There's a bit of tension among sellers regarding out of stock.
For most sellers, the only way they encounter out of stock is by some actual error. The error might be:
1. When it comes time to ship, the item can't be found.
2. The item is discovered, by seller, to be significantly not as described. As in broken.
3. Seller realizes after close of auction that she lacks the legal right to ship the item.
Now while we would not like to encourage such errors, surely they're not the kind of thing which deserves severe punishment.
Consider the more common reasons a seller does not ship:
1. Seller offered the item for sale in a different venue, and sold it out from under the ebay buyer.
2. Seller was unhappy with the final value, and reports the item as lost or damaged.
3. Seller's drop shipper reported the item out of stock.
The problem is, we cannot know which sellers are which without keeping score.
As an ebay seller, I do not want to share that title with sellers who are "doing" that final category. Observe, sellers in that category are no doubt playing some kind of mind game, imagining that "doing my best" is what is required, as compared to "avoiding things which are causing a bad buyer experience". Sg51 strongly believes that sellers who are playing that game should be given undesirable feedback, so that they will be motivated to make necessary changes.
A seller who is in that zone can do the right thing by:
1. During the final 12 hours of an auction, decline alternative sales. Before that, an alternative sale can result in the cancellation of the auction.
2. Set either first bid or reserve to yield an acceptable amount when that is important.
3. Evaluate any dropshipper for reliability, and do business only with those who are reliable.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Blocking Buyers
It's common on the ebay boards to threaten to block buyers who seem ungrateful regarding seller performance.
This is largely, but not entirely unreasonable.
Most dings are the result of some seller behavior which seller should in fact change.
Many sellers fail to evaluate the blocking equation properly.
Here's the two truths:
1. Blocking a random buyer will have no effect on anything
2. Blocking a buyer who has bought seller's stuff before will cost a seller money.
The latter presumes that the stuff seller seller sells is useful in qty more than one. If not, blocking a buyer will have no effect on anything.
Buyers tend to buy in category - time spurts. That is, a buyer will be looking for some class of cutters for a week or a season, and then, not so much. The buyer moves on to some other category, or comes and goes with respect to ebay as a whole.
Sellers, on the other hand, tend to be much more stable. They sell the same kind of stuff until it's not working any more. Particularly with respect to auctions, these sellers are, at any point in time, probably dependent on 2-5 buyers who are interested and qualified to set the final price of the stuff. Block one of them, and the final value goes down. Block two of them, and the final value might now be set by what could have been the 4th place bidder. Real money.
That doesn't meant that some buyers should not be blocked. It is quite possible for a buyer to cost a seller far more money than the final value on an item or so per week. The buyers which should be blocked are chronic bad feedback reporters. Watch out for:
1. A history of soft positives, >10% left.
2. A history of neg/neut in almost any quantity which were replied to by what appears to have been a seller who had done all the right things. I do not count "out of stock" negs as indicating a cranky buyer.
3. An across the board star ding.
These indicate a buyer which is leaving imprecise negative feedback, something a seller cannot much avoid other than by declining this buyer's business.
Seller must be very alert to the clues of isolated low stars. Whatever that was about, it will probably reappear if not fixed. The solution is to fix the problem, not to block this buyer.
Most common:
1. Ambiguous listing allowed buyer to form an incorrect impression.
2. High shipping charges.
This is largely, but not entirely unreasonable.
Most dings are the result of some seller behavior which seller should in fact change.
Many sellers fail to evaluate the blocking equation properly.
Here's the two truths:
1. Blocking a random buyer will have no effect on anything
2. Blocking a buyer who has bought seller's stuff before will cost a seller money.
The latter presumes that the stuff seller seller sells is useful in qty more than one. If not, blocking a buyer will have no effect on anything.
Buyers tend to buy in category - time spurts. That is, a buyer will be looking for some class of cutters for a week or a season, and then, not so much. The buyer moves on to some other category, or comes and goes with respect to ebay as a whole.
Sellers, on the other hand, tend to be much more stable. They sell the same kind of stuff until it's not working any more. Particularly with respect to auctions, these sellers are, at any point in time, probably dependent on 2-5 buyers who are interested and qualified to set the final price of the stuff. Block one of them, and the final value goes down. Block two of them, and the final value might now be set by what could have been the 4th place bidder. Real money.
That doesn't meant that some buyers should not be blocked. It is quite possible for a buyer to cost a seller far more money than the final value on an item or so per week. The buyers which should be blocked are chronic bad feedback reporters. Watch out for:
1. A history of soft positives, >10% left.
2. A history of neg/neut in almost any quantity which were replied to by what appears to have been a seller who had done all the right things. I do not count "out of stock" negs as indicating a cranky buyer.
