What star ratings to leave?

melliott1963

OK, I think it's time to wrap this up as we could go on for ages.

In case anyone was wondering, I left 5 stars for Item description and 4 stars for the rest. 4 stars, in case I need to remind people, means that I was satisfied with the communication, posted quickly and reasonable postage costs. I really could not bring myself to leave 5 stars (very satisfied/quick/reasonable) because clearly I wasn't and they weren't! To me, this seller was OK, he did what was needed but didn't 'go the extra mile'. So I feel that being 'Satisfied' is a fair reflection.

To bring this into perspective, the following day, I bought something from the USA, and it has arrived today which is exactly the same amount of time from sale to being received as my UK seller's item. In the email to say the item was ready for dispatch the US seller (who's a business seller, not private) added "Thank you for your purchase! Here is your tracking information. We look forward to doing business with you again on eBay.". So clearly, this seller 'performed' better than the UK seller and I'll be leaving 5 stars across all sections.

fred7777 - All 26 items were in a jiffy bag, wrapped in bubble wrap, then put into another jiffy bag. They're only very small items so the largest jiffy bag was only about 10cm x 15cm. So the cost of the packing? £1 at the most.

Strapped

sequence wrote: »

I can't believe anyone would seriously consider marking down stars because they didn't get a personal message! It takes long enough to go through ebays awful and slow system to mark items as dispatched and leave feedback, no need to add to that with pointless personal message.

I agree with this.

Having said that, I do send a personal message to each buyer - and it's a right pain. I was thinking of abandoning it, but then threads like these remind me that some buyers like it.

Strapped

melliott1963 wrote: »

OK, I think it's time to wrap this up as we could go on for ages.

In case anyone was wondering, I left 5 stars for Item description and 4 stars for the rest. 4 stars, in case I need to remind people, means that I was satisfied with the communication, posted quickly and reasonable postage costs. I really could not bring myself to leave 5 stars (very satisfied/quick/reasonable) because clearly I wasn't and they weren't! To me, this seller was OK, he did what was needed but didn't 'go the extra mile'. So I feel that being 'Satisfied' is a fair reflection.

To bring this into perspective, the following day, I bought something from the USA, and it has arrived today which is exactly the same amount of time from sale to being received as my UK seller's item. In the email to say the item was ready for dispatch the US seller (who's a business seller, not private) added "Thank you for your purchase! Here is your tracking information. We look forward to doing business with you again on eBay.". So clearly, this seller 'performed' better than the UK seller and I'll be leaving 5 stars across all sections.

fred7777 - All 26 items were in a jiffy bag, wrapped in bubble wrap, then put into another jiffy bag. They're only very small items so the largest jiffy bag was only about 10cm x 15cm. So the cost of the packing? £1 at the most.

Yep, gotta love those cut-and-paste "personal" messages. (And if they're a big seller using the pro tools, then you can also automate these).

digitalphase

melliott1963 wrote: »

Just after a other people's opinion as to how I leave stars for a particular transaction.

I purchased a bulk lot of items at a cost of £150 (from a private seller) which, for these items is about the going rate, although I know that some time down the line, prices will probably fall. however, it also meant that my collection would then be complete so I was happy to pay this. In the past I have been paying £2, £3 or £4 (if from abroad) per individual item postage. There were 26 individual items in this auction at a postage of £8, so clearly miles cheaper than me buying them one at a time. Payment, by Paypal, was funded by a credit card.

So I'm happy with the purchase price and was happy to pay the postage.

However, the only emails I received were autogenerated by eBay when I won the item, paid for it, and then when it was marked as despatched. Not once did I get any personal comment, even along the lines of 'thank you for your purchase'. As I'd spent a fairly considerable amount, I would have at least expected this.

It took 4 working days for the item to be despatched and it arrived the day after (today). This is within the 6-7 working days quoted on the auction.

Postage, in a jiffy bag with extra bubble wrap, came to £3.25, which is £4.75 less than charged.

So . . . . .

I'll obviously be leaving positive feedback as I got the items safely, within the timeframe quoted on the auction.

However, what about the stars?

Communication - basically there wasn't any!
If I compare this to a previous auction I won where it was stated in the auction that they could only post on a Friday or Saturday and also in a personal mesage sent to me by the seller. They then contacted me asking if I minded the item being sent in a Pampers box as that's all they could find at the moment (I was OK with this), and then followed up with another 'thank you' email once I'd received it, then quite clearly I don't think it deserves the full 5 stars I gave to this previous seller. The very least I expected would have been an email thanking me for my purchase and advising when they were likely to despatch it. I know they were able to get to their PC as they were continuing to post new items during this time.
So is it reasonable for me to leave 1 star?

