Basic Ebay Information #2

Feedback & DSRs

Feedback on ebay is a necessary evil. It is a double-edged sword. It can help buyers determine just who the bad sellers are, but it can also be used as a weapon, of sorts. 

I mention in my primary post that buyers will sometimes leave negative feedback for no good reason. It happens. It shouldn't, but it does. A buyer will get mad because he thinks you overcharged for the item, for shipping, or both, and leave you a negative. An item arrives damaged or late, and you get a negative. The post office loses an item and you get a negative. 

See what I mean? Buyers can leave a negative for ANY REASON UNDER THE SUN. You sell a shirt and it doesn't fit the buyer and he leaves you a negative. The buyer orders two books from two different sellers, gets the two mixed up, and leaves you a negative when he meant to leave the other seller a negative.

In most cases, there is absolutely nothing you can do about the feedback. Ebay won't remove it without a good reason (a good reason, such as, the negative feedback includes profanity, obscenities, threats, or other unacceptables). About 95% of the time, negative feedback you receive will stick to you like glue. Your only real option is to beg and plead with the buyer to retract his - feedback. Sometimes he will, but he usually won't. It's just a part of ebay-land

It used to be that buyers and sellers could each leave the other + or - feedback. That changed in about 2009. Now, a buyer can leave a seller + or - feedback, but a seller can ONLY LEAVE +. It kind of is a one-way street, and on the surface, it sounds unfair.

So, the point I am trying to make is to make every effort to eliminate - feedback from the onset. If you list a vase and it has a chip in it at the base, mention this defect in the listing. Be accurate in your listing descriptions. Don't over-charge for shipping. Ship things on time, when you say you will. Buyers will get an email when you ship their item through paypal, so they are going to know when you ship it. Be honest with buyers. If you make a mistake, admit it. I know I have. 

There have been a couple cases where I have actually shipped the wrong item to a buyer. It happens. On one occasion I caught it in time. I had two different packages going to two different buyers in two different states. The only problem was that the packages were mis-labeled and the wrong one was going to the wrong recipient. Fortunately, I was able to call UPS, gave them the tracking number, and they were actually able to track the packages, flag the tracking number and re-route each package to the proper recipient, all before the wrong boxes were delivered. This resulted in a minor delay, so I contacted each of the two buyers, explained the mix-up, explained that I corrected the problem, but to expect another day in transit. Each buyer understood in this case and was understanding. I got + feedback from each buyer despite my error, simply because I took the time to inform each of the minor delay in delivery time.

Sometimes people will try to get things out of you in return for - feedback removal. If a buyer gives you a negative, and you ask for him to reconsider, and he replies with, "Well, send me $10 through paypal and I will consider it," contact ebay. This is feedback extortion, and ebay strictly forbids it. Buyers are not permitted to ask for anything above and beyond what was specifically mentioned in the listing, and a $10 reversal to the buyer in this case likely wasn't in the original listing.

Protect your feedback like gold. It's extremely important.

Equally important are your DSRs- your Detailed Seller Ratings. Again, here, you have to bend over backwards to please customers, but if that's your nature anyways, you won't have any issues. Buyers will rate you in four key areas, and these four key elements will be visible to anyone who reviews your feedback page. Buyers will be rating you on how well your listing description matches the item you sold them, your communication, how fast you shipped the item, and how well you manage your shipping and handling charges. 

Again, most buyers will be impressed if you simply charge as little for shipping as possible (that means not inflating the weight of the item to make a little more in shipping, which will come to you as a tiny side bonu$), ship things ASAP, keep in contact with your buyers and write up accurate item descriptions. If you are selling used items on ebay, people are not going to expect them to be perfect. Few things in life are perfect. At least be up front with your buyers about defects in the items you list & sell. Failure to do so will cost you in the end in terms of  - feedback or lower DSRs.

A note about feeback and DSRs:  ebay rewards its top sellers with perks such as reduced fees and increased visibility of your items when buyers run searches IF YOU ARE ABLE TO CONSISTENTLY MAINTAIN GOOD + FEEDBACK AND GOOD DSR's. This is why it's critical to maintain your good standing, and bend over backwards for your buyers. 

I am a powerseller as well as a top-rated seller, and I like to think that it's these elements that play at least some part in a buyer deciding whether to buy an item from me, or a nearly-identical item from a competitor on ebay who lacks these two credentials. 

For new ebay sellers, powerseller status and top-rated seller status are not going to come overnight. You have to prove a consistent positive track record, which ebay will review, then decide which sellers to reward. Only those that meet the criteria for each status are selected. One of the nice rewards is a reduction in the fees I pay ebay which obviously helps my bottom line. Another is that buyers are going to see which sellers are powersellers and top-rated sellers, and which ones aren't. You want to be one of the ones who are!

