Selling limitations due to rubbish DSRs!!

hermum

my_gorgeous_ellie-belle wrote: »

I wish i could - every other of my ratings are 4.9...i don't get it as nearly every comment states 'very fast delivery', or 'wow - arrived next day'. Must just one or two miffed people who give one star for no reason to completely wreck someones dsr. I can never understand it as i simply can't post it any faster than i do so therefore it should really be a 5 for dispatch. And i have 100% positive feedback so it's not from someone leaving negatives.

Never mind - i haven't been lowered so as long as i do't get lowered i suppose i have little to be miffed about.

I won something yesterday that was collection only, payment on pick up. When I came home to do the feedback I was able to leave feedback for p&p charges & despatch. I thought that this would be disabled, I'm not sure how that should be marked. If you leave no stars does that bring down the rating? You can't give 5 as you can't rate what you haven't used.
I was moaning the other day that my costs & despatch rate had gone down, yet feedback comments, are 100% Perfect, no complaints, best ebayer, fast cheap delivery. I'm now wondering if the couple of collection items are what brought down the ratings.

choc_mouse

I-Owe-You wrote: »

Seriously contemplating chucking it in...!

I've been an ebay user for 9 years occasionally buying/selling as a private user. The main thing that discourages me from selling on ebay these days is the high fee from ebay AND paypal.

I don't know the exact fees but the last time I sold something, I had already paid out 25-30% of the sale value to ebay, paypal and the post office*. This isn't a huge profit for an individual but a large profit for ebay, considering they have thousands of sales every hour. I imagine the margins for business sellers are quite low especially as most items on ebay are priced lower than RRP.

*Note: ebay forced me to offer free delivery

Mr_Mag0o

People buy things with an expectation of when they are going to turn up, if your description of turnaround is stated in your sales, and you are delivering to this, then you should be asking e-bay to retract the low scores for feedback.

If you state that you are sending within 5 days, and are sending second class (approx 5 days) and people are leaving you negative feedback that are getting their items within the 10 day window, it is them that are at fault, not you. If you are however delivering around 12-15 days later, then they have a reason to complain and mark you down.

I've just marked down a business for doing exactly this, and reading through their other feedback I would have used someone else, so feedback is useful in helping people. In my case, the so called "despatch next day" turned out to be 9 days later, and as it was jiffy bags that I was relying on to send out my parcels, I either had the dilemna of late delivering all my parcels (whilst praying the company eventually delivered), or paying the extortionate prices for jiffy bags at the post office.

RFW

Mr_Mag0o wrote: »

If you state that you are sending within 5 days, and are sending second class (approx 5 days) and people are leaving you negative feedback that are getting their items within the 10 day window, it is them that are at fault, not you. If you are however delivering around 12-15 days later, then they have a reason to complain and mark you down.

Very few buyers will read delivery terms, the expectation now is delivery within a couple of days of payment and the majority of sellers are doing this, this is what the DSRs are marked on. The majority of my items arrive within 36 hours of payment (end one evening, collected next day for delivery the following day), I still occasionally get marked down for dispatch time, be it at weekends or because of a courier delay.

Sounds like the OP needs to keep buyers informed that there may be a delay (even if they pay late you have to be nice and polite) and get the goods sent as quickly as possible. Printing online postage may help and then posting as soon as possible. Inform the buyer when items have been sent and ask if they have received.
I'd also suggest not using second class postage. Surprising how happy a buyer will be when they think they've paid second class and it arrives first class.

soolin

I completely agree with RFW, I don't think buyer read all the small print about how many days despatch. 99% of items arrive well within a week, so they expect all items to arrive that quickly and there are very few selllers now that post out only once or twice a week so if a buyer does buy from one of them it is quite noticeable.

The stars don't ask 'how well did seller stick to their dispatch timess' it merely asks for the buyers experience of dispatch, if 99% of their goods arrive in a week and are giving 4 or 5 stars, something arriving in the 2nd week really stands out and will be given less stars.

I will always give 5 stars for a seller who gets their goods posted in a couple of days, I will automatically drop that to 4 stars if they take longer than say 4 days to post (regardless of their stated dispatch times) if they take longer then i would check their dispatch times, if they have stuck to them I'd leave 4 stars as it is good but not perfect, if however they have slipped even a day and my item is later than expected then i might even go as low as a 3. However, I can't recall the last time i bought something in the uK that didn't arrive within 5-6 days, so i've left nothing but 5 stars for ages (that's for dispatch, )