About Me- Member since: Feb-21-01 13:06:10 PST
- Location: United States
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| Archive - August 2006 Posted Aug-10-06 17:18:48 PDT Updated Sep-03-08 04:40:00 PDT
| In order to sell........You have to be SEEN.....Right? |
~~ The Problem ~~ |
| I was playing around with the search last week and I came across what I thought was an anomaly. However, after testing, I have found it consistent. It doesn't affect my selling strategy as much as some because I am never the lowest price......before shipping that is. However, if you sell items for pennies and charge more for shipping to compensate, this might be of great concern to you. Also, if eBay ever succeeds in stopping the "give the item away and make it up in the shipping" selling strategy it will become a larger concern for me. I don't want to lose sales because eBay's method of sorting.........
Here is the problem…… If you search for an item and then sort by price, the items are sorted by price first and item number second.
Why is this a problem?...... Item numbers used to be sequential based on the time you listed and this method worked fine. Now eBay seems to be assigning the same range of numbers to a specific seller. If your competitors have a lower range of numbers, all their listings will appear first even if your price is the same and your item is ending sooner.
Want to see what I’m looking at?...........Click on the link below to see a sample search.
Search for "canon ip4000" Sorted by Price
Notice that each seller has the same range of auction numbers for all of their auctions and are sorted accordingly.
So it posed the question how are auction numbers assigned to a username? How can I get a lower set of auction numbers?
Unfortunately this can give some an unfair advantage. The lower range of numbers you have the higher the visibility you will have.
Just curious if anyone else has noticed this and/or taken advantage of this? |
Posted Aug-04-06 16:04:52 PDT Updated Aug-10-06 17:26:10 PDT
Feedback is close to the heart of all of us on eBay. It is our reputation as both a buyer and seller.....................I haven't put my opinion out there anywhere yet and just thought: "What better place than my blog?"  I would be very happy to have anyone reading to post your comments too! What do you think? If you don't agree......why? |
In thinking of how best to post my thoughts I came up with this idea...... Here are some quotes of e-mails received from customers regarding feedback and then following is one of my recent e-mail replies on the subject.
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~~ Quotes from Customers ~~ |
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"Hi, I paid in full for an ink cartridge. Please leave feedback for me. Thank you"
"I have been waiting for you to leave feedback, as the seller, before I proceed with leaving your feedback. It has always
been our policy to expect feedback after our part of the transaction was complete . (payment received buy the seller in
full)."
"So, You don't leave feedback until the customer does because you have an automated system. Well, that certainly explains it! I have a bridge you may be interested in! I'll leave feedback after you do. I have one negative feedback on Ebay, it was from a very large ebayer who, after ripping me off, left negative feedback as retribution for my negative feedback. It appears as if you may be inclined to do the same. You should have explained to me that you use feedback as leverage. If that isn't true, then your "automated" system would leave positive feedback as soon as you receive payment for the item."
"I have been waiting for you to leave feedback, as the seller, before I proceed with leaving your feedback. It has always been our policy to expect feedback after our part of the transaction was complete . (payment received buy the seller in full)."
"Yes you can give me good feedback when I pay rather than waiting til I leave you feedback. Your feedback to me should be totally based on my
paying in a timely fashion."
"The reason I have not left feedback is that I used to always leave feedback but I noticed that many times sellers did not take the time to reciprocate so I decided that since the seller received "service" from me first I would leave feedback about my satisfaction after the seller expressed satisfaction with my timliness paying, etc."
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~~ My Reply (Opinion) ~~ |
| "I know there are many users on eBay that feel the way you do, but let me explain our position.....We feel that feedbackshould be a reflection of the entire transaction. If we leave feedback as soon as the buyer pays, there is no accountabilityfor the buyer's actions beyond that point. The buyer can choose to initiate a chargeback without explanation.....They mightuse the threat of negative feedback if we don't meet some demands....If these or other situations occur, there is nothing wecan do to warn other eBay users if we have already left feedback.
We can't completely prevent this by our feedback policy, but we can guard our reputation, prevent some fraud and cause someusers to work with us if there is a problem that might not otherwise.
We always leave positive feedback when positive feedback is left for us and we do not leave retaliatory feedback. Thisdoesn't mean that we have never left a negative for somebody who left us negative, but only if they were unreasonable towork with. There are times we've received negative feedback and deserved it, we're big enough to accept that and try tosolve the problem, even after receiving negative feedback. I would be happy for you to look through our feedback andfeedback left for others and you will find this is true.
I hope you can respect our differing opinion. We do greatly appreciate your business!"
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~~ Summary ~~ |
| In a perfect world, we could leave feedback right away. But then again, in a perfect world......we wouldn't need feedback. Also, if this was a cash transaction, there would be no possibility for fraud and no reason to delay leaving feedback. The buyer couldn't get their money back without coming back to you to resolve the problem and nobody else could say..."It wasn't their money, it was mine. Give it back". The only reason I can see for a buyer to have a concern about leaving feedback first is if they plan to leave a negative for the seller, and if the seller really deserves it, you should do it without concern anyway. If you get retaliatory feedback, you can respond to it in your feedback profile and I, for one, will respect that you "took one for the team!"
I know there are different opinions out there, but have never seen anybody explain very well why they believe the buyers responsibility is over as soon as they pay. If you can...please do! | |
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