DSR FAQ - what if the buyer rates me on only a couple criteria vs. all 4? (Plus a bonus soapbox on our recent eBay workshop)

Earlier this week we hosted an eBay Workshop on DSRs and some best practices to help improve DSRS.  Thanks to the ChannelAdvisor's: ML, RK, CF, SJ, SH and RZ for your help!

One unanswered question was submitted that I wanted to make sure I followed-up on as I had to confirm with eBay.  The question was:

If a buyer is leaving me DSR feedback and of the four criteria they leave me say a 5, 5, 4 and then on the fourth criteria they do not rate me at ALL, does that count as a zero in my average or is it not tallied at all?

The answer is it is not tallied at all.  You can see this if you look at some larger seller's DSRs. For example, when I look at virtualexchanges today, I see that there is as large a delta as 70 stars left for each DSR.  Here's a snapshot taken this am:

Now back to the workshop - it was basically a complete mêlée with about 30 insanely VERY emotional and upset sellers attacking us from every angle even after we clearly stated we were there to talk about some best practices and have no ability to change the DSR system.

A good example is this Tim guy who runs the boycottebay site at myspace here.

There was some valid criticism of the DSR system such as:

• The wording that eBay uses for buyers needs some work, eBay makes it seem like 4 is excellent and a 5 is superhuman.
• eBay's encouraging free shipping and sellers will lose money on that potentially
• The $ spent to achieve a 4.8 to get the 15% isn't worth the 15%
• The tiers eBay has defined as poor/good/great are tough to achieve (4.8, etc.) and don't match up with the buyer ratings (this is by design, but I couldn't get that across to this audience).  I guess there's a bunch of people that have never been graded on the bell curve, but I'm painfully familiar with it from the good old days of being an engineering student.  The idea is to create a distribution curve so you can see how sellers rank against each other and then you can determine your bottom X%, top Y%, etc.

What I find interesting about this group of sellers is they seem to admit that S+H on eBay is a problem, and bad sellers in general are a problem, but they never offer another viable solution to the problem.  At least in the large seller groups like IMA and PESA there are some ideas of other solutions or ways to overhaul/tweak DSRs and make it more viable. Also large sellers are doing the math on their S+H weighed against the costs/benefits and looking at this as a business.

For example, I'm sure one solution eBay looked at is to charge a FVF on S+H in addition to the core price of a product.  eBay could lower overall FVF by 10% and then do this and it would immediately eliminate the incentive to make money on S+H which is the core problem we have.  This is how Amazon's fees work.  They take the 15% on the entire pie, not just the core.

If you think people are upset about DSRs, if eBay implemented a FVF on S+H, people would have lava coming out of their eyes as there are many challenges with that approach. I can hear them now:  "I sell furniture and the S+H is usually 40% of the item price and you just increased my fees 80000%!", "eBay has no right dipping its hand in another pocket", etc.

So in that context the DSR solution is definitely better IMHO than something much more complex and economically impactful than FVF on S+H.

Thus I'm left with this logic:

• DSRs at a macro level seem to be a moderate way to solve the bad/good/better seller problem on eBay.
• For the first time eBay has put some carrots into the system (search advantage and FVF discount) so that's a positive
• eBay doesn't seem interested in budging from DSRs
• Thus we are going to live in a world of DSRs for the foreseeable future and the best plan of attack is:
  • Give eBay feedback to try and improve the system
  • Evaluate changes to your eBay business to see if the carrots are worth it for you and make darn sure you avoid the sticks.

So to the crankypantsmartha 's  of the eBay world, you guys continue to befuddle me.  Why do you sell on eBay if you hate it so much?  Why would you expect buyers to rate a seller called crankypantsmartha highly on communication or customer satisfaction?  Heck you don't even have enough feeedback to have DSRs yet! What's really going on here? 

Comments

[Tinteiros = (Magic Inkjet Flush Kits)]

Hi Regards DSRs for SHIPPING, I live in Portugal and we ship Magic Inkjet Flush kits worldwide. Although we ship same or next day. The kits were taking 24 days after 9-11 However, we now ship PRIORITY but they still take 10 days to USA. Is that our fault? Buyers continually to mark us low because of the 10 days. Surely shipping DSR should be based on the TIME IT TOOK the SELLER TO SHIP and NOT HOW LONG IT TOOK TO GET THERE!

