eBay Feedback – Negative Feedback

eBay feedback.  It is such an important thing in the eBay world.  It is your online reputation as a buyer and a seller.

As a seller having a 100% positive feedback rating is a sign that you are a great eBay member to deal with.  It shows that for the past 12 month period you have had people buy from you that have been happy with the interaction and customer service you provided.

So what do you do if you ever receive negative feedback?

The silly thing about negative feedback is that it is not a question of ‘IF’ you ever get it, it is a question of ‘WHEN’ it does eventually happen.

Unfortunately you can’t please everybody, and many people you will just never please at all regardless of your level of service to them.

If, or when, you ever do receive negative feedback the most important thing is WHAT you do to try to rectify the situation.  Now this can be as simple as contacting the buyer and finding out exactly what the problem was and trying to fix it to the satisfaction of all involved.  In a perfect world you would hope that the buyer contacted you before leaving that feedback to try and get a solution but, believe me, that doesn’t always happen.

If you get no response from the buyer after several attempts then there isn’t a lot you can do.  If the negative feedback was unfair, or untrue, you can contact eBay and ask to get the feedback removed, but there does have to be certain criteria for this to occur.  Click on the following link to read more on the eBay help pages about this:- http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/feedback/questions/remove.html

Personally I have never received negative feedback YET!

I have, however, received a negative comment as positive feedback (by the way this is against the eBay rules).  The person did not try to contact me before leaving the comment so I contacted them and asked for specifics about the problem.  The problem ended up being that the buyer disagreed with the description of the condition of the article that I sold.  There was absolutely no way to appease this buyer and they were very rude so to the only way I knew how to rectify the situation was to refunded both the purchase price and the postage cost via PayPal (a very valuable tool in this situation!)  I also posted a reply to the buyer’s feedback simply stating, “Buyer not satisfied with condition of item, full refund given”, and I left it at that and moved on to my other eBay auctions and other satisfied, polite customers.  For more info on how to reply to feedback that has been left follow this link:- http://help.ebay.com.au/Help/Getting_Started/Feedback_ratings/Leaving_feedback#respond

I did have grounds for requesting the removal of this comment as it did break the rule of leaving a negative comment as positive, but I chose to just block the person from ever bidding on my items again (another great eBay tool!!)

I would actually have preferred that this customer left this comment as negative feedback.

Why, I hear you ask?

I’m not afraid of negative feedback at all.  It’s going to happen occasionally so no one can avoid it forever.  As I stated earlier in this post the most important thing is what action you take to find a solution that is adequate for both the buyer and yourself as the seller.  Everything else is irrelevant.  Your response to negative feedback will show future buyers that you do at least try to fix any problem that may occur.