I say you should as well, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because some sellers only deal with buyers that have a certain number of positive feedback.
I’m not a business, just a person who has some stuff to sell from time to time. I usually give positive feedback as soon as I receive payment. Something along the lines of "Fast payment. Good eBayer. Thanks for buying."etc. The problem I’m finding lately is I’m not getting feedback from the buyer after they receive the item. It’s like they’re just too lazy at that point to sit down and the computer and type, “Nice Item. Thanks.” I have to email them and say, “Can you let me know if you received the item and if so, was it Ok? If it was please leave feedback. I left you positive feedback. Thanks.” Then I usually get a reply back that they are sorry and they forgot, yes the item was fine. It’s very frustrating to have to chase down buyers and ask for feedback. I am tempted to withhold feedback at least until I know the item has been received and is satisfactory to the buyer.
You’ll just get less FB. 
Really, it makes no sense at all to do this; at the point of payment, the transaction is far from complete and any feedback the seller leaves is liable to be an inaccurate reflection of how it all went, and therefore not as useful to people who might trade with that member in the future. As I explained above; it isn’t necessarily paranoia or holding feedback to ransom; There have been no less than seven times in the last month when, instead of just leaving feedback saying “prompt payment”, waiting until the completion of the transaction allowed me to comment positively on some aspect of the transaction that wasn’t apparent at the time of payment (such as good communication, etc).
I don’t care if waiting until completion loses me some feedback, really, I’m not on eBay to collect feedback, and I do think it’s absolutely the right thing to do.
Apart from that, there are plenty of cases where sellers have left positive feedback and lived to regret it; the eBay boards are crammed with complaints of that very nature (as well as complaints from whiny buyers who insist that payment is their only responsibility)
What I do is include a note in with the item, stating who it’s from and the transaction number, plus something like:
“Many thanks for buying this item, I hope everything is completely to your satisfaction, however, in the event of any problem or concern, please contact me and I will do my very best to resolve it. I will be delighted to leave feedback for you as soon as I know the transaction is completed, which you can indicated either by leaving feedback, or by sending me a message or email letting me know that you received the item in good order.”
How is it possible that “sellers have left positive feedback and lived to regret it”? So, a seller left a POS and the Buyer NEGed him. So what? How is the POS the seller left a bad thing? And, yeah, I have read the boards there. They are 99% the same disgruntled sellers who constantly bitch and moan about buyers, flame anyone who disagrees with them, and hide behind “posting IDs”. :rolleyes:
What other responsibilty can the buyer have? Beside leaving a fawning POS FB that is?
Thank you! This is very well worded. I think I will do this from now on.
What are you talking about? I’m not talking about just receiving a neg. How about buyer pays/seller leaves FB, then:
-Buyer makes false claims of non-receipt
-Buyer uses item and wants to return it in used condition
-Buyer claims damages and returns a different item
-Buyer just generally acts like a complete impatient ass
-etc.
In these cases and many more (including those cases where happy things happen between payment and conclusion of the transaction), leaving feedback at the point of payment simply renders the feedback an inaccurate reflection of how the entire transaction went (and what other people might expect in future).
Posting IDs are mostly about preventing people from wrecking your auctions just because they got their knickers in a twist over something you posted (or just because they want to wreck your auctions). It happened to me before I got a posting ID and I wasn’t even saying anything controversial.
How many times do I have to explain it? The buyer has a responsibility to conclude the transaction in a civil, honest manner, being communicative where necessary.
Actually, this may be another one of those things that is switched on opposite sides of the Atlantic. I remember having an argument that felt very much like this one over the subject of whether the seller can disclaim responsibility once the item is despatched. Turned out that this is considered very much the norm in the USA, but a rather large no-no in the UK. Maybe the feedback thing is similar or even related.
A buyers FB can tell a seller if it is worth his time answering questions, or is this guy just a looky-lou. If I’m unsure about a seller, I may fire off a question about the item to test thier communication etc.
I once bought an item for nearly a thousand dollars. The seller happened to live near my sister, so I had her take the guy cash, inspect and pick up the item, and Kevsister then shipped it to me. My FB told the seller that even though these were unusual arraingments, I was for real, and this wasn’t some kind of scam.
Since I only buy a few things off ebay per year, it is fairly important to me that the sellers leave FB.
