The other day i won a book on ebay at a good price with not unreasonable P&P charges of £2.50. Yesterday i received this email from the seller.
Originally Posted by :
ebay items despatched & new ebay Feedback system
This email informs you that your ebay items have been despatched. I have been accuse of lengthy emails in the past so if I have over shorted this my apologies.
Once your items arrive, if your happy and want to leave +Feedback & 5/5 DSR stars across the board, thanks you and you have no need to read any more (unless you want to).
If you get your items (or if they don’t turn up ) please read all the following, before contacting me, as most of the questions I get asked daily are already answered, here, on the item descriptions, in my ebay about me page, on the invoice and on permission to bid emails.
Ebay don’t seem to make it clear anywhere or to anyone how important the FB & DSR stars are. Perhaps because they only have to offer discounts on fees to those who are 95%+ in ALL DSR. While most people would think a 4/5 is good, Ebay don’t. in fact 4/5 would mean a loss of most seller privileges. While it would be good enough to pass most exams etc, ebay require 4.6/5 so unless all the good buyers give 5/5 it will not wipe out the bad buyers who only bid to leave -FB, nFB, and 1/5 DSR and yes there are those out there. Please leave 5/5 DSR in all groups to balance these nasty people, you can see who they are form my -FB/nFB and block them for yourselves. don’t suffer the same fate as me.
Communication? well I am on line 24/7 virtually, the PC goes on when I wake up, and only goes off when i go to bed. i answer all emails daily, usually within a few hours even the other side of the world. so I cannot see how comm.‘s can be low starred? I have noticed that the ebay usetheyellowbutton reply system don’t work well, and that most people don’t check or know that their ISP’s have spam filters on their web pages. Please check these before complaining about no contact, the chances are I have replied, you just not got it, AFTER ALL its in my best interest to ?
Despatch time? I am a sole trader, i do everything, buying, opening, tracking, searching, grading, scanning, listing, pc, selling, picking, packing, addressing, stamping, accounts. etc. I can only do one thing at a time, and if a payment comes as the weekly PO vans leaving I can do nothing about it until next week what ever there’s still only a week max between payment clearing and despatch, All despatch items are noted under view item details. REMEMBER, do not grade ME on PO DELIVERY TIME, that’s NOT despatch time , not under my control, any more than it is yours? This is despatch time, from when your payment clears to when I load it on the van. The rest is up to the PO.
Packaging? i recycle everything where possible, if its not possible, (too big, too many, not enough boxes) i will use new but I spread the cost out evenly, its not fair that one person should pay the full price of a new box just because I packed it after another and used the last recycled box. REMEMBER that the second letters in the S&H/P&P stands for HANDLING & PACKAGING, Some see the stamps add them up and as they are less than the P&P/S&H charges they think its wrong. The packaging costs, even recycled items (I have to source them, bring them back), tape is not free, the PO now charge £10 per collection, and it takes me a day to just pack the parcels, so what ever is left after the stamps, tape, envelopes, cardboard, is my time paid for. Please also remember that combining items often requires more handling, and while the postage is cheaper the handling may go up. I have a lot of overheads to cover offering free P&P simply wont do it.
Item description, I have limited time doing everything, my ebay turbo lister has been running slow, and the details occasionally miss something, i am always ready to refund if anything wrong, upon return, as per my terms,.
Thus I hope you are now happy to give me 5/5 DSR? In all honesty it would be better just to give +FB and IGNORE the DSR stars if you were only going to give 4/5 or less, as this will only bring my average down. Anything but 5/5 DSR will bring down my average. Ebay only deals with perfection, I wish they practiced what they preached.
It has never been so important to either leave 5 stars & +FB, or contact me if something is wrong please.
I have noted that in the last 12 months I have sold over 11,000 items, but only received 9,000 Feedbacks, and only 2,500 star ratings, not all of them 5’s. Which means of those who bother (and 2,000 did not at all ) only 1 in 4 approx bothered with star ratings. Again I realise it s pain, and time consuming, but please complain to eBay, and help us sellers be able to stay on eBay by giving +FB and 5 stars across the board, or contact me why you feel you cannot ~further I now hear that pay pal will hold any payments for 21 days or until FB has been left, making it almost ridiculously necessary to leave FB, thanks.
I now have my business seller dashboard, which only take into account the last 30 days, I only actually need 0.1 on the rating to qualify, so your 5 stars WILL make all the difference,
Ebay have just announced that as from August neutral feedback will no longer count as negative FB, just one of their silly changes that they now have ti admit never worked.
