGNORANCE, WHATSOEVER? sincereky, Kolkata's raymahasay
Dear Sharatji, I noticed that Cottagestock asked on 17th August 2007 "Can a seller face SNP restriction even if the dissatisfaction rate is low than 5%?", claiming that "I am asking same so that we be careful,keep our accounts in good standing and keep on going along well with eBay". Unfortunately I am very distressed to report that I am one of the latest of a long line of buyers who have left negative feedback because no goods were received despite (in my case) immediate payment. Most distressing is the fact that despite many polite e-mails from me, no reply was ever sent about my queries, and no reply given to my subsequent requests for refund. I have lodged a dispute through paypal and cottagestock are ignoring them too. My experience is not unique (see all feedback for this company) When all the neutral feedback is considered,and taken into account with the negatives posted, it is a very worrying situation. May I respectfully suggest that this company is investigated by customer services? This matter has caused me so much on-going distress. It is my first negative experience of ebay and it has, frankly made me very wary. Respectfully yours. Maevesaravasti
Hello All, This is a good news for buyers but not for all the sellers. Sellers wok very hard just for every single rating and not everyone would be benefiited. I have recd neutral ratings saying" good service good seller " and still a neutral. So what do you have to say about such buyers who donot even check that their foolish mistake can ruin a seller's reputation?? One more thing I would like to ask is that how do u actually calculate this percentage of 5 or 10% dissatisfaction
I was expecting ebay to do something like this as there a lot of sellers and picking the fair sellers would be dealt with in the future.I was having quite a fair feedback until i heard this new policy from ebay.
I received a negative feedback on 16th august and a very unjustified one.All because of the paisapay team.The item number was 320142629924 with the paisapay id 19993851845. It had choices of local and national s&h.The local s&h is free.
Once the auction got over,i was really shocked!! The s&h and the taxes were not calculated in the final bill even though the buyer was from outside my city!! How can this ever be possible?? I contacted the live help and they told they would help.They also told not to the send the item unless the issue is resolved with the buyer.I waited for a reply from the buyer,but the reply what the buyer gave was a negative feedback!!!
I know that the ebay team is just for a name sake and wont do anything.Sapana ji,if you are reading this scrap,i just have to ask you one thing,does ebay ever fix the bugs which occur frequently?? I cant clear my negative feedback and your team would never do it,will you? It was a clear fault from your side(paisapay) and the seller is sufferring for it.You can clarify it with the paisapay team too.Can you do some help,sapana ji or anyone??
Just a clarification regarding neutral feedbacks required.
What happens in these cases of neutral feedback.
1. Responding very late, Delivered in 22 days Buyer: baazeesatya ( 0 ) 24-Jul-2007 13:07 Reply by gizmozindia (24-Jul-2007 15:30): Parcel was lost in transit and you were duly informed about the same
2. original & 1st replacemt defective. 2nd replacement satisfactory but good seller Buyer: mukesh_55 ( 2 ) 18-Jul-2007 21:53
3. laser pointer is not working. i send the mail to seller . no response. Buyer: dbcrajan ( 14) 16-Jul-2007 13:26 Reply by gizmozindia (24-Jul-2007 18:35): Sir, Please replace the batteries and the laser will work again
4. except that th product u sent me first was not good rest all ok Buyer: pulugurthashanthi ( 12) 23-Apr-2007 19:12 Reply by gizmozindia (24-Apr-2007 11:49): We have given you replacement of product within 2 days still a neutral rating???
What kind of resolution has to be done in these kind of neutral ratings wherein the buyers concerns have been resolved and quoted by them in the rating itself.
please let us know if anything else has to be done.
Hi! Indeed a good & professional Policy to assess the performance of us - the Sellers. I had indicated in my about me Page, rarely, a situation comes, when even after putting best of efforts to make a Buyer happy, the Buyer forgets about the sincere Seller, leave aside any type of feedback also. But, as for this Policy, I shall try & perform beyond my level best. sincerely, Kolkata's raymahasay
I appreciate your question and will be glad to provide clarification. No, if a sellers dissatisfaction rates in the past 90 days are below 5% then he will not face any restrictions.