3. An across the board star ding.
These indicate a buyer which is leaving imprecise negative feedback, something a seller cannot much avoid other than by declining this buyer's business.
Seller must be very alert to the clues of isolated low stars. Whatever that was about, it will probably reappear if not fixed. The solution is to fix the problem, not to block this buyer.
Most common:
1. Ambiguous listing allowed buyer to form an incorrect impression.
2. High shipping charges.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Go Donahoe
Some sellers have been critical of feedback changes which eliminated their ability to post negative to buyers (in May, 2008).
The era during which buyers were threatened by negative fb was disastrous for ebay as well as ebay's current sellers. The ebay transaction was largely controlled by sellers, who threatened to post negative feedback should buyer complain. Under this protection, some sellers became careless and others actively exploited the control, shipping shoddy product. The net result was that buyers who had a bad experience simply left ebay and told their friends. It was common, and accelerated the ebay saturation point by years.
I for one would like to publicly thank John Donahoe for having the insight to understand what was going on, and to change it.
Buyers need a good experience, so that they will come back and buy again. Maybe they will buy from me next time. Maybe from you.
The era during which buyers were threatened by negative fb was disastrous for ebay as well as ebay's current sellers. The ebay transaction was largely controlled by sellers, who threatened to post negative feedback should buyer complain. Under this protection, some sellers became careless and others actively exploited the control, shipping shoddy product. The net result was that buyers who had a bad experience simply left ebay and told their friends. It was common, and accelerated the ebay saturation point by years.
I for one would like to publicly thank John Donahoe for having the insight to understand what was going on, and to change it.
Buyers need a good experience, so that they will come back and buy again. Maybe they will buy from me next time. Maybe from you.
Ebay's feedback board
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/forum/Feedback/113
Posters to that forum are welcome and encouraged to post comments here.
Please don't bring any personal feuds, or off-topic stuff like politics or postings seeking commercial gain. Just not interesting.
Posters to that forum are welcome and encouraged to post comments here.
Please don't bring any personal feuds, or off-topic stuff like politics or postings seeking commercial gain. Just not interesting.
The Nightmare of Echecks
Paypal doesn't like credit card fees, which is understandable, but at odds with the basic flow of money in mail delivery commerce these days.
Somewhat unadvertised, an Ebay buyer can buy with no paypal account, and pay by credit card through paypal. This is recommended, but Paypal sets up some gotcha's, on a path which seeks to drive payments away from credit cards and toward direct debit from a checking account (which is much cheaper for PayPal). Once a credit card has been used for a paypal account, it will not be accepted for payment outside of a paypal account.
It's actually convenient to have a credit card on file with a Paypal account. I have such an account. Near as I can tell, the worst nuisance is that they start bugging you to add a bank account. A buyer who adds a bank account is set up for the Nightmare of Echecks.
Once a bank account is on file, it becomes the default payment source for all paypal payments. This can be overridden on each payment, by selecting the credit card on file.
However, if the credit card:
1. is selected for use, but the charge is declined for any reason
2. is or is not selected for use, but has reached its expiration date
Paypal will convert the payment to type "Echeck".
If this meant simply that the amount was debited from the checking account, failing if funds were not available, it wouldn't be so bad. That's not quite what it means. It means that Paypal tried to debit the checking account, with no immediate reporting of the result. If it failed, they will try again later. Echecks take 4-6 days to sort out, regardless of whether the buyer has funds in the checking account or not.
During this time:
-Seller is advised that payment has been made by echeck, which has not cleared as yet.
-The money has usually been debited from buyer's checking account. Buyer has paid.
This might be good for Paypal, but it's bad for buyer and a nightmare for seller.
Buyer has paid, but seller is not going to ship for most of a week. Buyer will understandably see that as less than 5 star shipping time. Seller ends up with undesirable feedback, that being a shipping star ding, for nothing more than bad luck.
Seller cannot refuse to accept eChecks.
While the eCheck is awaiting clearing, even if seller is willing to take the chance and ship before it cleared (to protect feedback rating), Paypal shipping does not allow that. The shipping label cannot be generated. It is presumably possible to go back to ebay, mark the item as "paid", and then generate the shipping label through paypal.
Solution.
Eliminate echecks. In cases where seller fraud seems some potential threat, hold the funds while reporting them as cleared, such that seller can ship immediately. In cases where the bank declines the charge, report that to buyer as a failed payment.
Somewhat unadvertised, an Ebay buyer can buy with no paypal account, and pay by credit card through paypal. This is recommended, but Paypal sets up some gotcha's, on a path which seeks to drive payments away from credit cards and toward direct debit from a checking account (which is much cheaper for PayPal). Once a credit card has been used for a paypal account, it will not be accepted for payment outside of a paypal account.