As an example, I just received two bad Feedbacks. One that the PO damaged, I offered to make a claim, and refund, all ignored, the other I did refund, and still got bad feedbacks, Seems I waste my time refund, offering refunds and not owning/ controlling the worlds postal services. Please remember I do what I can. S&H is listed, why bid/ buy if not happy? don’t wreck my FB, rep and business.
I have noticed a few buyers actually saying that they have left 5 DSR stars in their +FB comments, this great and proves that they have nothing to hide. I have noticed others have left +FB and not 5/5 DSR stars OR contacted me first. Saying what you have left is a good way of proving honesty of what you have left. This would be appreciated, to see who’s not playing fair?
DELIVERY TIMES? I constantly get asked this, even though its clearly written several times. Basically UK deliveries take a few days, Europe take a week or so and rest of the world a few weeks.
NOTE UK PO will not process any claim, or even reply unless 20 WORKING days are ;passed. And that’s from day of despatch not when you paid. There is no point me digging through 1,000’s of PO receipts to then be told its just arrived (as per what is usually the case). Once the item is 20 WORKING days in the Po system and you have PAID for insurance I’ll make the claim, not before. Its just a waste of your time, my time and the PO time. (they have this rule for miss routed miss directed , and returned parcel s to give them time to be returned to sender, me.
Listing fees, pay pal, P&P, ~ Ebay would like sellers to give free P&P. I’ll tell you why that wont work, and why the people who complain about P&P are actually pushing up the overall prices for the rest of us. Eaby don’t get a % fee of the P&P. so they are trying to make buyers anon. give bad P&P DSR to force sellers to give free P&P, This will only mean that the item have to be listed at a higher base bid. that’s more fees and more FVF, for ebay, the items will then get more expensive to cover these extra fees, the “free P&P” and even more to cover the re-listing fee, again higher cos the items wont sell as often as they are more expensive, not just with the P&P added, but also with the extra fees in. So please before ebay totally ruin this for everyone, please view the overall transaction as a whole. Not separate as items costs and P&P. I have to calculate the P&P as party of the whole sum bidders need to do the same. Else soon there will b no choice, the min / starting prices will all be P&P inclusive, with extra fees to cover it and all thanks to buyers who think stamps = P&P. THEY DO NOT.
Please leave +FB & 5/5 DSR stars. I find myself week in week out chasing NPB, and feedback dodgers, its just not fair, after all the work I do, for it to be ignored or require even more work chasing something that ebay should either make mandatory or not place so much importance on.
I hope that you can now feel confident giving 5/5 DSR stars, if not please contact me.
PLEASE EMAIL ME BEFORE EBAY/ PAY PAL IF ANYTHING EVER WRONG
Thank you,
********
***********
************
IMPORTANT- PLEASE READ, THIS IS A HELPFUL SUMMARY FOR BUYERS
COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE
1 This is my job, I do this full time-
2 I do not know each item inside out, so if you have a question then please email me
3 Communication is key- any questions then please ask
4 My email address may get caught in your spam filter, so please check spam if you are waiting for a response from me- I may have already sent it!
5 I recycle packaging wherever possible, but I spread the costs of new packaging across all buyers
6 My P+P charges include handling costs, like I said- this is my job!
7 I use interlink, and Royal Mail only collect from me once each week- so please allow 20 working days for UK delivery
8 Feedback is important, please leave me positive feedback after you get your goods
9 Feedback stars are important too, if I am not hitting 5/5 then contact me before you leave feedback
10 Any problems then please let me know- I want to get 100% customer satisfaction every time.
11 if you want me to be able to carry on offering the items for the low prices I do I have to have 5/5 DSR nothing else will do, and I am already feeling the effects of those who say they are giving 5/5 DSR but are not. Thanks for your support.
Now this is the "shorted" version of his email but lets face it is a begging letter asking for only positive feedback and 5 stars. Unfortunatly for him by sending this email he demoted his communication stars down to 4 as how can anyone be very satisfied whith someone panhandling like that. Then today i received my book only to find that i had been charged £2.50 for 1x1st class, 1x2nd class and 3p in stamps on a large envelope with "please do not bend printed paper books" stamped on the outside. Now i sell books on ebay and my minimum packaging would be a carded envelope to prevent the book being damaged but this guy didn't even do that so the book has been damaged which could have happened before or during posting and being as he advertised a mint condition book it's annoying.
I am now considering asking for a refund on the P&P as whilst I don't mind a small overcharge in P&P this is a 60% overcharge with no measures to prevent damage to the book. I certainly will not be leaving 5 stars and i'm not even sure if i'm going to leave positive feedback either and will never ever do business with the guy again (I've ommitted the guys name so i cannot be accused of attacking him).
[Reply]