How to handle negative feedback
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02-22-2025 08:41 PM
Hi everyone. I just received my first negative feedback. One person made 2 orders and they left negative feedback for both orders even though I did everything right on my part. I tried explaining things but they were just furious and left negative feedback without letting me help them. It has just stressed me out so much as I have dedicated a lot of my life to this ebay stuff and I'm just shattered. It may not be a very big deal, I'm not sure how it will work out. Just came here to see if anyone thinks this would greatly affect me as a seller or if I should just brush it off and keep going. It is just really crushing to have my perfect feedback just disappear like that.
How to handle negative feedback
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02-22-2025 08:50 PM
Your only mistake in the reply was alluding to your carrier as a culprit. A seller is ultimately responsible for product and delivery without damage.
You can ALWAYS make a negative feedback into a positive with the correct verbiage.
In would say, in your business, you still skate through fine, even with the negs. Carry on with tasks at hand and best of luck moving FORWARD;)
Don't bask in the past.
How to handle negative feedback
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02-22-2025 09:28 PM
Just keep going, do your best, but you are in a tough market.
“The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” - Henry Kissinger
"Wherever law ends, tyranny begins" -John Locke
How to handle negative feedback
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02-22-2025 11:11 PM
I suggest you ignore it. Sellers rarely come across as classy or professional when they are miffed.
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02-23-2025 01:11 AM
Hint: Don't engage in a discussion of how good your other sales were. The buyer doesn't care. They only care about there order. Work with you buyer to resolve the issue in a professional manner and to the satisfaction of the buyer. Your comments on the neutral & neg FB needs overhauling. "When doubt do what is right" some times you need to bite the "financial bullet". That is just part of being a professional seller.
"Stay away from negative people, they have a problem for every solution." A. Einstein
"The Devil made me do it!" - Flip Wilson
"If the band can only play loud - they ain't no good - peps too!" J.R. Johnson
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02-23-2025 04:35 AM
@cobry-863 wrote:Hi everyone. I just received my first negative feedback. One person made 2 orders and they left negative feedback for both orders even though I did everything right on my part. I tried explaining things but they were just furious and left negative feedback without letting me help them. It has just stressed me out so much as I have dedicated a lot of my life to this ebay stuff and I'm just shattered. It may not be a very big deal, I'm not sure how it will work out. Just came here to see if anyone thinks this would greatly affect me as a seller or if I should just brush it off and keep going. It is just really crushing to have my perfect feedback just disappear like that.
I thought that your response to the buyer was reasonable. And I suspect that -- to the extent other buyers are even interested in your feedback -- they too will see that you are honest and well-intentioned.
But I agree with @chapeau-noir ... you are gambling that what you deliver will evolve into what you promise. That cannot be easy.
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02-23-2025 04:43 AM - edited 02-23-2025 04:47 AM
I suggest being more careful in the future with how you respond to feedback. Your reply to the neg was defensive, used the unfortunate wording "tough luck," and also said "who knows" what goes on during the shipping process. None of that is reassuring to future buyers.
You would have been better off conveying
regret and detailing what remedy you offered, or would offer, to the buyer.
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02-23-2025 06:41 AM - edited 02-23-2025 06:42 AM
Oops. Never mind. I misread.
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I can explain it to you but I can’t understand it for you.
How to handle negative feedback
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02-23-2025 07:00 AM
Speaking in general terms, a single poor rating may have no effect at all, especially given the fact it is often surrounded by ratings of universal praise and buyer satisfaction. Like yours. Buyers are savvy enough to know that a negative feedback is an inevitable outcome for many sellers because there are those customers who cannot be pleased regardless. Buyers know the longer one sells, the greater the liklihood a neg will appear.
About the only way for such a lone negative to actually hurt sales has more to do with the seller’s follow-up comment than the negative itself. A seller can absolutely set fire to their own house by leaving an ill-advised response. Sand traps like blaming,defensiveness, anger, name-calling, etc can turn a lame powerless negative into an impossible hurdle for one’s prospective buyers to trip over. It takes some skill and thought to craft a good response to negative feedback.
Because of this, i consider the most valuable real estate on eBay to be the feedback follow-up comment. Sellers can use that opportunity to display their customer service chops which can further erode a poor rating’s authority.
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02-23-2025 07:34 AM
I look at it this way. Returns for Refunds HURT me. Words do not. If they keep and don't open a return, move on. Words fade. Lost $ are lost forever.
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02-23-2025 07:50 AM
Buyer error leaving feedback rather than opening an "INAD".
Seller error not handling the issue properly.