Just to reiterate, majority of our sellers are providing good service to buyers, this policy aims at improving those 1% sellers who provide 35% of bad buyer experience. All sellers who are providing good experience to buyers shall be receiving a mail from eBay to assure them of their standing.
The policy is being implemented globally and some countries are taking more stringent action. The examples you have quoted conveys as if certain countries are more lenient which is not true. If they are Top Sellers then the Account Manager is working with the seller on an agreed plan to improve their buyer experience
Hope this clarifies! Please do not hesitate to write back if you have further questions.
I understand that this one experience has left a bad taste in your mouth; however, I am sure that not all your buyers are bad and unreasonable.
This specific policy aims at improving those 1% sellers who are providing maximum amount of bad experience to the buyers. It is not aimed at sellers who are providing good buyer experience. In fact all sellers who are currently providing good buyer experience shall soon receive a mail on the same.
Also, to clarify, the calculation of bad buyer experience is on total sales in past 90 days and not on total feedback received. So if you have made 100 sales in past 90 days and received 2 disputes, your buyer dissatisfaction will be 2%.
I hope this gives more clarification. Please do not hesitate to write back with more questions if required.
I think I can understand your position wherein as a seller you are worried if a neutral feedback will impact your business. Let me reiterate what I think are the benefits of the new policy:
Reiterating the Improvements:
- We will look at only last 90 days history as many of you have said providing any resolution details/pod etc is very difficult
- We are moving away from direct suspension to restriction which helps in avoiding undesired suspensions.
- Including neutral feedback for calculating buyer dissatisfaction is not new. It has always been the practice. Assuming the same level of service that a seller is currently providing, if a seller has not received seller non performance warning in past, then it is less likely for the seller to receive a warning in future.
Thus, overall the policy aims at providing a chance to sellers with low satisfaction rates to improve their business practice and thus stabilise their business on eBay.
What were the results of test pilot?
- Over the past month we had already piloted this policy and we are very encouraged by the results. Some sellers (mostly with >10% dissatisfaction rates) were asked to improve their buyer satisfaction rates and most of them have already achieved the same by resolving their disputes and ratings. They now stand a greater chance to regain their reputation on eBay and become sellers of good standing. If anything, I believe this policy will give sellers a greater chance towards business security.
I hope the above will alleviate your fears. Please feel fret o post here if you have any further concerns.
Hi Ankur (treasurehut-net) I believe that many sellers’ do not give -ve ratings for the fear of retaliatory FB which also holds true for buyers who don’t give –ve. Some sellers only give ratings after they receive from buyers hence its even more likely that buyers may not give –ve. Many buyers have told us (and so do feedback comments) that the buyer settled for neutral just because he did not want to give a negative. Thus comes the importance of neutral feedback.
As usual it is a pleasure to hear from a buyer. The experience you had mentioned when you received the product but were not very happy with one aspect of the transaction (i.e., communication) and similar such feedback from other buyers led to introduction of detailed seller ratings. Now you can rate a seller positive and yet rate him low on 4 aspects of a transaction (it is called detailed seller ratings). You can see these feedbacks in form of starts on the seller feedback page. We are contemplating to get it more upfront on item listing page itself. The detailed seller ratings are a great tool for a buyer to differentiate a good seller from a bad one.
Also, there is a tool available by which you can see all negative ratings left to a user. Just below the bar of all feedback received / feedback received as a buyer / feedback received as a seller and just above the bar where feedback ratings show; on the extreme right hand side, there is a drop down which says ‘period’. Once you choose the period, you will get a link to see all negative, all positive and all neutral. While it is not the most intuitive way to see a seller’s negative feedback, there is an option in case you wish to use it.
On Sharat's behalf: Hi Navneet (snrama), I understand that as a seller one will always have some genuine concerns around unfair feedback. We possibly cannot eliminate such buyers and have to live with them. We did extensive research before rolling out the policy and ensured that such one off cases will not impact a genuine seller. However, in case such a situation arises the team would intervene to address the concern
Also, I want to clarify that including neutral feedback for calculating buyer dissatisfaction is not new for eBay. It has always been the practice. Assuming the same level of service that a seller is currently providing, if a seller has not received seller non performance warning in past, then it is less likely for the seller to receive a warning in future.
