AuctionBytes is reporting that the UK eBay site will be modifying the search results displayed based on detailed seller ratings. Specifically, sellers who rank below a 3.9 average (on a 5.0 scale) for shipping and handling charges will receive “considerably reduced visibility” meaning that their listings will appear much further down in the search results.
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Textbooks are a great seller on eBay. I’ve been listing them with great success and they’ve constituted the majority of my sales since eBay introduced their “Detailed Seller Ratings” a few months ago. In order to keep shipping and handling fees down, I have always offered the Media Mail rate. It’s slower, but much cheaper than Parcel Post or Priority Mail shipping. Unfortunately this delivery method is impacting my Detailed Seller Rating for shipping time.
I go to great lengths to ship the books I sell by the next day. I send an email to the bidder informing them when their item ships and providing them a delivery confirmation number. After I drop the package off at the post office, there’s not much I can do to influence the speed of the delivery. It recently took two-weeks for a book I mailed from Virginia to arrive in Georgia. (I could have driven it there myself in less than eight-hours.)
That’s why I’m not offering Media Mail as a delivery option anymore. Bidders will pay the extra postage for priority mail and I can stop fretting over delivery times.
Just another example of how eBay’s Detailed Seller Ratings measure the wrong things and fail in their promise of “improving the buying experience.”
More Thoughts on eBay Feedback
Filed Under Feedback | 3 Comments
I’ve left approximately 25% more feedback than I’ve received. I understand that feedback is not compulsory, but one has to wonder what motivates an eBay user to choose to leave or not to leave feedback. Interestingly, I get more feedback when I’m participating in eBay as a buyer capacity than as a seller. As a seller, I generally leave feedback first, so retaliatory feedback shouldn’t be my buyer’s concern. However, in many cases, retaliatory feedback or the potential for retaliatory feedback is a significant factor in why eBay’s feedback system is dysfunctional. Sellers generally refuse to leave feedback until after the bidder has expressed satisfaction with the transaction by leaving a positive feedback. While eBay is expending a significant number of resources on Feedback 2.0 in an effort to improve the system, they are ignoring a root issue that significantly degrades the functionality and value of feedback. eBay must fix the retaliatory feedback issue. Read more
Of the limited resources eBay users have to remove negative feedback, the Mutual Feedback Withdrawal program is probably the least cumbersome. This program is for eBay users who have both left a negative feedback for each other and who later resolve their differences and agree to retract the feedback they left for each other. Read more