eBay's new feedback system could hurt small sellers
If you're an eBay seller, you should check out Skip McGrath's blog Make Money on eBay.Skip is taking eBay to task for its new feedback design, which allows buyers to rate sellers anonymously on four criteria: Item as Described, Communication, Shipping Time, and Shipping & Handling Charges.
These eBay "detailed seller ratings" are similar to the "optional questions" that Amazon customers are prompted to complete while submitting feedback in response to Amazon's 21-day reminder e-mail. With Amazon, the optional questions don't figure into your feedback score. But on eBay, not only are the detailed ratings reflected in a star display, there's no way for the seller to find out which customers dinged their ratings.
Soon this will be a huge deal because, as Skip points out, in 2008 eBay will begin sorting search results by these detailed seller ratings. Sellers with the best ratings will be on top, and searches won't be filtered by auction ending time anymore.
If you get lots of feedback, your positives will cover up the occasional negative. But low-volume sellers who get dinged once or twice take a big hit:
This seller, for example, had one or two buyers unhappy with the delivery time. But the seller has no way of knowing who, and no way of resolving the problem or misunderstanding. If there really was a problem with delivery, perhaps the seller could refund the shipping fee. On the other hand, maybe the buyer didn't read the shipping terms. There's just no way to know (and nothing to prevent competitors from sabotaging your detailed ratings).
My own eBay feedback has been dinged on "Shipping & handling charges" even though I charge a flat $3.49. What do these buyers want -- free shipping on everything?
posted by Steve Weber at 10/16/2007
5 Comments:
It's definitely the two shipping options that bug me most. It's a controversial topic to begin with, check any posts on the eBay boards and it almost automatically degenerates into a buyers vs. sellers match, yet eBay is going to risk sellers livelihoods to some degree on this mark.
There are so many examples of confusion on this rating I find it incomprehensible that they think it's such a valuable measuring stick. Personally, I know I'm a good shipper, but with my DSR rating (4.9, 4.9, 4.8, 4.7) I can only come to the conclusion that the USPS itself is costing me 4.9's across the board.
I don't mean to whine, heck, hopefully I maintain my current ratings and this helps me in the end, but if eBay is going to use seller's ratings to decide how listings are displayed, shouldn't they just use our actual feedback scores, which have been around since Day 1, rather than some johnny-come-lately system that has yet to prove itself?
I don't know if buyers pay attention to this. I have 2400+ feedback on Ebay, and recently made some purchases, and never even looked at the stars, just the actual feedbacks themselves.
I am not surprised that eBay has changed the system. I have had discussions with buyers that tell me that they cannot trust the current feedback system, because too many sellers hold buyer feedback hostage until they receive + feedback. They fear, rightly or wrongly, that buyers are afraid to post neutral or negative feedback.
Ebay took a step to deal with this by allowing separation of buyer and seller feedback. They could go further by posting a buyer feedback and a seller feedback separately in the appropriate locations, i.e. buyer feedback score when bidding and seller feedback score on listings.
2ยข worth
The thing that gets me here are the "shipping and handling charges." I have 4.9 across the board until it comes to S&H, and I charge the actual cost of shipping with no handling charges. So it appears I'm getting poor star ratings because certain eBay buyers don't understand the cost of shipping.
However, I just checked the "star" feedback of a few PowerSellers I know (feedback in the 3000+), and they are all in the 4.6 to 4.8 rating range in all categories. So I'm not sure if this is an example of the big guys getting a leg up...
As a buyer, I'd much rather see price and auction end time as my first category filter than some arbitrary rating system. After 10 years doing this, I know how, ahem, "uninformed," buyers can be.
What do these buyers want -- free shipping on everything?
Sadly, yes. And even then, I know of Ebay sellers who have free shipping on
all their items and they still don't have 5 stars for S&H charges.
The longer I sell on Ebay, the more I'm finding that Ebay buyers expect
gold-class service at bargain basement prices. Selling on my own website is so
much easier and a much more pleasant experience. Now.... if I could just get the
same web traffic as Ebay ....
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