I hope this will alleviate your concern. Thanks for your kind words as well!
I think it is important for a seller to get credits for repeat buyers, since these buyers are the ones who the seller has given the best service to. The team that is looking at enhancing feedback is actively considering this option. Once we have more information on this, I shall surely share it with you and our other community members.
On the other concerns mentioned by you, I have asked the team to look into those matters. We shall get back to you on them separately.
I agree with you that awareness and adoption of feedback amongst buyers is a key for long term success for both sellers and for eBay. This is a topic in which I take a personal interest. Over the past six months we have started paying special attention towards this area. We have taken 2-3 initiatives in this are and have seen encouraging results in increase in feedback adoption. 1. Introduction of Detailed Seller Ratings – before launching detailed seller rating, we had done a survey with buyers which told us that more buyers are likely to leave feedback with detailed seller ratings than otherwise. The same has been validated over the last six months since launch of detailed seller ratings in India. The number of buyers who now leave feedback is significantly higher than earlier. 2. Increase awareness via promotion – The cricket mania promotion that was done during the world cup saw a significant increase in adoption of feedback. It not only raised awareness on importance of feedback, more users have started leaving feedback even after the promotion ended.
Having said the above, I believe we still have a long way to go and one of my key priorities for next few months will be to explore more ways to increase awareness and adoption of feedback.
On the question on offering various shipping modes to the buyers, I think it is a great idea to give buyers so many options. In fact the current options allows you to offer various shipment modes to buyers (express vs. regular etc). However, the challenge will be to maintain a balance between making the buyer’s experience simple while providing advanced options. Conventional wisdom says that simplicity is always preferred. However, the above are my views and I have forwarded your suggestion to the team for further evaluation.
Dear Sapana Ji, Your SNP guidelines are very clear.I have no such problems.I urgently request your T&S team to remove the restrictions imposed on my selling of matchbox labels.This is my topmost performing item.I dont want to argue.This is just a request of an oldman. Thanx in advance, Truly, Amitava
Example After putting his extensive collection of Nehru stamps for sale on eBay, a seller named Mahesh decided he wanted to keep his stamps after all, despite having winning bidders. As a result, he received 5 negative and 2 neutral feedbacks. His overall feedback had previously been 185, with 98.5% positive. However, over the last 90 days, he received feedback from 58 buyers, 51 of which were positive, 2 were neutral, and 5 were negative. As a result, his negative and neutral feedback, over the past 90 days, caused his overall feedback rating to drop to 88% [(5 negatives + 2 neutral) / (5 negatives + 2 neutral + 51 positives)]. This raised Mahesh’s buyer dissatisfaction rate above 10%, well above the allowable amount, and put Mahesh in serious violation of the Seller Non-Performance policy. Mahesh should expect that action will be taken on his account (possibly including a complete restriction on selling privileges) and that he will receive a communication fully explaining to him the details of that action.
Good Communication is key PowerSeller Pinky runs a small business on eBay. Recently her only employee left, moving to another city. It took Pinky several weeks to find a suitable replacement. In the meantime, she had difficultly shipping her products in a timely manner and didn’t communicate the issues to her buyers. While the buyers eventually received their products, many left negative and neutral feedback. Pinky has been selling since 2002 and her total feedback was 7781 with a 99% positive. Over the last 90 days her sales were Rs.14,000. However, over the last 90 days she’d received feedback from 775 buyers, 735 of which were positive, 25 were neutral, and 15 were negative. As result, over the past 90 days, her overall feedback percentage fell to 94.8% [(15 negatives + 25 neutral) / (15 negatives + 25 neutral + 735 positives)]. Since Pinky’s buyer dissatisfaction rate exceeds 5%, Pinky is in violation of the SNP policy. Pinky should expect that action will be taken on her account possibly including a limitation of selling privileges for a period of time), and that she will receive a communication fully explaining to her the details of that action.