Dispatch Time - slow but within the delivery time in the auction.
If the item was only a few pounds, I wouldn't worry about this, but as it was £150, I personally would have sent it quickly, or at least advised when it was going to be sent.
Really struggling on what to leave for this - 3 stars???

Postage and Packing charges - Happy with what I paid, but over double what it actually cost.
Again, struggling a bit with this. I know that if I had to buy each item individually, I could have paid anything up to around £80 in P&P, but is charging over double the actual price worthy of 5 Stars?

And finally (hooray I hear you cry!). The seller sent the items using recorded delivery. Should I email him to point out that, had they got lost, he would not have been covered for the full £150?

Sorry if I've rambled on a bit!

I know you've already left feedback now, but I had to post as I was shocked someone could really spend so much time 'struggling' over what stars to give a seller?! Obviously you have more spare time than the seller, after all they did not send you a personal message thanking you profusely for honouring them by buying their wares.

I think, as you saved so much on postage than buying individually, you should be bl%dy happy with the transaction overall, and personally, I'd have given them 5/5.
When buying items on eBay, I include the cost of p&p, when exploring the cheapest/best option. If someone is doing an item for free economy p&p as it's a bit cheaper than someone selling an item 1st class, then I may well go for the person selling 1st class as I'd get it sooner. If I were weighing up individual buys with a job lot, I'd factor in the p&p to the total price and work out how much saved. You've done this, and it was £80, so I'd say you were onto a winner here. Obviously you agree.

melliott1963 wrote: »

Maybe you need to get a better internet connection! It takes me a matter of a few seconds to connect to eBay, go to 'My eBay' and mark an item as dispatched! And the comment about a personal message was just as an example and not the only reason!

That's good for you, but some of us live out in the sticks, so are stuck with only a reasonable speed of broadband.

melliott1963 wrote: »

Delivery was the next day after posting which is excellent. However dispatch was 5 days after the auction.

You can clearly see details of the dispatch time/estimated delivery, so as long as they delivered within the time frame, they should not be marked down. So what if they take a few days after auction ends to send items? A lot of sellers, me included, tend to wait until everyone has paid then making one trip to the P.O. Of course you get your usual late payers, who delay, but they just have to wait until you next go.
I am a busy mum to a young baby, so my dispatch time is 5 days and delivery 3-5, so it shows estimated delivery as 8-10 days. 9/10 I despatch/deliver sooner, but thought I was covering myself for worse case scenario. Really annoys me when people then mark your dispatch stars down, even though they agreed to the delivery time frame when buying. This applies to private sellers and business sellers, though businesses can usually dispatch sooner I guess.

melliott1963

Strapped wrote: »

Yep, gotta love those cut-and-paste "personal" messages. (And if they're a big seller using the pro tools, then you can also automate these).

I was quite aware that this may have been automatically setup, but at least they went to the bother of doing this in the first place! Little things like this really do make a difference.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

"go the extra mile"

I see this mentioned on the eBay boards and I really don't understand it. If I was going to go that extra mile I'd say so in the listing to attract your attention. If you choose to buy from people who don't state they are wonderful (i.e a slowish despatch time) surely you accept that. OK in this case there probably wasn't another similar listing but you could have chosen to only buy from those all singing sellers bit by bit to finish your collection, bottom line no one forced you to buy so you accept what was offered and mark down if something wasn't as offered.

In this case you are a collector and you finished of your collection, why can't you be happy with that without nit-picking over bits and pieces? Sure if there was something wrong with the items themselves then complain but I bet typing a few words into eBay was a lot easier than searching round boot-fairs, charity shops, fairs and god knows where else like we used to have do before the likes of eBay to find treasures for our collections.

Perhaps eBay takes some of the magic out of collecting.

Strapped

melliott1963 wrote: »

I was quite aware that this may have been automatically setup, but at least they went to the bother of doing this in the first place! Little things like this really do make a difference.

So what's the difference between that and an eBay automated message? * shrug *

techspec

Full stars all round - you got what you paid for, in the time stated at the postage stated.

As for communiction - the fact none was needed was good - no? If you had complained and he took 5 days to reply and was rude - then fine - leave low stars. But if there was no comms - then there is nothing to mark down.

I always send a personal email too - but only cos some people are just looking for reasons to moan. The fact that ebay now keeps buyers informed - should mean another email is not needed. In fact, some people are moaning that they now get too many emails.

Some people are never happy.