My first negative feedback. :(

[nairb49]

So, got my first negative feedback on ebay today. I have a total of 60, so its not so bad, but it irks me.

This is just a venting I suppose. I listed my item, and VERY CLEARLY showed the shipping fee of 25USD under shipping. I used CanadaPost, and it ended up being about 12USD actual shipping cost.

The buyer paid, I left positive feedback, and they received the item and wrote me saying they felt the shipping fee was unfair and wanted me to refund some of the money.

I didn't agree with this, since the cost was clearly listed on my listing, and since ebay themselves recommends making some money off shipping, and so I told them I would give them 5USD as good karma.

They didn't reply, and left me negative feedback. Blah.

 

[Soph]

Originally Posted by nairb49

So, got my first negative feedback on ebay today. I have a total of 60, so its not so bad, but it irks me.

This is just a venting I suppose. I listed my item, and VERY CLEARLY showed the shipping fee of 25USD under shipping. I used CanadaPost, and it ended up being about 12USD actual shipping cost.

The buyer paid, I left positive feedback, and they received the item and wrote me saying they felt the shipping fee was unfair and wanted me to refund some of the money.

I didn't agree with this, since the cost was clearly listed on my listing, and since ebay themselves recommends making some money off shipping, and so I told them I would give them 5USD as good karma.

They didn't reply, and left me negative feedback. Blah.


Tough call.
You did list it at $25 so that's the deal.

However, I've eaten shipping costs to a reasonable point to keep the customer happy. Why fiddle around $10 and write it up as good customer service.

 

[Ott]

you sent him $5 and they still left you a negative? jerk

 

[nairb49]

I agree, 25 is a bit high and I plan to lower it, but CanadaPost's inconsistency with pricing and significantly higher shipping cost than any other shipping service forces me to cover myself.

and no, I didn't send the 5, after I offered he didn't reply anything and just left me the feedback.

 

[sho'nuff]

that is small for some people to do that. small for both things: not understanding fully the conditions and not taking ownership of their own decisions, and fiddling and getting mad at some small amount of money.
this is why i prefer selling on styleforum way more than on ebay.
because the anonymity ebay provides leeches out the true character of alot of these fellers.
plus, styleforum guys are like my friends. i trust everyone here who i deal with.
the ones with a decent history here on style that is.

 

[rach2jlc]

You did right and it is sad that the person left you negative feedback. Buyers often get really odd with shipping; I'm not sure why. Though it cost $12 to ship, some buyers don't realize that often you have to buy a box, tape, shipping/packing material, and drive the thing to the post office (this past summer, with gas at $3 per gallon in the US ((I'm sure it is just as high in Canada)) that adds up). So, it was nice of you to give back the $5.

If I know that an item will incur more cost than the actual shipping on the box will reflect (like, if I have to go to Office Depot and buy packing materials), I will generally just add the cost to the initial price on ebay, but keep shipping the same. It's just psychological, of course, but often buyers would rather an item be $25 with $5 shipping charge than $20 with $10 shipping charge.

It's just a thought, of course...

 

[nairb49]

rach- you're absolutely right, and I will employ that strategy next time to be sure (if you don't mind me stealing your idea

)

 

[glamroot]

you left a good response follow up to his negative... if i read that i would totally understand your situation

but just a thought... now that you have a negative and the comment is about high shipping... you may want to either lower the shipping costs or consider explaining your shipping costs in the item discription. I only say this because I am sure other bidders after seeing the negative and the comment are going to immediately look at your shipping costs on future auctions and may or may not agree with you or him on the situation. I have had similar issues before. So just head off the whole situation and explain more in the description. just for the next few auctions of course....

 

[rach2jlc]

Originally Posted by nairb49

rach- you're absolutely right, and I will employ that strategy next time to be sure (if you don't mind me stealing your idea

)

Of course I don't mind.

Ebay is all about psychological trickery, so please feel free to use it to your advantage. When I ship items occasionally when I'm in Japan, I always do that; if I would normally need $20 for shipping, I generally will just charge $12-15 and then add the extra to the opening bid. I've actually had some buyers thank me for the cheap shipping... but they didn't realize they still paid the same, just on the other end.

I don't think one should feel guilty about doing this; the point isn't to make a profit off of shipping (because, as I'm sure you know, international shipping is NEVER a deal), but you do want to get these costs recovered fully.

 

[VMan]

I have one negative, out of about 300 feedbacks (and maybe 1200-1400 total sales).

Mine came from a similar situation - newbie buyer didn't fully read the description, thought the item was NWT when it wasn't, and left me negative without contacting me first. It happens to the best of us and there really isn't much to do about it. Ebay's feedback system is pretty crappy in general.

 

[nairb49]

glamroots-I plan on doing exactly that in the future. A learning experience at least.

ebay's feedback program certainly has its flaws, but I suppose we can't expect them to individually investigate and review all negative feedback claims/rebuttals.
Although, the buyer has 195 feedbacks, so they should be quite experienced...

Perhaps an xmas grinch?

 

[metkirk]

Originally Posted by nairb49

So, got my first negative feedback on ebay today. I have a total of 60, so its not so bad, but it irks me.

This is just a venting I suppose. I listed my item, and VERY CLEARLY showed the shipping fee of 25USD under shipping. I used CanadaPost, and it ended up being about 12USD actual shipping cost.

The buyer paid, I left positive feedback, and they received the item and wrote me saying they felt the shipping fee was unfair and wanted me to refund some of the money.

I didn't agree with this, since the cost was clearly listed on my listing, and since ebay themselves recommends making some money off shipping, and so I told them I would give them 5USD as good karma.

They didn't reply, and left me negative feedback. Blah.

I don't understand why you would even give the buyer positive feedback BEFORE he leaves you a feedback. The moral of story is some buyers will try to extort you after they get your positive feedback and haven't left a feedback yet.

 

[Baron]

Rach - why do you assume that adding cost to your opening bid results in an equally higher final bid?

Nair - your situation is unfortunate. If shipping costs were spelled out and the guy didn't like it, he shouldn't have bid. I had a similar situation a few years ago - a buyer lectured me that "it was frowned upon" to charge handling fees on ebay. In this case I was charging maybe $8 to ship a pair of jeans, and I told the guy that almost every single thing I'd bought myself had a nominal handling/packaging fee. He was a ninny about it, and then returned the 501's because the measurements were off (I listed them at 35" and he said they were 36" - like you couldn't get either measurement out of a used pair of 501's if you wanted to). He returned, I refunded, and no feedback was left either way.

 

[svtrader]

Note to self: Add nair49 to Never buy from list.

 

[norcaltransplant]

This dude has 100% feedback:
Dior Homme ******

With 1400+ positive feedback, he must obviously be a trusted seller... The Ebay rating system simply sucks.