Accurate descriptions help set buyer expectations Salma is an occasional seller on eBay. Last month, one of her old friends gave her a pair of pants, a sweater and a blouse to sell. While Salma took pictures to add to her listing, she failed to point out in her description that there were small holes in the clothes. When she learnt about her buyer’s dissatisfaction, she did offer a full refund for the items, she still received negative feedback from two buyers and a neutral from another. Salma has been selling since 2005. Her total feedback score was previously 250 with 98% positive. However, over the last 90 days she has received 41 total feedbacks, including 2 negatives and 1 neutral. As result, over the past 90 days, her overall feedback percentage declined to 93.7% [(2 negatives + 1 neutral) / (2 negatives + 1neutral + 38 positives)]. Since Salma’s buyer dissatisfaction rate exceeds 5%, she is in violation of the Seller Non-Performance policy. Salma should expect that action will be taken on her account (possibly including a limitation of selling privileges for a period of time), and that she will receive a communication fully explaining to her the details of that action.
As I had mentioned in my earlier post, it is possible that sellers who seemingly have high number of positives can also get restricted. In order to get a better picture of a seller’s recent activity, we identify sellers with declining customer satisfaction rates in a manner that evaluates recent performance. If the dissatisfied buyers from a seller over the past 90 days are more than 5% of the transactions, then I think it is important that the seller starts improving his business practice.
To clarify, eBay does not benefit in any manner whatsoever from ODR India. The service is offered by a third party and eBay encourages sellers to use it to resolve those disputes that need manual intervention.
It is always a pleasure to interact with a buyer. Your point on bad service from some sellers is very valid. In fact the reason for launching detailed seller ratings was to help distinguish such sellers. However, I also think that most of these sellers can improve if given appropriate education and help. The education team is already working on creating some modules that sellers can use to enhance their business practice. I have forwarded your suggestion to the team and I am sure they will be delighted to incorporate your suggestions into the module for sellers.
On a buyer not having a seller’s address – Over past few months we have put some measures in place to take care of such concerns. I don’t think any buyer will get this message going forward. However, in case you ever come across any such instance, I will request you to forward the seller user id to our Customer Support team for investigation and appropriate action.
Thanks for your understanding and encouraging words. I specifically liked your thought that it is a team effort and we all are together in it. I cannot agree with you more. Only once we take responsibility of each buyer, can we make eBay India the most preferred destination for buyers, thereby increasing business for each seller. I am very happy to hear about the improvement in your UPI rates. One of the key thoughts behind the site changes from a seller perspective was a drop in UPI rates. I am glad that you have already started experiencing the same. Your suggestion is quite valid and I have already forwarded it to Sandeep from product team. He has promised to evaluate the same for next round of changes in shopping cart.
While Sharat is in a training program, he has forwarded me some responses that he wanted to post on boards. I am posting the following responses on his behalf.
Dear Sharat Ji, I would suggest,you please design your listing removal software in such manner,so that seller can explain anomalies,before the listings are removed. I charged shipping of Rs 400 for item costing Rs 50 only,because it weighed 1150 grams and I needed Rs 400 to ship that to Netherlands.I charged Rs 80 for shipping a lightweight item to Mumbai,because this gentleman wanted 6 simlar multiple items at single shipping cost.But I had problem when I mentioned shipping of Rs60 for 4 almost identical items separate listings meant for a good Australian buyer.I charge single shipping for multiple purchases.I needed Rs60 for shipping to Australia.Your software removed all the listings before transaction could be made. Then came the stern alerts.I was terrified to communicate with this buyer.I not only lost this order,but I lost a follow up order for bicycles to be shipped to Australia. I dont expect a software to be intelligent like you and me.But you can sure schedule removal of listings.You may have genuine concern.But you can sure give a space to enable the seller to explain any anomaly. It will be wise to remember that this is an international forum and your these softwares are designed for India specific conditions. If the buyer fails to get positive response here,he will most likely look up in China.Obviously that will be very sad. A seller knows how to maintain satisfaction level of buyers.Your alert generating softwares should be targetting less experienced sellers. I understand,this is difficult to implement.But you can sure try in some ways and other. Thanx, Truly, Amitava
Incidentally this user has the highest number of total ratings of any ebay seller worldwide and has been consitently over the years getting more than 10% negatives, neutrals and open disputes.