A few more comments about feedback and DSR's. It's my belief now that feedback is little more than a formality. Sure, all those nice pretty + feedback comments look nice on your feedback page, but other than that, they really only tell half the story.  Your DSR's tell the other half. But back to feedback. 

If a buyer can leave you negative feedback for any reason under the sun, which will stay on your feedback page until forever, but you can't do the same to the buyer, is it really a fair system? Some would argue that leaving negatives for a buyer does little, because often a buyer will buy something immediately, leaving no time for a seller to check out a buyer's feedback. This would be true. It's my belief, however, that feedback needs to be a two-way street. What if a seller did everything right, and a buyer was obnoxious, intolerant, demanding, complained about everything under the sun, demanded a full refund without returning the item to you, then left you a negative, wouldn't you want to leave him a negative to let other sellers to know to beware? 

I know I sound upset, because it's happened to me. Buyers know they can pretty much get away with murder, tarnish a good sellers' 100% + feedback by leaving just one unjustified - feedback, then go on to the next seller and repeat the process. 

A sellers' feedback, as I've stated previously, only tells half the story. Sure, a buyer can leave a seller a - feedback, but that negative doesn't necessarily mean that the seller is a bad seller. Maybe the seller made an innocent mistake. I've made tons of mistakes. 

I guess I can sum it up by saying that while no one wants to receive a - feedback (sometimes abbreviated as -FB), getting one isn't the end of the world. Sure, it hurts one's prestige, particularly when it isn't deserved, but of the few -FBs I have received, I am sure I have deserved just as many more, if not more so, for other failures on my part, but didn't receive them, for any number of reasons: either the buyer didn't notice my mistake, or didn't care, or didn't bother to log in to ebay to record a -FB, or, if he did, he mistakenly left -FB for someone else. 

While ebay generally won't remove -FB- they say it might go against our first amendment rights toward free speech- that right means more to me than any old piddly -FB any day.

Besides, after a year, that -FB drops out of the equation ebay uses to factor ones' +FB score. So, although I've personally gotten -FB in the past, they've been received over a year ago, so I now- knock on wood- have 100% +FB!

Help! A buyer is trying to scam me!

Sadly, it happens, although ebay is trying to keep a lid on it. It use to be a much bigger problem than it is now, until ebay made some changes a few years back.

But, that's not to say that some people won't still try to scam you.... believe me, they will try. And they will know you are new to ebay, or at least presume. A skilled ebayer can pick out the newbies simply by how a listing is written, or, simply by looking at someone's FB (feedback) page. A lower FB score can typify a newbie.

Let me tell you a little story about how a buyer tried to scam me- and how I diffused the situation:

I deal primarily in vintage items that are in exceptional condition. You know the reasons, if you've been reading my blog: it allows me to charge a premium on my items. One such item was a 3-record set of Christmas tunes, I believe. I collect my payment, box up the set, ship them out and all is hunky-dory... or so I thought.

A few days later the buyer emails me to tell me he is deeply disappointed. "Oh boy," I thought, "They got damaged in the mail." Well, the buyer claimed that the records he received were so badly scratched up and ruined that they wouldn't play properly, and how could I write such a misleading listing claiming my records were in pristine condition (which they were as are ALL my records sets)?" 

Well, I knew right then that it wasn't an issue of damage in shipment. I had packed them quite well. And if you're as old as I am, you know that some of those older records were nearly as thick as hubcaps, and almost as indestructible. The man was clearly trying to scam me. Clearly he had a set of records just like mine. He wanted to buy my set, swap them out, claim that I had misled him with a deceptive listing, then try to return his set as mine, for a complete refund.

It was as plain as day. Just like a reputable jewelry seller is not going to believe anyone who walks in and claims that the ring he bought last week isn't real gold, I knew the guy was lying. So here's what I did:

I immediately replied back: "Oh, I'm so sorry this happened. I don't know how this happened. Please return them. We'd be happy to return them, inspect them, then offer a full refund." 

Well, that was good enough for him. Music to his ears. He shipped them back, and told me that he had done so. So I sent another email: "Again, so sorry. We don't know how this happened. We'll look them over, we'll look for the mark we put on them, and if everything is in order, offer a complete refund. Again, we're so sorry."

Notice what I had italicized, above? I waited until he told me that he had shipped the records back, THEN I told him we will look for the mark we put on the records. 