[annemar]

Scot - I'm a buyer. You said one suggestion would be to look at "charg[ing] a FVF on S+H in addition to the core price of a product." I don't know whether this would be good or not for sellers or the marketplace, but I know ebay has been slowly moving towards potentially doing this. You can see this by the change to the Sort of 'lowest first' to 'lowest price + shipping', and putting the ship column on search and now the layout of the new checkout.

As a buyer and active on ebay in other ways, and a professional in my other life, I warn that the buyer's end must always be price and shipping separately, because 1) disputes are often resolved on the basis of who pays return shipping; 2) some paypal, CC, and FTC claims do not refund s/h.

I am always trying to educate buyers that they can't go for the 99 cent item and the 20.00 shipping just because it is a better 'overall' deal. The shipping is always at risk and it must be delineated separately for buyers.

I also try to educate buyers AND paypal that they should not be required to pay any ship costs at all, or to return an item to a seller unless seller pays the return ship costs, when it is a successful INR claim. This is similar to a mail order defect, which is always the sender's/seller's responsibiliity and failure, not the recipient/buyer.

I've recently begun checking this blog after having a seller post many of your comments on another board. I like it, except you should check your grammar. If you are speaking about sellers in the plural, there is no apostrophe! If you are speaking about one singular seller in the possessive, it is with an apostrophe. Sorry I am pointing out a mistake but it is so painfully obvious throughout your blog. ;-) best regards ~~ AM

[Denise]

I expected to find flaming posts on youir workshop thread at ebay. Instead I found nothing of the type. WHERE is the melee you described??

Agree with another poster that your call out of particular ebay IDs was toatlly unprofessional. You must be horribly out of touch with ebay sellers if you don't know that many sellers use posting IDs on the boards. One ebay ID you mentioned identified herself later in the workshop and posted with her seller ID. Were you not paying attention?

[katie]

I watched the fiasco of your "workshop". Totally unprofessional. Did you think you were going to be dealing with complacent and compliant sellers??? Then neither you nor the Channel"Advisors" had a clue what you were up against. Knowledgeable and experienced sellers who are the backbone of eBay!!!

It is completely unprofessional and childish to identify eBay users' IDs in your post above. You have potentially opened them up for harrassment. Shame on you....and, again, your lack of professionalism.

And keep in mind that many users, especially those active in eBay's help boards (where they are unpaid volunteers who donate their time and expertise practically 24/7/365) use posting IDs when communicating on boards, forums, groups, etc. Keep in mind, too, that these folks are more often than not the resource eBay's Live Help sends eBayers to for answers they are clueless about. Unfortunately, they ARE NOT the source eBay goes to before redesigning the system on a whim.

As to your "example" of the powerseller virtualexchanges....interesting to note that:

Item as described 13136 translates as 4.9
Communication 13079 translates as 4.8
Shipping time 13121 translates as 4.8
Shipping and handling charge 13070 translates as 4.5

Seems *that* powerseller has a problem with what buyers consider to be s/h charges that are too high, eh???

Additionally, as mentioned previously, eBay needs to register ALL users....both buyers and sellers....with a credit card and link that information to all IDs....buying, selling, and posting. eBay is responsible for allowing the selling and buying scams to go on for over 10 years.

eBay needs to simply build in edits to auction listings to detect excessive s/h. I report on average 20 (power)sellers every week for excessive s/h charges. I have NEVER seen a single one of them shut down. NEVER. Let's face it, eBay doesn't want to cut off the hands that put money in their pockets.

eBay also needs to educate buyers that shipping time IS NOT delivery time. I ship same or next day on all items. Once it leaves my hands with insurance and delivery confirmation, the actual receipt time is out of my hands. Buyers equate shipping time with delivery time and that is going to cause more problems than eBay can possibly envision.

Now....I have sellers that take 2-3 weeks to pay for an item. Why can I not leave Detailed Buyer Ratings to warn other sellers of impossible-to-deal with buyers and give other sellers the chance to block buyers and cancel bids???

Your post above is probably the most whiney, childish post I have ever seen from self-professed professionals.

Can't handle the fire??? Get outta the damn kitchen!!!

[skip]

what a fool .. cranky is a posting id for the boards.. if your s aware of what goes on .. you should at least be able to figure that out.. and as long as we're at it .. why were post removed from the workshop and why were several suspended ???

