Ebay buyer leaves negative feedback

This is more a rant as there is nothing that can really be done about this. Technically, the buyer is within their right to leave this negative feedback but it's still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Due to the pandemic situation, a lot of things are running slower, taking longer than usual, and this is generally accepted by the wider public.

A lot of my recent sales have been no problem and super fast shipping but some of them have taken
longer than usual (7-14 days longer). None of those buyers ever left me a negative feedback even though technically they could if they wanted. Communication was fine and they were ok with the delays or even showed a lot of patience willing to wait.

But you can't help the certain few buyers who are just always difficult. One of my orders was shipped out 6 days after the sale date. Yes, that was late, but even with this pandemic situation and asking for their understanding or if they wanted to cancel the order and get refund, I would have done it.

Unfortunately for me, the day it shipped out, just a few hours earlier the buyer had sent me a message saying, "since you can't ship my order to me just refund me" in a negative way (the context of the rest of the messages), I knew this buyer was going to leave me a negative no matter what. I told them it had already shipped out.

So I got the negative and requested a feedback revision citing the virus situation causing the delays and longer wait times, but he declined my revision request. I looked through the buyer's feedback history left for others and noticed that he does leave quite a few negatives which told me right away, this is one of those very difficult and picky buyers who can't be pleased unless it's 100%.

He had about 5-6 negatives left for other sellers in the last 12-18 months. Believe it or not, that is quite a lot of negatives.

I've been an ebayer since 2003. In 17 years, I have only left negative feedback for about 2-3 sellers total. When shipments are late or product is not satisfactory, I communicate with the seller, wait for them and give them a chance to make it right and at worst, I'd leave a neutral but most of the time a positive citing the error but that they corrected it and at least I could appreciate that effort.

This buyer is one of those people who leave negatives like, "yuck it was ugly and" blah blah on another seller in the past 12 months.


I really wish there was a way to block or prevent dealing with buyers who have a history of leaving a lot of negative feedbacks for other sellers. I'd prefer not to deal with these people in the first place. I don't want the sale or the profit because it's not worth it to deal with buyers this risky.

Again, yes, I sent the shipment late, so technically they are within their rights to leave negative, but this was more of a temperament issue than actual negative buying experience. There was another order this buyer had made about a year ago and left a neutral feedback for a seller who shipped out the order 14 days after the sale date. Neutral. Why negative now for me at only 6 days? This is the arbitrary nature and inconsistent scoring that I'm talking about. This is what tells me it has more to do with temperament more than anything else.

I did notice this buyer also sells a few things from time to time......... hmmmm

you should have talked to him before sending the revision request, after all there will be always people who leave negative reviews no matter how good you are.
is a negative review worse than a refund for you ?

bswan said:

you should have talked to him before sending the revision request, after all there will be always people who leave negative reviews no matter how good you are.
is a negative review worse than a refund for you ?

Click to expand...

You are right. Actually, I usually contact my buyers if orders are running late and tell them the situation and ask them what they'd like to do (keep the order in waiting or cancel and get a refund). I also usually offer a courtesy refund on the shipping (so I refund the shipping fee) and that seems to make them content.

I definitely could have contacted this buyer earlier.

Yes, to me I don't care that much about the sale/refund. I can give those out any time. It's the negative that bothers me and the principle behind it.
This person didn't want no part in trying to be understanding of the situation. But I'm not surprised anymore after looking at their feedback history left for others. It's amazing how much you can know about a buyer's temperament based on the feedback left for others. It reveals so much. I just wish there was a way as sellers to be able to read this before dealing with them in a transaction. Do I need to start reviewing every single buyer's feedback history left for others now? Maybe I should to get an idea of who I'm dealing with. I was looking at some other buyers feedback history left for others and it definitely correlates. Buyers who have left you negative will usually be people who have a history of leaving negatives all over the place...even a 5% rate is very very high. You should only be seeing about 1 or 2 negatives left for 1000 orders or so (1-2% rate) at most.

yes, i think you should start reading the feedback history of buyers whose orders may have something wrong. you will understand their temperament and tell them what they want to hear.

Don't worry about it man, you can do everything in your power to give a great service or try to solve a problem, and there will always be some people with no common sense who just don't want to cooperate. Maybe he's a fraud and wants the item without having to pay. Who knows.
Just block him and move on.

Thanks I agree with you both.

You waited 6 days to put something in the mail? You deserved that negative. People want their stuff quicker. Unless your item is hand made and you noted it would take that long to ship. Treat it like a business or stop selling stuff online.

You can easily get rid of that.
ebay has already said that it is going to protect your seller performance during this covid-19 pandemic.
Here is the ebay circular for that
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Annou...ler-performance-during-COVID-19/ba-p/30772188

Just contact ebay customer support and explain them that the delay is due to current covid-19 pandemic situation and they would remove that negative feedback for you.

All the Best

EntertheDeals said:

You waited 6 days to put something in the mail? You deserved that negative. People want their stuff quicker. Unless your item is hand made and you noted it would take that long to ship. Treat it like a business or stop selling stuff online.

Click to expand...

While it is generally unpleasant and displeasing to get orders late, I don't see why it should be an automatic negative no doubt about it. It's still possible to ship things out later than estimated, but for the package to still arrive BEFORE the latest estimated delivery date. The only reason why it's a big issue is because some of them are watching when it was shipped out even if it technically still arrives within the estimated delivery date.

