Ebay's Buyer Bias: Lack of Concern to it's Sellers

[fmzip]

I've been selling on Ebay since 1998 and strive for 100% positive feedback. I've been extremely succesful of maintaining this through the simplicity of  integrity. Do everything correctly, how can negative feedback ever happen, correct?

Unfortunately, from time to time there is a dishonest buyer or a buyer doesn't understand the feedback process. For example, a buyer purchases an item. The seller purchases a label through Ebay's portal which automatically creates a label, with tracking information, and off goes the package to the seller address. Provided you ship like this, you have what's called "Ebay seller protection".

One day the seller notices that their perfect 100% positive feedback has a blemish. The buyer of the above said purchase posted a negative feedback stating they never recieved the item. However, the tracking number shows it was delivered. So there are two possible reasons for this. One, the buyer did receive it and is being dishonest. Second, the carrier delivered it to the wrong address. 

So the question is, how is it even possible for a buyer to leave negative feedback on the seller in this instance with Ebay's so-called, "Seller Protection"? Ebay states they have seller protection but in order to get seller protection, the seller has to consume hours of their time, going through their chat service and then their customer service and waiting several days for the derogatory blemish disappear from their rating. While the negative feedback is posted, it undenaibly impacts the sellers sales as prudent buyers view feedback as a basis of either buying an item or not. If I had the choice to buy an item through a seller with 100% positive feedabck and a nother with 99.8%, why take a chance on the .2%.  Unless the seller is to look at their feedback on an minute to minute basis, they run the risk of losing sales the longer it's posted. 

My thoughts are this. Since there is a vehicle in place, the tracking information, which shows delivery. The buyer should not be able to leave negative feedback on the seller. The seller didn't do anything wrong here. Yes, the buyer did have a negative experience while purchasing on Ebay but the seller is not "Ebay" nor the carrier. 

I stated the above to countless Ebay customer service reps to no avail. I grasp the concept, they have no ability to elevate it. The system is the system. I am hoping by posting this that enough sellers will chime in to finally get this remedied. As far as I am concerened, it's quite simple. There should be a drop down list to select why you are leaving neagative feedback. If it's for the above, as soon as you click that button, you are then locked out of leaving negative feedback. It's that simple. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

[mam98031]

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@vintagecraze50 wrote:

None of these websites allow you to rate a buyer for good reason. I was here when ebay just about began and some of the childish nonsense I read on those feedbacks given to buyers were just in complete bad taste and detracted from buyers trusting buying on this website. Thank God it’s gone.

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I understand.  I've said all that in previous posts.  I agree with you.

[mam98031]

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@fmzip wrote:

let try to explain again why I thought you were an ebay employee......

If you look back through this entire thread someone else posted that did not see any negative feedback on my account. That is correct. When I made this opening post the negative feedback was already removed by ebay. When you posted that you were impressed on my response to the buyers negative feedback I thought to myself how is that you see this feeback while no one else could. Hence I asked the question if you were an ebay employee as I would assume ebay would only be the people who could see past removed feedback  information. Nevertheless, you explained you were not so it must have simply been timing that somehow it was still up on my account when you saw it when myself and others could not.

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@fmzip 

Did I say "negative" FB?  My first post was #9 and this is what I said exactly.  "By the way, you did a terrific job with your answer.  So many sellers post angry things and even resort to name calling sometimes.  Which is a very bad move as their comments are worse than the FB left and will likely do more harm. "

There was no mention of a negative or neutral.  You may have assumed it to be the negative, but I didn't say that.  I was actually speaking about your neutral FB.  IDK I needed to qualify it or you would construe I was an Ebay employee from that statement.

[fmzip]

Got it now , sorry about that. You were referring to my only blemish I could not remove which was the neutral feedback. I totally forgot about the neutral as I look at my 100% positive on a daily basis. 

sorry again for the misunderstanding 

[fmzip]

Your post makes a lot of sense. No need to really keep sellers happy since their buyer pool keeps dwindling and the seller pool is plentiful. Sounds like recipe for failure in the long term to me.  That being said, if I were eBay, I’d find a better way to at least support my veteran selling team before it’s too late. 

[farmalljr]

eBay does not care about sellers. They don't care what they want, how long they have been here or how "valued" those sellers may be. Every seller is easily replaced. They have WAY more sellers than buyers.

Even with buyers, as much as sellers think they favor them, eBay treats buyers like garbage too. As a buyer I have run into many problems and they just keep coming. eBay does not just roll over for buyers. That has changed from past practices. Feedback is a means for a buyer to relate experiences. Even Google allows people who have used a business, to leave any review they feel like leaving. It's a extremely narrow set of rules that even will get a review reviewed by their staff. And it can be something no more than the business giving a quote/estimate, not an actual purchase. It sticks. In order to leave any type of feedback here, there has to be an actual purchase. In some cases, the feedback sellers get is well deserved for not offering better CS, misdescibed products, and sellers blaming everyone but themselves for how the sale went down. 

