Buyers on eBay are not leaving feedback for purchased items?

[wavesales]

Hi Everyone,

Earlier on I checked my sales and feedback and I cannot understand why buyers are not leaving feedback for my purchased items, I even have repeat buyers not leaving feedback as well, I have not had any buyers contacting me with any issues but still, buyers are not leaving feedback. What a strange phenomenon it is very bizarre indeed I've never seen this in 20 years. Even the products that I have sold for years are top quality items and still no feedback.

Is anyone else on here having the same or similar issues?

[pillarboxred]

Was the item in any way defective or is it just you who lack the good manners to thank an individual who has put in a lot of work to sell you something, likely for not very much.

[pillarboxred]

Warehouse selling is one thing where a widget is popped in a bubble mailer and a label is printed, but eBay selling is often very bespoke and customised and labour intensive which is no way rewarded by the miserable prices attainable on eBay. Sellers have busy lives too. 

[pillarboxred]

I get my postal labels printed at the post office. I decided in 2000 that I didn't want a printer as writing my addresses by hand was greener. I realise in a larger business that is not feasible and today, with the changed system, I get labels printed at the Post Office.

[pillarboxred]

Feedback is not for you. It is a small gift to a seller or buyer. It is like thanking anyone who does something for one.

[pillarboxred]

Just say "Thank you!". Don't you think of the vendor making the journey to the post office and queuing just so that an entitled individual can receive their item?

[pillarboxred]

 I always thank buyers when the payment comes through by just saying "thank you": nothing else is required in that social situation where a total stranger has purchased an item remotely and nothing is known about them.  I say more about my sellers who have performed a service for me, usually very well.

[spyabargain]

I’ve had mostly automated feedback as a seller this year. The feedback I get it great as I always take care in sending the item. I think people are just ignorant these days and not even grateful when they get good service. When I purchase I always leave feedback as part of the process to say it’s all good and complete.
But what really bothers me is when a seller with high feedback who purchases off me and gets top class service and I leave them good positive feedback and they NEVER leave me feedback. That is the worst as a seller should always appreciate what the feedback system means. 

[cane4123]

I totally agree feed bk is important for both sellers and buyers I always give both one it’s good practice and the difference between a good ebayer or not
Sent from my iPad

[jlovie]

Something strange seemed to be happening with feedback, I'd see new feedback left but the number wasn't changing.

It's a consequence of automated feedback - if auto has already been left, then the buyer later leaves feedback, it shows the newest date and replaces the auto comment, so the number doesn't change.

[vintagechinashop]

I agree as a seller I always leave feedback for purchased items. It may not be on day one but I do make sure this is done 

[theplaceforlace]

75p for a loaf of sliced bread in M&S, and it's good bread too!!  Better than LIdl!

[tabletop-hobbies]

I hear you, now there are quite a few on here that are saying that feedback doesn't really matter,

Not completely true!  Good feedback dilutes the bad feedback, and you get feedback revision requests as a proportion of you positives.  So it's in your interests to get good feedback. 

As a natural figure, about 30% or so of satisfied buyers will leave feedback, but a disproportionate amount of unhappy buyers will leave negative, and that can bring you down from 100% pretty quickly, it only takes a couple.

Ways to improve your feedback?

1.  Provide a great service and good products (of course)

2. Automate your own feedback, yes providing a +ve for your buyer makes them more likely to reciprocate.  Ignore the childish assertions on here of 'if they won't i won't', be the adult and reward customers for actually using your business, takes two minutes in your settings to automate feedback.

3. eBay actually automates  incoming feedback for business sellers that provide tracking on deliveries, so using a tracked service will get you more +ve feedback.  I'm not sure if this has been rolled out across the board but it's worth looking into!

4.  Chase negative feedbacks down- quite often these can be due to a mistake or a misunderstanding.  New ebay customers quite often go straight to -ve feedback instead of reaching out via email.  Reaching out with the right attitude can rectify these.  My last negative was due to a customer leaving it for the wrong seller, they were actually peeved at someone else, if I hadn't responded it would still be there.

This is based on my own experience over 5 years as a business seller.

All the best!

[pillarboxred]

Selling one-off items where you have to produce a suite of new photos and do all the other work is a very bespoke, time-consuming service and the ones who do not thank you are low lifes. It's like not thanking a tailor or a hairdresser or the delivery boy. I'm thinking of blocking them. It's not as if you make much money from them, anyway. Very occasionally there is a repeat buyer from ten years ago.

[pillarboxred]

I've stopped doing those questionnaires even the eBay ones where they offer incentives unless they are the simple "yes/no, bye bye" type. They are taking a loan of our good nature and time and I ran out of good nature long before I ran out of time.

[spyabargain]

Haha good to hear. M&S bread is the best! Baguettes are usually the most boring, dry things but I got a fresh one once from M&S and it was the best thing ever! 😆

[porte2425]

Sellers are getting just as bad as buyers now.

I've only sold 2 items (on this new account), and only one of those left me feedback. So most of my feedback is from sellers. Yet I have left more feedback than I have received.

While feedback as a buyer isn’t very important in itself, sellers not bothering giving feedback adds to the problem. And this is worse to me than buyers not bothering with feedback, because sellers can easily set up to give automatic feedback when they receive it - so what's the excuse?

Automatic seller feedback may solve the problem of sellers receiving an unfair number of neutral or negative vs positive, but it has created others. Before if there had been issues with a purchase – usually item small defects not disclosed, or retail packaging squashed because of inadequate packaging (all of this important for collectible items) – I would just not leave any feedback (and just not buy from them again). Now, knowing the seller will get an undeserved positive, I have to make the choice whether to allow that, or give a neutral, that is possibly a bit harsh. And knowing all of this makes me less trusting of feedback.

Feedback in general is becoming less meaningful and reliable. At this rate it will get to a point where it is next to useless!

So I'm now debating whether it is a waste of my time leaving most feedback. Sellers will get an automatic positive anyway, and I can’t be bothered to keep checking a seller’s feedback profile to see if I'm likely to get reciprocal feedback once left – and how does positive feedback from a seller really help me in anyway now either.

[santlache_sales]

Buyers no longer leave Feedback because they likely have Feedback overload.

Go to the dentist - can we have your feedback on your visit.

Doctor - can we also have your feedback and it's the same for most on-line transactions, everyone is Feedback obsessed.

Therefore because everyone asks for it a lot of people now don't bother - Feedback Overload.

eBay have adopted  the automatic feedback so this combats it somewhat.