The Importance of Ebay Feedback

I have only been selling on Ebay since late October, early November 2006. I can tell you, I am hooked. In fact, I would LOVE to make Ebay my primary source of income (and I am working on that diligently). There is some stress involved though. All is not fun and games. Ebay is a serious business to many folks who already make a living buying and selling items on a daily basis.

One of the more stressful items on Ebay is the importance of Ebay Feedback. Wow, is it stressful. I’ll tell you a few of my personal stories. Here is just one.

For those of you who don’t know what Ebay feedback is here is my definition. Ebay feedback is the way the Ebay community of buyers and sellers rates your performance. It is a self-policing state. If I don’t like your transaction, I tell the world that I didn’t like it. If I did like it, I rave about you or your service or your product. You are given a 100% rating if you did everything to make the buyers or sellers happy. You get a negative feedback rating if you messed something up. . . even if it wasn’t on purpose. The only saving grace about negative feedback is that you get to tell your side of the story but that bad mark follows you until you quit buying or selling on Ebay.

My favorite true stories are real (and costly) learning experiences. You see, I will do all that I can to NOT get negative feedback. I do care and being a perfectionist, I would take negative feedback very personally.

Before Christmas was hectic. I sold over $5,000 worth of products from late November through Christmas alone. That meant hundreds of boxes were flying out of my house into the well meaning arms of the USPS or UPS and occasionally Fed Ex workers. Since I was just learning, this was very stressful to me.

My first major mistake was shipping a product to the wrong address. I had been given two addresses. I did email the person and did ask which address he wanted the product shipped to. I made notes, but in the hustle and bustle of getting so many packages shipped, I couldn’t remember for sure which address I shipped to and I had not written it down (like I do now). In my back end statistics (paypal allows you to check on your shipments), all was well. The product had arrived safely. This was two full weeks before Christmas.

Two days before Christmas I received a very sarcastic email from the person asking me where his product was. Being the perfectionist that I am, I panicked of course. I went into my back end and saw that it had been delivered. I was relieved because I had proof that it had been delivered. Then it hit me. This was the guy who had two addresses! Maybe I didn’t send it to the right address.

I sent the person an email and told him the post office had attempted to deliver the package but no one was home. Then I admitted that I didn’t know which home it had been delivered to.

Well, the email basically made me feel like dirt. It went something like this. . . “I guess my nephew is going to have to be very disappointed on Christmas day.” Being a grandma, my heart broke. I was mad as all hockey sticks because he waited two days before Chrismas to tell me this at 4:30 in the afternoon before Christmas Eve, but I swung into action.

I called the USPS. I had less than 30 minutes to get there before it closed. . . not possible. I called UPS, sorry, they wanted about $80 to ship it overnight and I only had 30 minutes to get there too. I called Fed Ex. Luckily there was a Fed Ex office 10 minutes away from me and they didn’t close until 6PM EST.

So, I repacked this $4.00 item. . . yes, he won the item for $4.00. Being new I had already lost money on paypal fees and ebay fees and was breaking even on the product itself. Now I was shipping a second product losing the money I paid for the product completely!

I repacked, rewrapped and grabbed my purse and headed off to Fed Ex within 10 minutes. Got to Fed Ex. Overnight was the only option to get this to his nephew on time. $48.95 AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!! It cost me $48.95 to mail a $4.00 package because I didn’t know where I had shipped it to!

I swallowed hard, cried a bit and just wrote it off to a learning experience. Meanwhile, I called the person and told him his package was on his way. I had to leave a message. The day after Christmas I received an email thanking me for getting the package to him, however, he proceeded to explain that although I did make that extra effort, his nephew wasn’t even going to be where he was supposed to be after all to get the package. Ergo, he wouldn’t be receiving it on Christmas day.

I just shook my head and went in to look at my feedback rating. . . trembling as I typed in my username and password. Yes indeed, a positive rating for the whole ordeal. Thank God for that!

Lesson number one learned. . . .fight for that positive ebay feedback no matter what the cost. You have no choice