We never put a mark on the records. But he didn't know that. It didn't matter. He knew he was lying, and so did I. I was offering him a face-saving way out. He could still leave me a -FB which would have been worse than being scammed. I was still playing a diplomatic game of cat-and-mouse, and I had the upper hand.

Lying to me was his first mistake. His second was not returning the records with DC (delivery confirmation). Oh, I received the record set, of course....  his record set. There was not a chance in hell these were my records. They were in such deplorable shape. I would have been ashamed to sell such things. That's how bad they were.

After I'd received them, he had the gall to email back, asking if I'd received them, and when he could expect a refund. Of course I received them, but I wasn't about to tell him that. "Nope. Post office must've lost 'em. If you can provide a tracking number, I'd be happy to place a postal trace on them to try to find them." I knew exactly where they were.... in the dumpster behind my garage with the rest of the trash.

His response? "Well, I guess I'll just take the loss, but it's sellers like you who are giving ebay a bad name, selling S#!T and being deceptive about the condition. I'll never buy from you again, <expletive> <expletive>!"

I never heard from him again, not that I wanted to. I blocked him from ever buying from me under that user id. He never left me any feedback, either. And from that point forward, I'd learned to put some form of insignificant marking somewhere to ID an item as something I sold.

Never have had an issue since!

Delivery Confirmation / Tracking

Ah, the ever-complicated topic of delivery confirmation and tracking. I'll abbreviate these as DCT, so you'll know to what I am referring. 

Just like insurance, DCT is pretty much unofficially-mandatory. Here's why:

If you sell an item, let's say, a $100 vase, you might do everything right, pack it adequately, apply a neatly-addressed label, proper postage and insurance, but no DCT, and the package never arrives, who is responsible?

If you guessed the buyer, you are wrong. If you guessed the carrier, you are wrong. You, the seller are ultimately responsible for ALL items until they are in the hands of your buyer. 

So, if you ship your $100 vase, and it arrives intact, and the buyer opens up the package, inspects it, finds it to be all nice and pretty, and notices you failed to add delivery confirmation for 19 cents, do you think your buyer will not try to email you and say, "Where is my vase? It never arrived."?

How would you know whether it arrived or not? You shipped it. You remember shipping it and giving it to the mail lady as she made her rounds last Thursday in that smelly USPS Jeep-like van. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is whether the recipient ever received it.

You will NEVER know unless you include DCT. DCT certainly is not mandatory. Sure, you can shave a few cents off your shipping and pocket that savings, but you will NEVER KNOW IF YOUR ITEMS EVER ARRIVE AT THEIR DESTINATION. All an unscrupulous buyer would need to do is email ebay and say, "Um, item # 13048264756264 never arrived. I need a full refund." Ebay and paypal will ask you to provide proof that it arrived. Your DCT number is the only way to prove that it ever arrived. Without that DCT proof, your item is as good as gone with an unscrupulous buyer, and be prepared to give the buyer a full refund.

Now, international shipping is a lot trickier. Generally, the ONLY countries which provide US sellers with delivery confirmation are Canada and the UK. I can't quite figure this one out. In this digital era, neither Germany, Japan, nor any any other country besides Canada and the UK have managed to get their systems in sync with ours and deliver real-time delivery confirmation of items.

As a result, I refuse to ship ANYTHING to ANY country other than within the US, or to Canada or the UK. Sorry to everyone else. If I shipped something to a buyer in ANY other country other than Canada or the UK, all the buyer would need to do is tell ebay the item never arrived and I'd be forced to issue a 100% refund. 

Now, the one exception to this rule is shipping by the often-prohibitively-expensive GEM option: Global Express Mail. GEM is, as you can guess, exorbitantly expensive, but often provides for DCT. But, are you willing to rely on GEM DCT to some God-forsaken place like Mongolia? I wouldn't. France, Germany, Japan, yes, as well as to the rest of Europe and some of Asia- those countries most likely to have systems in place to track a GEM package.

I can count on one hand the number of buyers who have requested GEM shipping since 1997. Few outside-the-US buyers are going to opt for it considering it costs so much.

Otherwise, you're pretty much at Gods good mercy.

Shipping Supplies

You will inevitably need boxes, bubble wrap, 2" packing tape and all sorts of other supplies to ship your sold items. I recommend a designated confined workspace in your home where you can keep all these supplies all in the same area. You'll need scissors, a tape measure and some sort of scale and a printer. Any printer will do. Your existing laser or ink-jet printer will do.

In most cases you shouldn't have to pay for boxes, bubble wrap and other packing materials. Again, the idea is to keep your costs to the bone. Why pay extra for things when you don't have to?