Dear Mr. Digumarti. Its Been nice to hear that ebay always takes an effort to provide sellers with enjoyable selling experiences through out the site. As part of your commitment to keep eBay as safe trading zone, We really and highly appreciate measures adopted by eBay in order to serve sellers and buyers both a safe and enjoyable business zone. But One point is constantly Striking in our mind keeping the Feedback system of eBay in our attention. As you stated that Sellers Satisfaction Rate and reputation are highly depend upon the Feedback Scores and all that realated. But Please note that as a Business Seller on eBay We deliberately look forward for a Feedback after completion of each and every transaction from each customers. But It seems that customers hardly care about it. We don't know wheather other eBay sellers face this problem or not, but we are facing this in huge. even we had to call each and every customer personally to remind them about the feedback. Still We don't get feedbacks. So would like to know what steps would eBay may adopt in future for making Feedbacks a Mandatory. We often see that some buyers even after getting feedback from us or having reminded them twice by email or phone call they don't bother to give feedback and as a result we did not get the feedback reulting no increment in our Feedback score as well as Reputation in eBay.
Likewise while transacting with other eBay Sites like USA or UK site we never felt this problem for feedback. Buyers after completetion of their transaction leave us feedback and even we don't have to remind them at all. We know that eBay is using same system and technologies as it uses in each and every other countries but we think the core problem lies in the buyer training. Unless buyer knows that feedback is essential for both sellers as well as for buyers, they will never care to leave feedback. So if eBay could develop Any knd of Mandatory system which will enable buyer to left Feedback after each transaction. As we know that leaving Feedback is solely upon the discretion of buyer, but if buyer did not care to leave feedback then even if we sold 10 products per month as successfull transaction then hardly we ill get 3-4 feedback from buyer who has given from their own and it would rise hardly to 6 by calling and sending reminders to them. And rest feedbacks are automatically removed after 90 days. Thus we lose the Feedback Privilage for certain item even if we had provided them with class of service.
We belive Imposing mandatory feedback service will enable Buyers and Sellers to have more feedback scores and reputation on eBay. Unless mandatory Service We hope that Your Satisfaction or Disatisfaction or whatever Feedback related policy for improvement of Seller Performance or Feedback Score and Reputation eBay won't work well. But Still we Wi Best of Luck to eBay with its new Service and as a part of proud eBay Community We really Appreciate it.
Also we would like to Say that Should eBAy could implement a General Suggestion book for each and every seller, like after transaction buyer might wrote on that book to let us know how did he liked our service (in Details), If we could improve any of our service or products. like this. Also in Shipping Options You should now Start Inserting the Courier Service Namss and Service Level like TNT SAME DAY EXPRESS or NATIONAL Express. We would recommend you please consider Gati Couriers, Blue DART and TNT for Domestic and fedEx, DHL, UPS and TNT for International. With Service Names. You see We can provide more than 10 Shipping Options to buyer with varying prices. So In listing 3 Shipping Option with Standard Configurtion is quite dificult for us to state How mny Service we can provide. Also If we mention them on Description Page, Then at times of Payment ( usally mde through PaisaPay ) It was difficult to adjust them with Payment. I would request eBay to take this ideas and suggeston in consideration.
Thanking You. Sincerely Yours, Nishant Gupta. Manager- eBay Operations(Middle East & South East Asia) Trevoris Limited (UK)
Dear Yash Ji, I dont have any bad buyer experience.All my buyers been extremely polite and almost all of them keep on coming back.They include international buyers who buy from all ebay sites. You have forgotten to mention about shipping cost. To say anything is your choice.But I know somethings already. One thing I am experiencing is ebay India is giving more time to the seller before suspension.I know I am suspended for all practical purposes.But I am still able to serve my good buyers.Hope you will keep me alive till I pay my eBay fees for coming month.This is just to complete my obligations. I am a disciplined member.No complaints. Thanx, Truly, Amitava
Based on my personal experience here is what I conclude:
I listed an item to sell, some how a buyer clicked and bid for the item,but I found that I made the mistake in the listing and need to revise it, there I go.. click click click .. changed it and mention my error on the bottom of the listing. EVERY THING FINE !! Now the auction ends and there is a Winner, I sent him an invoice... buyer disappeared. No problem,I again sent him a remainder, comes with a few queries..answered. Says the title is different and now you are sending something else..NO NEVER.. I WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS Blah Blah .. and here see one fine morning I get a NEGATIVE. OK. again I request him and ask him to go thru the listing and the ERROR mention in the bottom. No! it was not there you changed it .. put it now .. you are a big time cheater and so on. Even goes to an extend to send me abusive mails. HERE is what I want to understand. 1.Buyer didn't read the listing yet bid and didn't ask me anything before the auction end ! who is to be blamed 2 Didn't make any payment but says that I am sending him the wrong item .. how is that possible without seeing the item or making the payment 3.Left a negative because he didn't read the listing or the error comment I posted in the bottom of the auction listing 4.Why only the seller is wrong and never the buyer.