I don't think your mentality about it is true. If it were, I think most companies and businesses then should all be suspended to sell. Do you think Samsung, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon etc., all ship out in exactly the same date they state? There are always exceptions and it's not an exact science. I think there's always some wiggle room for late or early........and I don't know anybody who is 100% always on time as advertised. That's just impossible so telling me not to sell is quite a poor advice. Also, in secret, this is the nature of dropshipping/retail arbitrage. We obviously can't control when our supplier goes out of stock, makes a mistake, or they too didn't ship out when they said. Basically, without telling me customers, it's not me who is late or doesn't have it in stock, it's my supplier. But I can't say that to them. So essentially if you think I should stop selling, well then you're also saying my supplier (a very large merchant company that sells to the public) should also stop selling. Yeah, show me one company or one seller who has never had a late shipment.

Worrior said:

You can easily get rid of that.
ebay has already said that it is going to protect your seller performance during this covid-19 pandemic.
Here is the ebay circular for that
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Annou...ler-performance-during-COVID-19/ba-p/30772188

Just contact ebay customer support and explain them that the delay is due to current covid-19 pandemic situation and they would remove that negative feedback for you.

All the Best

Click to expand...

True true...however, I think in my case, it won't apply because it was late not because of transit time, but because I shipped out 6 days after the advertised date. Once it was shipped out, it arrived fast no problem 2-5 days on average within US. But thanks for that link. Maybe I'll try it one more time and see if I can get a different agent to remove it. Interestingly, ebay themselves are not consistent. Recently I have had a couple negatives removed after trying several times. The last one took me about 4 tries. The first 3 agents all told me something different and didn't remove the feedback, the last one told me I was right and removed it. So it seems like sometimes you can just get lucky if you keep trying as long as they allow you to and not get annoyed that you are requesting the same thing so many times over.

I have been a seller myself on ebay for a long time. You cannot control how fast the item gets to the customer via the carrier. What you can control is how fast you put it in the mail. If I buy a Vinyl album on ebay and they wait 6 days before they box it up and ship it I would be pissed. That is pure laziness. If you are drop shipping and need more time than adjust your handling time. You know better. Stop whining and complaining. And there is a reason Amazon is the largest retailer in the world. Because people want their stuff fast. You are the typical make excuses and whine seller on ebay. You want the money it brings in but you do not want to treat it like a real business. Watch Resale Rabbit on YT and you might learn something about selling. Did you contact the buyer as soon as you knew it would be late? Did you apologize? Did you offer them a refund? You are going to get negatives, period. When I sell stuff I offer 30 day returns and I pay for return shipping. Most sellers do not offer that. People will still leave you negative feedback. Every company in the world gets negatives. Either sell more stuff to make up for losses or stop selling online. Oh ya, last thing. Customer service, customer service, customer service.

EntertheDeals said:

I have been a seller myself on ebay for a long time. You cannot control how fast the item gets to the customer via the carrier. What you can control is how fast you put it in the mail. If I buy a Vinyl album on ebay and they wait 6 days before they box it up and ship it I would be pissed. That is pure laziness. If you are drop shipping and need more time than adjust your handling time. You know better. Stop whining and complaining. And there is a reason Amazon is the largest retailer in the world. Because people want their stuff fast. You are the typical make excuses and whine seller on ebay. You want the money it brings in but you do not want to treat it like a real business. Watch Resale Rabbit on YT and you might learn something about selling. Did you contact the buyer as soon as you knew it would be late? Did you apologize? Did you offer them a refund? You are going to get negatives, period. When I sell stuff I offer 30 day returns and I pay for return shipping. Most sellers do not offer that. People will still leave you negative feedback. Every company in the world gets negatives. Either sell more stuff to make up for losses or stop selling online. Oh ya, last thing. Customer service, customer service, customer service.

Click to expand...

I don't think you know Amazon that well. They are late a lot. Only difference is on Amazon, they are not affected by bad reviews, low star ratings, etc....items still sell plenty even if they get tons of bad reviews. Amazon is just really big and has so many shoppers. I can't tell you how many times I've come across products with horrible reviews or bad reviews of the sellers, and yet they are still selling and doing fine.

Also, you don't understand what I wrote. The problem with dropshipping is that at a drop of dime, it can change from in stock to out of stock and 1 day handling can suddenly become 5 or 10 days. It's not my fault and it is my fault. It's not my fault in that it's not me doing shipping. It is my fault in that I'm the one who listed it as 1 day handling because that's how fast they ship out except when they are out of stock.

Since I don't use any automation software, there is no way I can always keep up to date and check on every listing each day to make sure it's in stock and ready to go. Many times I will make a sale on ebay and find out it's out of stock from my source (even though last I checked it was in stock). I wish there could be an automated system that would change my ebay listing to out of stock the moment my source also goes out of stock (like they do on Amazon) but I don't know of anything like that in ebay.

I made orders on Amazon all the time for my own personal purchases and they are late sometimes too. Dates keep changing on me and one day they'll say it's arriving on April 20th and the next day the say the date has been changed to April 27th etc. This is not that unusual. I just don't think being late = negative if everything else was perfect....good product, no problems, only that it was late. But yes, I normally do contact the buyer and tell them it's running late or give them the option if they want to wait longer, cancel the order and get a refund or even offer them courtesy discount/refund like on shipping (my profit). That usually resolves the issue. In this case, I didn't contact the buyer first...they contacted me and I should have asked them first. Sometimes I prefer to let sleeping dogs lie and it has worked out in the past but I'm aware it won't always.

Last but not least, oddly, the negative feedback DISAPPEARED. I don't know why or how. The buyer rejected/declined my feedback revision days ago. Maybe all the emails I sent ebay explaining my situation got it reversed or due to the covid19 they decided to remove negatives? Hmmm I dunno. But it's gone! Wow. Surprised.

The buyer is still active and registered on ebay.