@ilivewith3cavemen wrote:
"If a buyer emails me and says "I received the item and it's great, blah, blah, blah", then yes, I will leave them feedback first"
You mean last, AFTER the buyer has GONE TO THE TROUBLE of contacting you.
And as to "honest feedback" - were you paid? Yes? then give honest feedback. Easy
The thing about feedback these days is that for buyers, it says absolutely nothing at all. Well, perhaps it says that they've purchases few, or a lot, of items on eBay, but it doesn't tell sellers a thing about the quality of that buyer and what they might be like to deal with. The worst, nastiest buyers online will all have 100% positive feedback, as that is all that eBay allows sellers to hand out. 
There are some buyers who still desire that little *pat on the head*.. that little *gold star* of a positive feedback left for them, so many sellers still hand that out. Some do at the time a buyer pays for his purchase. Others on the day the item shows as having been delivered. Whatever is their time of doing their feedbacks.
Tons and tons of buyers aren't leaving feedback for sellers at all anymore. The thing is.. it's really sort of a hassle. We don't jot out a little note for the stores we shop in either. We rarely fill in those little How-Are-We-Doing? cards. We don't order at hardly any online catalogs/stores and then send them feedback remarks about how we think they did in processing our order.
If there is a problem, buyers will certainly let their sellers know, as we'd expect. Other than that, many don't bother.
It's really sort of an archaic system when you stop and think about it and how poorly it works, how unreliably it sometimes unfolds.
