Researchers from the University of Michigan have identified several common impacts resulting from sellers receiving negative feedback on eBay. Among them:
Stoning
Stoning refers to the phenomenon that buyers are more apt to give another negative to a seller who has just received an unfavorable rating.
This could occur for one of two reasons. First, buyers may be willing to forgive a single bad behavior but wat to punish sellers who exhibit a pattern of bad behavior. Second, a buyer may interpret what happened in his own transaction differently differently depending on suspicions raised by the seller’s previous feedback. For example, if an item appears to be damaged in shipment, a previous negative feedback suggests that the damage was more likely to have been the sellers fault.
Sellers at Etsy.com are Even More Unhappy Than Sellers on eBay
Filed Under Industry News & Analysis | 8 Comments
eBay sellers take heart! The Consumerist is reporting that sellers on Etsy.com are even more unhappy than you are. Apparently Etsy, a major marketplace for crafts, is shutting down stores at the first hint of complaints from buyers and sending the complaining buyers FBI Cyber-Crime forms. The purpose of these forms is to report the offending seller to the FBI for possible investigation.
Here’s a couple of the complaints quoted on the Consumerist:
A [buyer] DID complain about me – a week & a half after the purchase date for not receiving their parcel, & I’m in Australia & he’s in the US! Instead of referring the buyer to me, giving me the benefit of the doubt or explaining on my behalf that assuming non-delivery was premature, Etsy banned me & issued the buyer with an FBI cyber-crime form to complain about me!
This actually happened to me around Christmas time. I had a customer request a Custom Order & then Subsequently change her mind. I refunded her payment & never marked the item as shipped. About 2 months later I got an email from Etsy saying I did not ship an item and the Customer was furnished with the FBI Cyber Crime thing & my account would be suspended if I did not respond. I responded to the email explaining that she changed her mind & the Payment was refunded. About 2 days later I got the same email & responded again explaining what happened. I even contacted the buyer (nicely – & asked if she was unhappy in any way with the way the transaction had been concluded & to doublecheck that she had received her refund).She said she had received her refund promptly & was very satisfied since it was she who had backed out of the transaction. She said she had not reported the transaction to Etsy in any way. In fact, she had left me Pos. feedback previously.
You would think that Esty would be taking full-advantage of the unrest at eBay and rolling out the red carpet for sellers. Read about more unhappiness at http://etsynews.com/
eBay Fraud Primer: Shill Bidding
Filed Under eBay Fraud | 8 Comments
What It Is
- Sellers employing multiple user ID’s or enlisting the assistance of others to place bogus bids on an auction in order to raise the number of bids and the final bid price.
- Artifically increasing bidding activity and inflating the going bid.
Detecting
- Watch for recurring ID’s used to place bids on several of the seller’s auctions. These bids are rarely, if ever, the winning bids.
- Look for a recurring pattern of last-minute bids by the same bidder or bidders.
- Shill bidding is harder to detect now because eBay will only show first and last couple of characters of another eBay bidder’s ID in a listing’s bid history.
- Look for bidders and sellers who regularly bid on each others auctions.
What to Do
- Report suspected shill bidding activity to Safe Harbor for investigation.
- Bidding at the last moment is your best defense against shill bidding. Learn and employ auction sniping techniques.
eBay recently hosted an online workshop in their forums with the goal of helping auction sellers improve their detailed seller ratings. One of their suggestions was to offer free shipping. A few observations are in order…
eBay is pushing the shipping and handling fee as an evaluation criteria pretty hard these days. Don’t spend too much emotional energy thinking that this is to improve “the buying experience.” It’s no secret that eBay makes no commissions off of shipping and handling fees that the seller charges the buyer. An item that sells for one cent but tacks on a $19.99 shipping and handling charge makes eBay no money in Final Value Fees. Through carrots and sticks, eBay is encouraging sellers to mark up the sale price of a transaction like this to $20.00 and to offer “free shipping.” In this scenario, eBay takes their commission on the entire transaction amount (plus PayPal’s cut on the transaction).