You can get free cardboard boxes from almost anyplace under the sun. I recycle my boxes all the time, whenever possible. Same goes for packing supplies. If I order something off ebay and it comes wrapped up in bubble wrap or those foam peanuts, you'd better believe I'm saving them for future use myself. Why toss them when you can use them?

Some good sources for bubble wrap are department stores, furniture stores, Hallmark stores- pretty much any store that regularly receives shipments of wares to display for sale. They gotta come in to the store boxed up somehow, right? Hallmark typically gets a ton of it each week. Half of the stuff in a Hallmark store is glass, and you know they have to pad it with something. Walk in and ask to speak with the manager, and ask to take all his bubble wrap off his hands. Find out which days he normally has deliveries, and ask him to have his employees stuff all the bubble wrap in to a box and put your name on it.

Couldn't hurt to ask, could it?

You could always buy the stuff at WalMart or at places like UHaul or self-storage places, but only buy as a last resort. Of course, you could also use newspaper to pad items as well.

Ebay and USPS have teamed up to offer you FREE supplies. You can order free USPS/ebay boxes through ebay, and they will be delivered to your home. These only apply to boxes, and only to USPS Priority boxes. Ebay and USPS are pushing Priority heavily, and the free boxes can't be used for media mail, parcel post or obviously, UPS. They also cannot be turned inside-out and reused that way. They used to be- I did that all the time!

You'll need plenty of clear 2" packing tape. You won't need a huge amount just getting started, but you will later on, because your sales will continue to grow as you add more and more to your inventory. As your inventory increases, and as your feedback slowly climbs, buyers will begin to trust you more and more as a respectable seller worthy of their hard-earned money. One obvious source for 2" packing tape is... well.... ebay itself! A case of a dozen rolls of tape will last you quite a while, and save you trips to KMart or Target. You will always run out of tape when it's 5:30 pm and you're hustling to wrap up a few more boxes to beat the 6 pm post office deadline.

You will want to open up a UPS online account. It's easy to do at UPS.com. You'll be assigned an account number, which you will plug in to your paypal account. From there, with that UPS account, UPS will give you discounts on UPS postage generated through paypal. Paypal is where you will be generating some of your shipping labels, but, lately, more and more of my shipping labels have been generated straight from ebay itself.

UPS is good for shipping some things. They offer free insurance (meaning it's included in the price) for items valued up to $100. USPS makes you pay for all amounts of insurance coverage. Sometimes UPS is cheaper, sometimes the post office is cheaper. For items weighing 13 ounces or less, USPS First Class Parcel is about the cheapest there is. Parcel Post isn't much cheaper than Priority, but can take 3 - 4 days longer. Parcel Post is pretty much only good for heavier items where it's simply more economical than Priority, but it seems like UPS is always cheaper, for me at least, for UPS Ground.

Never take your items to the post office of to a UPS store to buy shipping. The rates are almost always cheaper online. It's as though they simply do not want to see you- ever- inside the post office or UPS lobby. They simply prefer that you print your postage at home. Frequently I'll head in to the post office with a heavy box ONLY to have it weighed. Smaller boxes I can easily weigh on my desktop scale and be fairly sure of an accurate weight, such that I don't overpay for postage even by a penny. Give the post office another penny, nickle, dime, quarter or dollar of my ebay profits for them to waste on $80,000 post office supervisor salaries??? Are you NUTS????

One note of caution: it is VERY tempting to enter in a false weight when calculating postage at home. For example, for a box that you know weighs 12 pounds, don't enter eight pounds. If you enter eight, or any weight less than the true amount, and you are caught, here's what's going to happen: The post office or UPS is going to ship your package, alright, but they are going to hold the package at the destination office and send a note to your buyer: "Dear buyer: You have a package awaiting at your local post office with postage due. Please take time out of your incredibly busy day to swing by the post office, which is woefully inadequately-staffed, be prepared to wait in impossibly long lines, and pay the additional postage to receive your package. Don't forget to bring a valid ID with you. Have a nice day. Love, your post office."

Think your buyer is going to be happy? Think your buyer is going to want to give you good DSRs, or worse, a + feedback? Remember, buyers will give - feedback if the wind blows the wrong direction and messes up their hair. Don't give them any more reasons!

And of course, last, but not least, as was discussed previously, ALWAYS PROVIDE INSURANCE ON EVERYTHING YOU SHIP. Sure, you might try to cut corners on a $10 item and think, what are the odds? Believe me, USPS, UPS and FedEx handle millions of packages a day. Do you think every single one arrives at its destination? Unbroken? Not odds I'd want to play with!