The only time I have not left feedback is when an package was shipped from Europe, and I didn’t get the delivery attempt notice from the USPS, not the sellers fault. By the time I finally got the items the FB time limit had expired.
Unfortunately, these - and the buyers who, upon receipt, claim some defect that you know perfectly well isn’t there, demand to keep the item AND get some sort of partial or complete refund, or else they’ll leave negative feedback.
I hear a story like this about once a week on the clothing sellers board. There’s one this week:
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000370991&tstart=240&mod=1161550146044
Now in this case, if the seller had left pos. feedback already…she wouldn’t be able to say “Buyer rec’d item, returned different, asked for refund anyway” or anything else, because feedback had already been dealt out. That’s the sort of thing I, as a seller, would definitely want to know before dealing with such person.
This is the kind of sale-gone-bad that makes sellers not want to give out insta-feedback for payment. Because that’s not the end of it. Sometimes, it’s just the beginning of a nightmare.
Now let me give you my own nightmare situation that happened:
I sold an item for about $75, very happy about it. The guy’s address was wrong in paypal. So I sent it, it was sent back to me for inadequate address. I contacted him, he gave me the correct address, and had to mail me money to pay for postage a second time. Now about 2 weeks had gone by. I had not left feedback. He received it finally, showed it to his daughter (a gift for her?) and she didn’t want it. So he wanted to send it back for a full refund. However I was already out about $8 in fees (listing, FVF, paypal) plus I was not going to foot the shipping, and I told him so, but that when I received it back in the condition in which it was sent, I would refund the total amound minus those fees. So, he sent it back and I tried to send cash to his email address at paypal, but for some reason it didn’t go to his account, and sat unclaimed. Finally I stopped that payment, dug up his original payment, did a partial refund (to the same address!!!) and it finally went through. And there, 6 weeks after the original sale, we were finally done.
I gave him positive for his courtesy, his communication, and his reasonable willingness to work things out. But I could not have given positive before the transaction was completed…and it wasn’t completed until we were both satisfied.
I do not hold feedback hostage. But I do not consider payment itself to be the end of the transaction. I consider the end of the transaction to be the end of the transaction, including satisfied buyer.
I think a few others have already covered reasons why a seller wouldn’t leave feedback for a buyer before getting it themselfs. I would never leave feedback for a buyer that hasn’t already left their feedback. The consiquenses of doing so make it not worth it. The only benifit is they may leave possitvie feedback in responce. I’d much rather receive no feedback for myself then give someone possitive feedback that is not deserving of it.
I don’t think shipping is the end of responcability. I don’t think that is the norm or any reputable e-bay business including those in the US. A seller is responceable for the buyer receiving the item in the condition it was sold as in a timely maner. I feel a seller that claims otherwise is being disshonest to their customers.
Well, that’s interesting, because I feel the same way too, but the last time I tried discussing ebay shipping responsibilities here, I’m pretty sure most people disagreed with me.
Shipping can’t be the end of responsibility. Case in point: just this month, I ordered three DVDs from one eBay seller, with combined shipping. When the package arrived, only two of the three DVDs were in the package. It took a few emails and a warning that I would pursue action through eBay and PayPal, but my money for the third DVD was refunded.
Now, if I had to leave feedback to the seller after the item was shipped, but before I received and inspected it, I wouldn’t have the possibility of negative feedback to fall back on. I do feel, however, that it’s fair to expect that, once the goods are received and inspected, the buyer should be the first to leave positive feedback, before the seller is expected to leave any.
For the record, here is the thread in which the argument about seller responsibility for shipping arose.
No, the seller has the same responsibility to see that the merchandise get to the buyer as the buyer’s reponsibility to get the payment to the seller. Again, you have been listening to those few disgruntled crack-pot sellers on the eBay boards, which are not Moderated like these are.
If the buyer does not get the merchandise, Paypal will refund his $$ and take it back out of the sellers accounts. Claims by the seller to have shipped it don’t stop the refund process. Only if the seller can show “proof of delivery” is he in the clear.
The thread that Mangetout links to doesn’t really address the problem, as the seller could show “proof of delivery”- the problem arose when the buyer claimed the package had arrived but the goods had not. :eek: Which is another problem entirely.
OK, you disagree with me, I get that, and it’s fine. The venom and the fact that you mischaracterise my position, I don’t get.
Not sure if that works with all versions of Firefox…
Anyway, there are a bunch of online feeedback filtering utilities here:
http://www.toolhaus.org/