EBay’s feedback system was a wonderful idea to create trust between buyers and sellers in a brand new market.  Although not perfect, it has been a valuable tool when deciding to make a purchase.  The system now consists of two tools, the feedback forum and the designated seller ratings (DSR’s.)  The feedback forum allows you to rate a transaction positive, negative, or neutral, to leave a comment on the transaction, and it displays a total feedback score, a past 12 months percentage of positive feedbacks, and the comments left by others.  The designated seller ratings allow a buyer to leave a score of 1-5 on four different categories, item description, communication, shipping time, and shipping cost.  

The feedback forum is the tool that has been in use since eBay’s origin, but how eBay counts and views this feedback has changed through the years.  After a transaction, the buyer should leave feedback.  As a powerseller, I am going to encourage you to leave positive feedback unless you were unable to settle a problem with a seller.  Why? Currently, anything but positive feedback will lower a seller’s feedback percentage.  Yes, even a neutral feedback will lower the score!  So if you leave a neutral feedback for a seller that has resolved a problem that occurred with a transaction, you are actually punishing that seller just like you would a poor seller!  And yes, a seller’s percentage score does matter!  Sellers must maintain a percentage rating of more than 95% to remain in the powerseller program.  

EBay’s newest feedback tool is the designated seller ratings.  This tool is a bit more complicated, but unless you are leaving a seller 5 stars, you will be penalizing the powerseller.  How?  EBay applies discounts to final value fees for powersellers whose average DSR’s are greater than 4.6.  Discounts range from 5-20%.  Discounts that could be passed on to the buyer!  So let’s explore each of the DSR categories a little closer.  

The first in the four categories is ‘item as described.’  Was the item as described?  Now remember, descriptions can be quite subjective.  One man’s “Fine condition” is another’s “Good condition.”  If you feel that the item you received was not fairly represented in the description and photos, then contact the seller!  If that seller is willing to refund your money, I say leave them 5 stars.  They stood behind the customer!  If you leave them less than 5 stars, it may affect the eBay fees that they pay.  In essence, you would be penalizing the seller for doing right by you.  If you don’t feel comfortable leaving them a 5 star rating, my suggestion would be to not leave a rating.  

The next is communication.  Did the seller answer your questions promptly?  Did they notify you at end of auction?  Did they notify you when your item was shipped?  If you felt that a seller’s communication earned less than 5 stars, please let them know why.  They cannot fix a problem if they do not know of its existence.  

The third DSR is shipping time.  Now the seller has little control over this once the item leaves his hands.  In my opinion, a buyer should be grading a seller on handling time.  Any seller that is able to get items out within 72 hours of cleared payment gets five stars in my book.  Now it may take 30 days to get to my house because it is coming via media mail or from Canada, but as long as they got it out quickly, I do not feel the seller should be penalized for slow shipping.  And notice I said cleared payment!  Buyers that pay by check or echeck should expect a significant delay as their payments are processed.  Payment by check takes a while to get to a seller before they can even start the processing of the payment and the bank’s clearance.  Payment by echeck is not much quicker as it can take up to 7 days for Paypal or other financial entity to clear payment and actually apply it to the seller’s account.  Please do not penalize a seller because you opted to pay with a form of payment that is slow to process.  

The last is also shipping related, “Shipping & Handling Charges.”  Unfortunately, I am not certain that most buyers, unless they purchase frequently, are familiar with shipping charges.   For many years, we charged actual shipping plus a 25 cent handling fee for most of our eBay items.  The handling fee didn’t even cover our packaging expenses not to mention the extra 18 cent tracking fee placed on USPS items that are not mailed Priority Shipping.  Since the advent of DSR’s, we’ve not been charging any handling fee and on some items we have even offered free shipping.  Still, my DSR rating in this area is currently only 4.6 and is jeopardizing the small 5% discount I do get as a Powerseller.  I’ve recently visited with a seller that offers free shipping on all of their items and his rating was 4.8!  Please buyers, consider giving 5 stars to all sellers that do not charge more than $1.00 for handling.  And if you’ve purchased a freight item or any other item needing special handling, allow whatever the handling charge was that was noted in the auction or store item.  You agreed to the charge when you purchased the item knowingly, do not bash the seller afterward.  

I hope that this essay has helped you to understand a bit more about how the feedback system affects the powerseller on eBay.  Please feel free to contact me with comments or questions on this subject.  As a buyer and a seller on eBay, I feel the feedback tool helps us to make decisions, but unless we learn to understand how eBay uses these tools, we may actually be punishing a seller inadvertently.  A four star rating is not a good thing for powersellers.    

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1. All of our successful eBay buyers are automatically entered
2. Simply comment on any of our blogs, including this one to recieve one entry per comment.
3. Leave a friendly message in "My eBay World" guestbook or our website www.djfshop.net guestbook.
4. Subscribe to any of our newsletters.
5. Submit contributions such as articles or photos for consideration to our website or blogs.  Subjects include Primitive Decor, Rat rods and car projects, and vintage recipes.  You retain copyright priveleges to the contribution but allow us to publish it in our blog or website.
   
6. Promote our eBay store Frank's Stuff on your blog, about me page or other.  Don't forget to notify us of your posting so that we can enter you in the drawing!