Simply-the-best-for-you Volunteer Community Mentor
mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
Noticed today that on the View Item page in the Feedback module for some sellers eBay is showing an average message response rate.
It's not showing for all sellers and I'm not sure what the criteria is - I don't think it's only for sellers that are particularly fast because I'm seeing anywhere from 1 hr to 24 hrs.
devon@ebay kyle@ebay - any insights on this you can share?
I am not seeing these yet, can anyone tell me what mine is? I'm curious. TIA.
Whoa, I wonder why so high, thank you @valueaddedresource . Probably cuz I have one long-not-answered one b/c it's not really a buyer, it's an old boardie friend who wrote me & I haven't had a chance to get back to her. I suspect that's dragging down my average cuz I usually reply asap to everything.
@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:I am not seeing these yet, can anyone tell me what mine is? I'm curious. TIA.
Not all browsers can see it. I use Chrome, I can't see mine, but Value looked for me and gave me what mine says.
Mine is the same. 6 hours. IMHO is because most of mine tend to come in overnight. I answer them in the morning, but the come in while I'm sleeping. Certainly not all questions, but clearly enough of them to affect my response time. I'm fine with 6 hours. I would much rather under promise and over preform for them. Tends to make them much happier. Seems to me a 1 hour response time is just setting some sellers up for unnecessary problems with some buyers.
@mam98031 wrote:
@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:I am not seeing these yet, can anyone tell me what mine is? I'm curious. TIA.
Not all browsers can see it. I use Chrome, I can't see mine, but Value looked for me and gave me what mine says.
Yup, I know, that's why I asked for someone to please check & Value was kind enough to do so.
@mam98031 wrote:Mine is the same. 6 hours. IMHO is because most of mine tend to come in overnight. I answer them in the morning, but the come in while I'm sleeping. Certainly not all questions, but clearly enough of them to affect my response time. I'm fine with 6 hours. I would much rather under promise and over preform for them. Tends to make them much happier. Seems to me a 1 hour response time is just setting some sellers up for unnecessary problems with some buyers.
Whatever works for you, but not me. I want mine to say 1 hour b/c that's typical for me. I'll bet it's the one 2 month old one that is dragging down my average b/c I answer almost everything in minutes. When I'm awake of course.
@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:Mine is the same. 6 hours. IMHO is because most of mine tend to come in overnight. I answer them in the morning, but the come in while I'm sleeping. Certainly not all questions, but clearly enough of them to affect my response time. I'm fine with 6 hours. I would much rather under promise and over preform for them. Tends to make them much happier. Seems to me a 1 hour response time is just setting some sellers up for unnecessary problems with some buyers.
Whatever works for you, but not me. I want mine to say 1 hour b/c that's typical for me. I'll bet it's the one 2 month old one that is dragging down my average b/c I answer almost everything in minutes. When I'm awake of course.
That could only be true if you only get very few questions since it is an average. For example if you had 10 questions asked in whatever period Ebay is taking the average from and 9 are answered in a hour and one it 12 hours, the average is 1.2 hours.
I'm not sure how Ebay deals with some messages that aren't answered at all as some sellers are selective about which questions they answer and which they don't. I'm not at all saying you are doing that, some posters on this thread have said they do.
@mam98031 wrote:
@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:Mine is the same. 6 hours. IMHO is because most of mine tend to come in overnight. I answer them in the morning, but the come in while I'm sleeping. Certainly not all questions, but clearly enough of them to affect my response time. I'm fine with 6 hours. I would much rather under promise and over preform for them. Tends to make them much happier. Seems to me a 1 hour response time is just setting some sellers up for unnecessary problems with some buyers.
Whatever works for you, but not me. I want mine to say 1 hour b/c that's typical for me. I'll bet it's the one 2 month old one that is dragging down my average b/c I answer almost everything in minutes. When I'm awake of course.
That could only be true if you only get very few questions since it is an average. For example if you had 10 questions asked in whatever period Ebay is taking the average from and 9 are answered in a hour and one it 12 hours, the average is 1.2 hours.
I'm not sure how Ebay deals with some messages that aren't answered at all as some sellers are selective about which questions they answer and which they don't. I'm not at all saying you are doing that, some posters on this thread have said they do.
Good point about the average. Yeah, I answer 99%, but there is a point with the whole thank you/your welcome thing, when I just mark as answered cuz there's nothing more to say.
My guess is instead of just marking a question as answered without actually sending an answer. We my need to at least say thank you to the person sending the message.
IDK, I don't think any of us knows how Ebay handles questions never answered whether it is because it didn't require an answer or we didn't want to answer. Or is marking it as answered enough.
So many questions and so very few answers.
@valueaddedresource wrote:
@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:Mine is the same. 6 hours. IMHO is because most of mine tend to come in overnight. I answer them in the morning, but the come in while I'm sleeping. Certainly not all questions, but clearly enough of them to affect my response time. I'm fine with 6 hours. I would much rather under promise and over preform for them. Tends to make them much happier. Seems to me a 1 hour response time is just setting some sellers up for unnecessary problems with some buyers.
Whatever works for you, but not me. I want mine to say 1 hour b/c that's typical for me. I'll bet it's the one 2 month old one that is dragging down my average b/c I answer almost everything in minutes. When I'm awake of course.
@simply-the-best-for-you that sounds logical but unfortunate if that one message is impacting your average to that degree.
That's a great example of why we need details from eBay about what is being counted, what timeframe they are looking at, and how to properly handle messages that either don't need an answer or, like this on, are personal and don't really reflect on your selling practices.
It's hard to say for sure of course, but I'm generally very fast & I answer everything. Actually I just realized though, I have 8 outstanding, all from 1 lovely buyer, who is lonely & telling me her life story (for the 3rd time). I'll have to watch this b/c it is quite common for my buyers & I to communicate just friendly stuff, way after a tx is done. So actually, these 8 or so have been waiting for the better part of a week, but they are on ended items, so not sure if those would count. They're not showing in my Waiting to Answer & then the one from my old boardie friend, has been waiting a couple of months, so yeah, hard ot say without knowing exactly how eBay is coming up with this.
I will say that I have to start paying more attn, b/c while I answer real questions immediately, buyers like this woman who has now told me her life story in sets of 8-10 messages, THREE TIMES, I am not quick to answer & I get that type of stuff a lot. Guess I'll have to re-think that. BTW, if those 8 are counting, then I'm surprised it's only 6 hours.
ETA: @valueaddedresource I gotta go, but I'll try to answer that old one later & we'll see if it makes a differene, though who knows how often it gets updated? I'm sure eBay will say it's "in real time" 🤣 Which means it's not.
In kind of makes me thing that it is going by when we mark the question as answered. So if it doesn't show as outstanding there, it isn't consider. But of course that is a guess.
