Thinking aloud about stars

pitkin2020

Crowqueen wrote: »

Those people average themselves out though. The site averages take care of most of the people who have differing opinions on various factors sellers consider "objective". Working with those site averages, mostly 4.7-4.9, you can soon see where you are underperforming. It's not all 5s you're aiming for - it's to keep ahead of the average game.

That also applies to idiots who leave 1*s. Sometimes you can usually get CS to look at egregious cases, but normally people who sell in any volume are going to get one or two numpties every so often. More than that and you have to ask yourself what is going wrong here.
Yes but high volume sellers can afford to have a few numpties as the average....well averages out so those numpties get watered down pretty quickly and the average rises. Low volume sellers on the other hand will struggle to recover so easily

The feedback system is necessarily subjective because buyers each have different opinions about how sellers handle a transaction. Working with what you have and can't change is crucial here. The feedback system though is a verbal communication (albeit it written) if some states the P&P was overcharged by 20p and left a neg personally I would say the buyers expectations are far too high, but if they also left 1 star for P&P charges for the sake of 20p (which you don't know because the stars are just given without explanation) then it may look like the seller is really over charging on P&P

Instead of moaning about it, look at averages, look at threads like this one with perspectives from the buyer's POV, learn to work with your buyers rather than consider them a necessary evil, and if your stars really are slipping, appraise your listings and service policies honestly. With postage, as Soo said above items with inclusive postage do seem to sell better than ones without, even with a higher price being charges to take fees into account. That may be a way to get your stars on P&P up and the extra fee is a reasonable price to pay for better feedback and more sales. I do agree under performing sellers should seriously look at why their stars are so low but it can't always be just the sellers fault. Look at the threads on here and how many people are getting negs for stupid and ridiculous things. Some items on ebay can do well with inclusive P&P others not so, but then aren't you just buying a 5 star rating. When you come to sell an item and have to add P&P you have a few transactions and 5 stars for P&P your making the buyer believe your P&P charges are super fair, when it may not be the case.

We spend the money with you. We need a facility to tell who is average from who is slipping. Sorry.

Its just an opinion though if your basing your buying on the star rating alone I think personally its a little naive. Actual real feedback that has been left again personally is far more important than if a seller has 1 star or 5 for P&P charges. Just by reading some of the reasons that a neg has been left a lot of the times is just pathetic. If a seller responds to a neg that can also give a huge view of what the seller is going to be like to deal with should a problem arise.