Oct
8
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.”
Related Posts:
Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post. | TrackBack URI
5 Responses to “Media Mail is Killing my Detailed Seller Ratings”
Leave a Reply
[...] 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 [...]
Detailed Seller ratings are unfair! I couldn’t agree more…Measuring shipping time of a Seller should be ONLY the “amount of time it takes a seller to ship the item once paid for”. I almost exclusively ship Priority Mail in the U.S. because my buyers love the fast shipping as well as the USPS provides the packaging, so always get high marks for shipping time, but because shipping costs are such a competitive nature among items many times offer both First Class and Priority. Ebay lists items showing the cheapest option of your item available and many buyers scan and purchase based on those. So invariably when someone chooses the cheaper option of shipping, I can predict that one of them will mark me down on shipping time even though I always ship within 24hrs of receiving payment, many times same day and if they pay afternoon the next day, so I feel like sellers just can’t win because Ebay hasn’t made it clear on the guidelines to buyers. I am also finding that about 30% of buyers never leave feedback and who has time to chase them down…I’m a new Ebay store this past year and love it but the new feedback, fees and the search changes are frustrating.
This is probably my greatest criticism with many of these sellers on eBay. Have a couple of separate issues regarding sellers who insist on mailing items via “Media Mail”.
First off . . . “Media Mail” by the official definition of the United States Postal Service:
“Media Mail”
“Small and large packages and thick envelopes can be sent using “Media Mail”. Contents are limited to books, manuscripts, sound recordings, recorded videotapes, and computer-readable media (not blank). Informally called “Book Rate,” Media Mail cannot contain advertising, except eligible books may contain incidental announcements of books.”
Started selling (and buying) on eBay nearly ten years ago. In that time, have shipped thousands of items and believe that a few tricks were learned. Whenever I ship a book it either goes out via “First Class” or “Priority Mail”. “Media Mail” is NEVER used! As a buyer, whenever one of these misguided sellers sends a softbound book by way of “Media Mail”, it is received at least 10-days later with the spine always broken. That’s 100% !!! With me, “Media Mail” is not an option!
For general information, what is now termed by the U.S. Postal Service as “Media Mail” used to be known (when I worked for the Post Office Dept. & USPS) as “Book Rate”. This was a special postal rate for mainly schools and libraries so to ship books in bulk. We used to get large duffel bag size canvas sacks stuffed with hardbound textbooks weighing in excess of 70 pounds each. At Postal Sectional Center sorting facilities, Mail Handlers still off-load trucks and toss heavy filled bags filled with “Media Mail” down the chutes which pile up into giant heaps below. With tons of dead weight on top, is it any wonder that your single book or video gets damaged or destroyed? “Media Mail” is also a level below that of “Parcel Post” which is bottom priority for handling, sorting and delivery. It is very slow service!
As a rule, I avoid sellers of books that state shipping to be “Media Mail”. Sometimes though with a good “Buy it Now” deal, the higher set shipping cost within the listing is somewhat misleading. Somehow it’s figured that with $7.00 or $8.00 listed to mail a softbound book, the seller is likely to use First Class and then pockets two or three bucks for his trouble to deal with me. Invoice from the seller is received and locked in on the “Media Mail” mode as the only means of shipping provided. Next step is a message to the seller which is most often responded to with shipping via First Class will cost me ten-bucks (or more). Then the argument starts. As mentioned previously, it’s best to try to avoid this situation in the first place. Previously, before the new Feedback system was put place, the buyer had no leverage. Now, if the seller tries for a shake down to ship the item, negative feedback can be at least suggested.
Fact is, for light articles under a couple of pounds in weight, “First Class” service is not much more money than “Media Mail”. Then Priority Mail is close to “First Class” in cost.
Seeing that many are somewhat new to eBay, I have tried to explain to numerous of these arrogant fools but to no avail.
In fact “Priority Mail” and “First Class” are essentially the SAME service. It’s a Postal Service hype scam to sometimes collect ten-times as “First Class” mail! The one advantage of “Priority Mail” is that the Post Office supplies the shipping containers, boxes and cartons at no cost to the sender. That’s the big plus! For an average size under 9×12” softbound book, I always ship via “Priority Mail” using a Postal Service provided rigid box. Put some packing material within and the buyer receives that item within a couple of days safe and undamaged. Everybody’s happy!
Another rule of thumb for anything sent through the mails or probably any means of transport is speed. Figure that the less time the article has in the destructive hands of the shipping apes the better. Three days is much less time than ten days or more for the goons to wreck or lose the thing.
Also, when is somebody going to crack down on sellers who ship everything and anything via “Media Mail”? Awhile ago, I had an eBay seller thug trying to extort me for shipping on a four-pound Lionel train locomotive using “Media Mail” at a cost of $26.00. Did I tumble off the pumpkin wagon last Tuesday? Needless to say, I didn’t pay it. Gave up trying to be reasonable and instructive with some of these creeps. Most are not simply ignorant newbies but are instead rude nickel n’ dime petty crooks.
Both the U.S. Postal Service and eBay are indifferent to the widespread abuse of “Media Mail”. My complaints to both entities went nowhere. They’re just not interested. eBay sees no profit in policing this problem and the Postal Service is top heavy with incompetent management hacks. Summing it up, my advice is to avoid any seller who insist on shipping, except perhaps a well packed heavy hardbound book via “Media Mail”. For a few pounds or less, First Class is a far better way to go for myriad reasons.
Capt. seems like you are the arrogant fool. If the seller states Media Mail, and the buyer knows it takes longer to be delivered, he or she should not complain AT ALL if the seller ships within 1 day of getting payment. The seller deserves 5 stars if he ships any item within 1-2 days. Sellers should NOT be rated on DELIVERY time, that’s the post office’s problem.
Buyers want everything shipped for free and they want it the next day. DSRs are just stupid! Buyer’s can do whatever they want with the new system and we are at their mercy. Even if they are thrilled with their purchase, they can ding the stars if one little thing hurts their little feelings.
In fact if there is going to be a detailed rating system it should be more detailed, such as:
Did the seller contact you after auction was over? yes/no
Was the item described accurately? yes/no/neither
Were the shipping charges reasonable? yes/no
When did seller ship item after payment was received? then there could be boxes for 1-2 days, 3-4 days, etc.
The STARS should be eliminated! They are bullsh*t. Luckily, I have an excellent reputation as a seller and my stars are all 4.8/4.9 but I know it could all change with one or two bad buyers in a heartbeat.
BTW, I’ve been selling for 10 years.