Above all selling about 100 items per month I don't even get 5% of the feedback after several remainders. How will eBay rate or calculate me for SNP ?
Thanks for the valuable comments on this voices thread and on the boards. I appreciate your position as a seller and can understand the point you are trying to make. I will try to give my perspective on this topic:
During my last Open House on I did mention that we are changing some of the guidelines. Firstly, to clarify on including Neutral FB in calculating buyer dissatisfaction, it has always been taken in to consideration when sending SNP Warnings to sellers and the sellers who have received SNP Warnings would know the same. To highlight what has been updated in the new policy is: 1. The restriction based approach (vs. suspensions) will give sellers more time and opportunity to improve their business practice and create a strong business on eBay. 2. The SNP warning will now consider buyer dissatisfactions that have been raised over the past 90 days only. This will ensure that sellers have more realistic timelines to resolve disputes (no difficulties in procuring PODs)
How will unfair negatives or neutrals impact my business as a seller?
All of us have at one point or other came across a buyer who was unreasonable and left a bad taste in our mouth. I personally had a similar buyer and remember him more than all other good buyers I had. We will continue to have a very small percentage of buyers who are unreasonable and whom we cannot eliminate. I guess that is the cost of doing business in an online world. We have to take such people in our stride. However, please be assured that the thresholds have been placed based on extensive analysis and research. While, most of the examples are valid and what we have noticed in totality is that such cases which adversely impacts a good sellers is almost nill and incase if such a situation arises the team would intervene to address the concern
Do buyers leave as many negatives as we think?
A lesser known fact (as data shows) is that buyers leave more feedback than sellers and the negatives left by sellers are far higher than that from buyers. I believe that many sellers’ do not give -ve ratings for the fear of retaliatory FB which also holds true for buyers who don’t give –ve. Some sellers only give ratings after they receive from buyers hence its even more likely that buyers may not give –ve. Many buyers have told us (and so do feedback comments) that the buyer settled for neutral just because he did not want to give a negative.
Does this mean that eBay can restrict an account with 99.5% positive feedback also?
Yes, it is possible that sellers who seemingly have high number of positives can also get restricted. In order to get a better picture of a seller’s recent activity, we identify sellers with declining customer satisfaction rates in a manner that evaluates recent performance. If the dissatisfied buyers from a seller over the past 90 days are more than 5% of the transactions, then I think it is important that the seller starts improving his business practice.
I strongly request you all to support so that we keep away sellers who are significantly contribution to bad buyer experiences on the site. To borrow a very relevant quote from user coolbrasco – “This is a team effort and every seller should take responsibility in the whole community to give best experience to buyers.”
I too agree that Neutral should be lifted off if it is treated same as NEGETIVE.
I think ebay should implement the SNP issues when they make Buyer aware about the feedbacks. If All buyer gives feedback genuinely then I think almost 99.5% of sellers won't get the SNP from ebay.
As per view I only see that Ebay has been only making policies for Sellers and making aware Sellers about feedback but they have done nothing for Buyer till date.
I complete over 60 orders in a months but I hardly get 20-25 feedbacks from buyer after continous followup with them.
I hope other sellers would also agree on this. And I hope ebay would be thinking to change the ways for the benefit for all of us.
Dear Mr Sharat, How can ebay put Netural & Negative feedbacks in same category, and then why there is a need/option of Neutral feedback? Why not Only Positive & Negative?
I think that ebay should remove the option of neutral feedback.
