Q&A: Should I leave negative feedback for another seller?
QUESTION: I bought a book from an Amazon seller. It never arrived, but I was refunded. What feedback rating should I leave? Positive feedback might mislead other buyers -- if the book was never shipped. It wasn't a "positive" experience, that's for sure. Would a neutral rating be appropriate? This is my second recent problem with a seller with good ratings.
ANSWER: Sellers should go the extra mile to prevent bad feedback. Stuff happens, and buyers should give sellers the chance to go that extra mile.
How proactive or apologetic was your seller? Did they provide a good explanation, or at least attempt to? My sense is you didn't need to file an A to Z claim to get your refund.
If your seller didn't bend over backwards, blast away. Honest negative feedback is a service to the marketplace because it warns buyers of unreliable sellers.
I don't have much sympathy for sellers who have lots of "mishaps" since I usually fix the occasional problems on my own dime. I watch my bookselling business like a hawk, yet a few times every month, I'm unable to ship a book for some reason. Either I can't find it, or it sold yesterday. Or I discover it's missing 75 pages and I've described it as "Like New."
Whatever the problem, I usually buy a replacement from another Marketplace seller, via "expedited" shipping. If I can't do this, sometimes I'll buy the customer a new copy from Amazon. At the least, I write personal apologies to customers who don't get what was advertised, and I've dodged many bullets this way.
So if your seller was nice enough about it -- and sincere -- I think the neutral rating is probably punishment enough.
You're right, it seems as more folks get into online bookselling, reliability has declined. But it's not only hobby sellers that slip up. For example, a month ago I ordered a used book from a Marketplace seller (who also runs a brick-and-mortar shop). The sale was never acknowledged, and I never got the book. I e-mailed the seller last week to ask about this, and received no reply.
I can understand if a one-person business is out of town for the week and can't reply. But when a business with employees can't respond to a paying customer, that's really pathetic. It casts a shadow on us all.
Any other thoughts out there?
ANSWER: Sellers should go the extra mile to prevent bad feedback. Stuff happens, and buyers should give sellers the chance to go that extra mile.
How proactive or apologetic was your seller? Did they provide a good explanation, or at least attempt to? My sense is you didn't need to file an A to Z claim to get your refund.
If your seller didn't bend over backwards, blast away. Honest negative feedback is a service to the marketplace because it warns buyers of unreliable sellers.
I don't have much sympathy for sellers who have lots of "mishaps" since I usually fix the occasional problems on my own dime. I watch my bookselling business like a hawk, yet a few times every month, I'm unable to ship a book for some reason. Either I can't find it, or it sold yesterday. Or I discover it's missing 75 pages and I've described it as "Like New."
Whatever the problem, I usually buy a replacement from another Marketplace seller, via "expedited" shipping. If I can't do this, sometimes I'll buy the customer a new copy from Amazon. At the least, I write personal apologies to customers who don't get what was advertised, and I've dodged many bullets this way.
So if your seller was nice enough about it -- and sincere -- I think the neutral rating is probably punishment enough.
You're right, it seems as more folks get into online bookselling, reliability has declined. But it's not only hobby sellers that slip up. For example, a month ago I ordered a used book from a Marketplace seller (who also runs a brick-and-mortar shop). The sale was never acknowledged, and I never got the book. I e-mailed the seller last week to ask about this, and received no reply.
I can understand if a one-person business is out of town for the week and can't reply. But when a business with employees can't respond to a paying customer, that's really pathetic. It casts a shadow on us all.
Any other thoughts out there?
posted by Steve Weber at 3/27/2006
2 Comments:
What if it's not your fault? What if it's the USPS that screwed up? Sometimes I do everything right and the customer still remains angry, regardless of how responsive I am. One customer gave me a 5 rating but then wrote in capital letters the delivery was late. It stood out like a sore thumb. This was in spite of several emails back and forth and my honest concern.
I agree, the level of response by the seller matters. If you waited more than 2 or 3 days before you found out the book was not going to arrive, I'd give a 1 with an explanation that you were left needlessly waiting to find out that the seller was not going to ship. If the seller promptly refunded, with no explanation, I'd give a 2, or possibly a 3 if the refund was immediate or same day. If the seller refunded promptly, with apologies and concise explanations, I would give a 3, and a 4 if they offered to help find a comparable copy. If the seller were to drop ship the book, that would have been the best-case scenario, you'd have your book, and would not even be asking the question.
One of the problems with feedback about shipping is that many of the venues do not give realistic or accurate time-frames about how Media Mail really works, and Amazon buyers are notorious for seeing that "ships in 2 days" to mean "arrives in 2 days"...Not much we can do about that, until these things are spelled out more correctly.
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