Power Maxx Blog

So as I’m sure you all know, I’ve been an eBay powerseller since 2002 - above I posted my most recent screenshot from my feedback profile, which is from a few months ago. I’m at almost 16,000 positive feedback.  My first post about selling on eBay was how to pick a product, which you can find here.

Bottom line is, when it comes to eBay, I know what’s up. With that said, trust me when I say this much - if you want to sell on eBay, you MUST understand the feedback system!!!

Although if you think about it, some might say “Feedback shmeedback. WHO CARES.” The truth of the matter is, that over the years, the feedback system has changed significantly, mainly to ATTEMPT to combat all the fraudulent sellers out there. The attempts have worked, and it has certainly helped improve the market place, but at the same time, it has taken a lot of GOOD sellers as collateral damage.

You might be curious as to what exactly I mean by that. Let’s start by examining the basics of feedback: positive, negative, and neutral.
First, and usually the most obvious is the positive feedback

Adds to your feedback score - when you get a positive, happy times.

Second is neutral

Sounds obvious - not positive, but not negative.  Unfortunately in the eBay world, this is not the case.  Neutral is actually ALMOST as bad as a negative!!

You might wonder how is possible - not good not bad right?? WRONG.  One of the recent changes to feedback involved a policy called the “Seller Non-Performance” policy.  In a nutshell, this attempts to weed out bad sellers by comparing their total neutrals and negatives to the total number of positives they’ve received in the past 30 days.

If this percentage exceeds 5%, your account is restricted for 30 days, with no appeal being possible.  It is in fact the neutrals that got me suspended over a year ago RIGHT before the Christmas season!!  Due to eBay’s shoddy announcement system, I had no idea of this new policy to begin with, and although I would always take care of people that left a negative in terms of resolving issues, I never bothered with the neutrals.

So watch out people, neutral is NOT REALLY NEUTRAL.  In the seller non-performance policy, it is considered to be .66 of a bad point if you are looking to calculate your percentage.

The problem is that 99% of the buyers on eBay don’t know this, and will leave a neutral thinking it is truly a neutral.  You can thank eBay again here, with their very poor information dissemination system.  Who am I kidding.  You have to know where to look to find any information about new policies.  It’s no wonder people can’t find the information.

Third is Negatives

Again, very obvious.  Counts as one full point in the non-performance system for calculations.  Now onto the second part of the feedback profile.  The star system.

The Star System

As you can see from the screenshot above, beside my feedback score is a bunch of stars, with a rating of 0 to 5.  This system was introduced about a year or so ago, and can be only left by the buyer, for the seller.  When the buyer leaves a star rating, the stars are described as 5 being great, 4 being good, 3 being neutral and so on.

Seems pretty straight forward right?? WRONG!!!!

The star system, like the neutral rating is something that is falsely advertised to the eBay community.  Looking back at the seller non-performance policy, if any of your stars are less than 4.3, your listings will be demoted in search ranking.  If any one is less than 4.1, your account will be suspended until your stars improve.  That point is another animal in itself - how can you improve your stars if you’re suspended - but I digress.

In reality, the only thing that is good is a 5 - if buyers give you anything else, you’re screwed.  I will be writing a post on how to deal with these sticky situations later on.

No Buyer Negatives

Another thing to add is that eBay did away with sellers being able to leave buyers a negative feedback.  The premise was that buyers were in fear of retaliatory negatives, and wanted to allow buyers to be able to leave “honest” feedback without that worry.

Unfortunately, this has now allowed BAD buyers to run amuck, with no consequences for a bad buyer, or feedback extortion and I will deal with that in a later post as well.

So there’s your crash course on the eBay feedback system.  Not what you were expecting huh?? Although I do have a fairly jaded view of what eBay has become, it is still the largest online auction house to sell at.  If I could sell somewhere else, I would, but until then I’m stuck here.  So don’t be discouraged by what you’re reading - it is still very possible to successfully sell on eBay.

I am still there after all.  I just want to tell you guys EXACTLY how it is, so that you can prepare for it, be proactive, and not be caught off guard.  Until next time, happy blogging!!

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