Are some buyers bad? Sure are. Are some sellers bad? Without question. But eBay does not really do much of anything for either example. It's become a platform that has gotten out of control, with no direction for the commerce that happens on their site. Their only focus is money coming in, not about being a place that brings ideal buyers and sellers together. Feedback is not the real issue. It's how this platform operates and what it allows to keep happening on this platform. 

Eliminate the bad buyer and the bad sellers, and amazingly the issue would disappear. 

[gloryglorygifts]

"Don't hold against Ebay that you could not get that negative removed, it simply does not meet the requirements of the rules to be removed."  Where did I say that I did that? I said that I sucked it up and moved on. I KNOW that the customer feels justified in writing that and that ebay agrees with them. I never asked to have it removed. BUT, I also think that customers should have to reach out to sellers to rectify issues first and give them a chance to fix it. There is very little protection, imho, to anyone that is not being abused, a TRS or affected by the weather. You see it on the boards here all the time. 

I told the OP to appeal it and he/she did and both negs are now gone. Kudos to  the OP. 

[gloryglorygifts]

Ignore that last line. That was another thread, about feedback...... 

[chapeau-noir]

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@fmzip wrote:

Your post makes a lot of sense. No need to really keep sellers happy since their buyer pool keeps dwindling and the seller pool is plentiful. Sounds like recipe for failure in the long term to me.  That being said, if I were eBay, I’d find a better way to at least support my veteran selling team before it’s too late. 

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Only I don't think there's a 'veteran selling team' here - eBay sellers are crowdsourced and basically a collection of individuals. Selling here for 20x years only means someone has held their account for that long without getting kicked off the site for some kind of egregious offence - they may or many not be a good seller. TBH, I think this site needs new blood, but a lot of it is going to competing sites, which is actually normal since it has been a long time since eBay has been the only show in town. IMHO, eBay losing buyers has as much to do with a widening etailing space than anything eBay is actively doing or not doing.

[carlmarxx]

  I been on ebay since 1996  with my other ID and 23 years  with this one.  And  I agree with you ,that there  are bad buyers and sellers  .  I remember when ebay was  house cleaning site of problem  bad sellers . And during that time the problem buyers where  controlled   much better  since  Ebay didn't start their crazy  return policy at that time . it wasn't until  J. Donahue took over  as ceo in 2008  , and  Amazon  started  their  new  returns policy  around 2010   with prime  about year later   . that is when Donahue panic  about buyer traffic  on the site .  He  and rest that ran and are running ebay  fail to understand that ebay is  a second market site  and that amazon's return  type  policy doesn't work for ebay  or for other online sites .   Amazon has dropped   their  free return's  and are charging a fee .  this is to control return buyer abuse .  

[fmzip]

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@gloryglorygifts wrote:

BUT, I also think that customers should have to reach out to sellers to rectify issues first and give them a chance to fix it. There is very little protection, imho, to anyone that is not being abused, a TRS or affected by the weather. You see it on the boards here all the time. . 

Spot on, process should be to at least offering the seller the opportunity to resolve an issue before a buyer can sling any kind of negative feedback! Again, not that complicated for Ebay to do

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[mam98031]

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@gloryglorygifts wrote:

"Don't hold against Ebay that you could not get that negative removed, it simply does not meet the requirements of the rules to be removed."  Where did I say that I did that? I said that I sucked it up and moved on. I KNOW that the customer feels justified in writing that and that ebay agrees with them. I never asked to have it removed. BUT, I also think that customers should have to reach out to sellers to rectify issues first and give them a chance to fix it. There is very little protection, imho, to anyone that is not being abused, a TRS or affected by the weather. You see it on the boards here all the time. 

I told the OP to appeal it and he/she did and both negs are now gone. Kudos to  the OP. 

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Weather related issues is among the easiest to prove.  And yes sometimes Ebay misses that.  But if the seller contacts Ebay and lets them know they live in an area that is impacted by severe weather, Ebay can confirm that and remove the FB if necessary.

I have to say it is only occasionally that I see a seller with this issue on the threads.  Absolutely it does happen from time to time, but I think you are over stating how often a weather related issue happens.

Ebay does ask if the buyer has contacted their seller before leaving negative or neutral FB now, but they don't require it.  However it would be easy for a buyer to get around that.  Just send the seller any kind of message and then come back and leave the Negative or neutral FB.  So I don't think that requirement would protect sellers as much as some may think.