[L Oliver]

You are apparently really out of touch of what and how this all works. I read your workshop, amazing how you can comment on things that you have no experience with or clearly don't have hands on experience with. All of the sellers that you gave as examples have extremely high numbers which is the only way you can move the DSR numbers, with lots of feedback. Within the next six months to a year the Ebay marketplace will have a whole new face, mostly new merchandise and lower numbers as sellers move on to marketplaces that support them. Most sellers don't seem to grasp all of the issues these changes will have have, once they start to feel the effects of these changes they will leave. Ebay does nothing to remove on the fake knockoffs that are sold, they CANNOT turn this marketplace around until they start confirming ID as to who people are and linking this information to each user ID. After ten years of selling on Ebay, powerseller status, I have basically stopped selling on EBay, before they announced these changes I had started to move to other online marketplaces that cater to the type of things I sell and am doing very well. For me this is a business decision, not an emotional one. This whole thing with feedback and DSR's is a waste of time, I simply want to sell my product, make sure my buyer is happy so they come back and buy again. The bigger they are the harder they fall! Also your comments about one of the questions from a person on the workshop are childish, have you not heard of a posting ID???

[Paul]

I think that eBay does a poor job explaining to buyers how to rate Shipping Time. We ship within hours of getting an order, and we still have a 4.8. We already stop international sales from eBay (20% drop in sales) because it was the main source of low ST DSR's, and we still have a problem that we feel is grossly unfair. If the Postal Service is slow delivering a package, there isn't much we can do about it. ebay knows when we ship because we do it through PayPal, so it could generate its own ST DSR. We also offer flat-rate SH, and we still have a 4.8 in this category too. Of course, eBay knows how much we charge, and it is very reasonable. So, eBay could ask buyers to rate the other three categories, and generate its own DSR for ST and SH.

[Carol]

Heck you don't even have enough feeedback to have DSRs yet! What's really going on here?

Just wanted to remind Scot that many many Ebay posters use their Posting IDs when posting on Ebay to avoid problems with people who may disagree with what they posted.

[tj]

I have said since the beginning of the DSR introduction…..this totally unworkable system will break eBays back

How can a un-educated person even grasp (or even care)about the problems of mail or customs delays….

For some strange reason many buyers totally believe that sellers CONTROL the mail services ….

As an International seller this will totally destroy my business on eBay…..even before these stupid DSR stars started almost all my negative was from shipping times; that are very clearly shown in all my listings & out of my control (you know the descriptions you spend hours writing so buyers can totally ignore???)

Number 1 eBay should enforce the listing's as a LEGAL contract…...Oh I forgot they are just a venue aren’t they !

[Jeremy]

Regarding S&H fees on ebay:

You could see this thing coming for quite a while. Bill Cobb had continually harped that the number one concern of buyers was the shipping cost. This will help curtail some of the outrageous shipping charges, but it will not eliminate the issue. The solution has been staring everyone in the face all along, but ebay chooses to ignore the elephant in the room. First, sellers should be required to give a set shipping price. Then, simply base insertion fees on the total price. If ebay insists on having a calculated price they should at least have buyers enter in a zip code and display the ENTIRE cost to the buyers. This will stop a lot of the nonsense. They should also stop basing the search results off of the subtotal and not the total cost.

We dealt with this issue about a year ago in anticipation of changes. All of our items are at one flat rate. The bad thing is it has hurt us. Competitors appear first in the searches b/c their subtotal is lower on the same item even if the total cost is higher. What did ebay expect to happen? Their fees and searches are based off of subtotal. Of course sellers are going to take advantage of this.

[Sue @ TameBay]

Re. free S&H: I've looked into this fairly extensively and IMHO if you're doing it *only for the sake of the DSRs* it's not worth it.

~ Sellers offering free S&H in categories I've looked at have a 4.8 DSR average.
~ My ID#1 offers fixed price shipping and has DSR 4.8.
~ My ID#2 offers fixed price shipping at double the rate of ID#1, and that has a DSR 4.8 too :-D

I'm tentatively concluding that buyers want
1) to know EXACTLY what they're going to have to pay and
2) to get a great big discount on S&H for buying multiple items.

I also suspect that if you ship quickly, buyers will put up with a slightly higher postage cost than if you take a few days over it.

Conclusions based on selling small, light, low-cost impulse purchases mainly in Jewellery and Crafts, so YMMV.