It's actually convenient to have a credit card on file with a Paypal account. I have such an account. Near as I can tell, the worst nuisance is that they start bugging you to add a bank account. A buyer who adds a bank account is set up for the Nightmare of Echecks.
Once a bank account is on file, it becomes the default payment source for all paypal payments. This can be overridden on each payment, by selecting the credit card on file.
However, if the credit card:
1. is selected for use, but the charge is declined for any reason
2. is or is not selected for use, but has reached its expiration date
Paypal will convert the payment to type "Echeck".
If this meant simply that the amount was debited from the checking account, failing if funds were not available, it wouldn't be so bad. That's not quite what it means. It means that Paypal tried to debit the checking account, with no immediate reporting of the result. If it failed, they will try again later. Echecks take 4-6 days to sort out, regardless of whether the buyer has funds in the checking account or not.
During this time:
-Seller is advised that payment has been made by echeck, which has not cleared as yet.
-The money has usually been debited from buyer's checking account. Buyer has paid.
This might be good for Paypal, but it's bad for buyer and a nightmare for seller.
Buyer has paid, but seller is not going to ship for most of a week. Buyer will understandably see that as less than 5 star shipping time. Seller ends up with undesirable feedback, that being a shipping star ding, for nothing more than bad luck.
Seller cannot refuse to accept eChecks.
While the eCheck is awaiting clearing, even if seller is willing to take the chance and ship before it cleared (to protect feedback rating), Paypal shipping does not allow that. The shipping label cannot be generated. It is presumably possible to go back to ebay, mark the item as "paid", and then generate the shipping label through paypal.
Solution.
Eliminate echecks. In cases where seller fraud seems some potential threat, hold the funds while reporting them as cleared, such that seller can ship immediately. In cases where the bank declines the charge, report that to buyer as a failed payment.
Feedback from NPBs
It might seem an overly harsh place to start.
The worst of Ebay. We'll get to other issues later, including the best of ebay. But this topic gets intense attention on the ebay boards, and deserves a separate discussion beyond ebay content ownership.
The two worst, as I see it, at the moment:
1. Fear of undesirable feedback from non-paying bidders.
2. Paypal Echecks.
First off, let's get past the naive view: NPBs should not be allowed to post negative fb. There are plenty of occasions when NPBs should be allowed to post neg, and if it were not for the potential for such negs, the incidence of seller misbehavior would rise. These cases all involve a bidder who is willing to pay, but seller is refusing to complete the transaction as advertised. The two most common examples are "out of stock" and "refusal to ship for free as advertised". We need a way to passively record such events on seller's record.
However, the vast majority of NPB feedback comes from buyers who simply did not pay, and were annoyed by seller's reporting them to ebay (as part of reclaiming the final value fee).
Seller should have no fear that a buyer who did not pay, by buyer's choice, will post undesirable feedback.
There already exists a mechanism for buyers to report Non Performing Sellers, which is Ebay's term for sellers who refuse to complete the transaction as advertised. This can and should serve as the primary path to record NPS events. Perhaps a standing NPS strike could enable undesirable feedback, but just as easily, the NPS strike could have even more effect than undesirable feedback. An NPB who starts out to post fb (or has posted fb in the past) should be directed to the NPS report mechanism, while by default the feedback is removed. This includes positive feedback with unknown stars. There is little value in feedback from a bidder who refused to pay.
The worst of Ebay. We'll get to other issues later, including the best of ebay. But this topic gets intense attention on the ebay boards, and deserves a separate discussion beyond ebay content ownership.
The two worst, as I see it, at the moment:
1. Fear of undesirable feedback from non-paying bidders.
2. Paypal Echecks.
First off, let's get past the naive view: NPBs should not be allowed to post negative fb. There are plenty of occasions when NPBs should be allowed to post neg, and if it were not for the potential for such negs, the incidence of seller misbehavior would rise. These cases all involve a bidder who is willing to pay, but seller is refusing to complete the transaction as advertised. The two most common examples are "out of stock" and "refusal to ship for free as advertised". We need a way to passively record such events on seller's record.
However, the vast majority of NPB feedback comes from buyers who simply did not pay, and were annoyed by seller's reporting them to ebay (as part of reclaiming the final value fee).
Seller should have no fear that a buyer who did not pay, by buyer's choice, will post undesirable feedback.
There already exists a mechanism for buyers to report Non Performing Sellers, which is Ebay's term for sellers who refuse to complete the transaction as advertised. This can and should serve as the primary path to record NPS events. Perhaps a standing NPS strike could enable undesirable feedback, but just as easily, the NPS strike could have even more effect than undesirable feedback. An NPB who starts out to post fb (or has posted fb in the past) should be directed to the NPS report mechanism, while by default the feedback is removed. This includes positive feedback with unknown stars. There is little value in feedback from a bidder who refused to pay.
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