Ankur Treasure Hut Http://Stores.Ebay.In/TreasureHut-India
hello, I understand that ebay is working a lot to maintain good buyer/seller experience.But ebay has to put strong rules upon shipping of items.Sellers are sending costly items like handycams by declaring that the parcel contains plastic goods.If buyer doesnt recieve the item then there is no clue whether it has been thefted by the courier department or the item was not sent at all.This is a clear sign of fruad happening at ebay which ebay is not restricting.
There is another aspect which I feel is often overlooked.
I have had experiences (as a buyer) where the seller has been incommunicative, and just do not deem it necessary to answer to mails. I did get the product and well within reasonable time frame and I left a positive feedback since I did not want to play spoilsport and mar the seller's good 100% positive feedback history. I thought maybe it was a temp problem. After I left him feedback, he refused to do so for me and even threatened to leave me negative feedback. By then it was too late for me to do anything. This incident was downright unpleasant and the unfortunate part is there is no way to address such issues.
In another incident, a power seller was not communicative regarding a request and there queries I had made after I had won an item. I wrote to them over 3 times, but to no avail. I refused to make payment (I had reason to since to since he was not making in invoice without VAT). I got an unpaid strike which was removed by courteous eBay executives when I explained my situation. I did not not leave feedback knowing they would have left me a negative. I saw the seller had a few negatives... but since he had so many hundreds of positives, the negatives had to be searched for.
I think there has to be a compilation of people's buying experience towards a seller in some form.
In addition, there seriously needs to be a link which shows up the negative / neutral feedback received by seller at a glance. I have at times had to sift through 50 odd pages of feedback!
About COD problem, always send a revised invoice with details about your payment methods and at the end, tell in bold letters "NO CASH ON DELIVERY", "NO VPP" SORRY, if you don't like to do it. You have to explain little bit, or write a standard email and keep it why you don't like to send COD. Also tell the customer, it will be cost effective and time saving if he drop a DD/CHEQUE in the bank than sending to your address. Also explain him about online tracking facility after shipping and your insurance coverage if any, you should basically convince him that your shipping method is more safer and make him confident that he will definitely receive goods after payment. Basically new sellers have this problem. It works.
Even some old customers send me a message just to check i am dead or alive before payment. I have to tell them i am still alive and in good shape , then only they pay. It is bit of a human psychology, if they don't see anything real they don't trust.
In other way around some customer they just buy and pay every month, they never contact, never give feedback. They are like Fairy's . You don't know when they come.
Other point you told about customer leaving -ve feedback before payment is unjustifiable, i do agree. I think it is too much freedom for a buyer, against good sellers like you. Probably eBay should allow the customer to leave feedback before payment to non-PowerSellers. It make sense, because PowerSellers always keep the eBay policy, and Community values. In case if a PowerSeller try to trouble customer using this PowerSeller previlage, should be punished by eBay.
My arguement is what if a fraud seller take money from innocent customer, and run away after making unpaid strike. Either side 1% bad cases available, eBay always test first on sellers only , because we are poor Genia Pigs. In long run eBay have to give customer a complete confidence and protection to increase trust on eBay and sellers. That can give us more business than ever.
eBay is cracking down bad sellers because once a customer had bad experience he will never return to eBay. Even customer having higher feedback, say Goodbye to eBay. It is the sad part. In long run it is good for us. But only thing eBay should consider is block leaving a -ve feedback for a PowerSeller by a unpaid customer. I think this can balance both sides.
Please feel free and post your comments for this post.
Dear Sharatji, Ebay must be very specific about shipping calculator.If you remove listing for higher shipping,you must have a specific guideline to determine the correct shipping cost. This is to include the cost of packing and local conveyance.If you are in Mumbai,you must add the cost of going to GPO and coming back. Othrwise,it becomes vague. Many sellers had bad experience of getting rude alert and their listings removed. My question is:::Can you do it without a specific guidelines??? You get your listing removed for shipping cost of INR 60.The seller next to you is listing the same item comfortably for INR 100. You are trying to introduce good buying experience.But at the same time,there should be an effort on your part to introduce good selling experience. I am not asking for much. I am asking for prudence.If there is no specific policy,how can you possibly pull up a seller for violation?? Thanx, Truly, Amitava
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, then only they pay. It is bit of a human psychology, if they don't see anything real they don't trust.
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