Amazon Selling Performance Warning - Advice Please

porto_bello

I've just received a nasty email from Amazon. Over the last 5 years, I have sold about 200-300 items, but few people ever bother to leave feedback, so my lifetime feedback score is still under 100.

Earlier this week, a buyer sent an email stating that a book I sent 3 weeks ago has not turned up. I routinely obtain certificates of postage, so it wasn't a problem, I apologised, immediately refunded and will pursue a Royal Mail claim in slower time.

What they actually wanted from me was a refund AND a replacement book, but to cut a long story short, under the veiled threat of negging, as the buyer received only a refund, they left me a feedback score 1 out of 5 - "my item never arrived".

A day later, I received a feedback score of 2 out of 5 from somebody else, not because of any failure on my part, but on the basis that the buyer has decided that they simply don't like the book!

So 90+ positives in 5 years and then 2 negs in 48 hours! :mad:

Today, I received a warning from Amazon, stating that I have a failure rate of 2 out 30 transactions since January and that I have 30 days to increase my score to 99% - or face suspension.

As far as I can tell, to score 99%, I have to sell another 170 items in 30 days - and hope everyone likes their purchases and Royal Mail and their overseas equivalents score 100%.

Since I have just 20 remaining items on sale, back on planet earth, I know that's not going to happen!

So, what should I do?

Do nothing and wait for Amazon to suspend/close my account, since there is no way I can increase to 99%?

Or request an immediate transfer of the residual money in my account and close it myself, jumping before I'm pushed?

[As all it took was one negative to knock me beneath 99%, I guess it could have happened at any time and I'm lucky it didn't before! Also, presumably, this could happen to anyone unlucky enough to receive a single negative after selling less than 100 items in 3 months? :eek:]

BarntheBarn

Amazon is not terribly friendly for smaller scale sellers like yourself because one negative rating can seriously damage your account and if Amazon suspend you then you have to wait several months for your balance to be paid to you and fighting the robotic arm of Amazon is very stressful.

The best thing you can do is as follows:

- Email both buyers who have left low feedback asking if they will reconsider and remove it.
- If need be offer an additional small compensation fee of £1 to be refunded after the feedback is removed (they then can't add replacement feedback).
- Do not transfer your funds, this will trigger all sorts of processes at Amazon HQ and make it worse.
- Remember that Amazon know more about you then anyone else i the world (almost). They have records of everything you have ever looked at on the site, any addresses you have had and so on. They also have IP details for any machine you have used with your account (this means that if you have ever used your account on (e.g.) your mothers computer and then get banned your mother will never be able to sell on Amazon either.

Hopefully one or both buyers will remove ratings and it will be fine.

Regardless though:

- Email recent buyers (only if you are 100% positive the item was perfect) to ask for positive feedback.
- Make sure you have read all Amazon notifications on the actual site and not just email.
- Make sure that new sales receive your full love and care in processing.

Hope that helps

soolin

I never understand why people criticise the ebay system when the system on Amazon is an awful lot harsher, I feel for your pain I really do.

I can't suggest anything useful other than what Barn has said. I gave up pro membership last november and my sales now average 10 books a month, but i have had no feedback now for 6 weeks. The neutral I got in December is killing my percentage so I expect a warning will be on its wya at some point to me as well. I can't see how any seller can force some one to leave feedback though, the culture on Amazon just doesn't encourage it.

Have you tried asking seller CS to remove the poor feedback that mentions the book? It might be posisble to get that one removed.

jwil

I emailed amazon to get a feedback rating removed when someone decided they didn't like the film they bought from me. They did that pretty quickly, so I would definitely ask them about that.

That seems really harsh though expecting you to get to 99% - there are loads of sellers with much less than that on there!

porto_bello

Barnthebarn, Soolin & Jwil,

Many thanks for your valued advice. Since there's no way on God's earth that I can get up to 99%, in the first instance, I think I'll try Soolin's and Jwil's suggestion and ask Amazon to remove the neg from the buyer that doesn't like the book. If they remove one of the two negs, then at least it's only one 'unique' problem feedback, rather than two.

If they won't play ball, I'll have to try Barnthebarn's suggestions and try the most recent feedback leaver direct. The first feedback leaver was something of a chancer, so I won't go there! I'll also try asking for positive feedback from other buyers, but I'm rather concerned that in asking buyers to remove poor feedback or add good feedback, this will simply prompt the response "What's it worth?"

Looking on the bright side, I've sold 95% of the items that have a reasonable chance of selling, including pretty much all of group of 30 that I added after Christmas, so you could say that things have pretty much run their course. It won't be the end of the world and I sure won't see a crash in income if Amazon show me the red card - but I can't see that I've done anything wrong!

Never mind, tomorrow's a free listing day on ebay!:j

F&L

Amazon will remove feedback that is a product review i.e. "I don't like the book". I had one removed recently that stated something like "product not as nice as I expected"

I'm not quite sure what the 99% means? I average less than this but my account remains okay.

johnnyboyrebel

BarntheBarn wrote: »

Amazon is not terribly friendly for smaller scale sellers like yourself because one negative rating can seriously damage your account and if Amazon suspend you then you have to wait several months for your balance to be paid to you and fighting the robotic arm of Amazon is very stressful.

The best thing you can do is as follows:

- Email both buyers who have left low feedback asking if they will reconsider and remove it.
- If need be offer an additional small compensation fee of £1 to be refunded after the feedback is removed (they then can't add replacement feedback).
- Do not transfer your funds, this will trigger all sorts of processes at Amazon HQ and make it worse.
- Remember that Amazon know more about you then anyone else i the world (almost). They have records of everything you have ever looked at on the site, any addresses you have had and so on. They also have IP details for any machine you have used with your account (this means that if you have ever used your account on (e.g.) your mothers computer and then get banned your mother will never be able to sell on Amazon either.

Hopefully one or both buyers will remove ratings and it will be fine.

Regardless though:

- Email recent buyers (only if you are 100% positive the item was perfect) to ask for positive feedback.
- Make sure you have read all Amazon notifications on the actual site and not just email.
- Make sure that new sales receive your full love and care in processing.

Hope that helps

A great reply that covered everything I was going to say!

Definitely contact Amazon about the neg regarding the customer not liking it or not wanting it any longer but be careful as there is a fine line between a product review and a standard neg comment. I think Amazon will go either way with this so just contact them and explain it is not valid feedback which we all know it isn't but Amazon may think differently!

As for the other one, as said previously contact the customer and offer a partial refund. Be as polite as possible. As long as the customer is not an awkward sod they should be happy with that.

In addition, Amazon like to know that you actually care about your account so send them a brief message pointing out the facts ie. the only reason you have this warning is because only a handful of feedbacks have been left so with only 2 negs, it looks bad. Remember, this message is automatic so it isn't down to you specifically having 2 negs, it is simply the percentage that triggered the message.