What’s Your eBay Reputation Really Worth?
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Your eBay reputation is everything you are on eBay - without it, you’re nothing. Your reputation is worth as much as every sale you will ever make.
If you’ve ever bought anything on eBay (and the chances are you have), then think about your own behaviour. Buying from a seller with a low feedback rating makes you feel a little nervous and insecure, while buying from a PowerSeller with their reputation in the thousands doesn’t require any thought or fear - it feels just like buying from a shop.
A Bad Reputation Will Lose You Sales.
In fact, a bad reputation will lose you almost all your sales. If someone leaves you negative feedback, you will feel the pain straight away, as that rating will go right at the top of your user page for everyone to see. Who’s going to want to do business with you when they’ve just read that you “took a month to deliver the item”, or that you had “bad communication and sent a damaged item”? The answer is no-one.
Your next few items will need to be very cheap things, just to push that negative down the page. You might have to spend days or even weeks selling cheap stuff to get enough positive feedback to make anyone deal with you again.
It’s even worse if you consistently let buyers leave negative feedback - once you get below 90% positive ratings, you might as well be invisible.
You Can’t Just Open a New Account.
Besides eBay’s rules about only having one account, there are far more downsides than that to getting a new account. You literally have to start all over again from scratch.
You won’t be able to use all the different eBay features. Your existing customers won’t be able to find you any more. Your auctions will finish at a lower price because of your low feedback rating. Opening a new account is like moving to a new town to get away from a few people who are spreading rumours about you: it’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
A Good Reputation Will Get You Sales.
When a PowerSeller tells me something, I tend to believe them. They can be selling a pretty unlikely item, but if they guarantee it is what they say it is, then I trust them - they’re not going to risk their reputation, after all. This is the power of a reputation: people know you want to keep it, and they know you’ll go to almost any lengths to do so.
This is true even to the point that I would sooner buy something for $20 from a seller I know I can trust than for $15 from someone with average feedback. It’s worth the extra money to feel like the seller knows what they’re doing, has all their systems in place and will get me the item quickly and efficiently.
You really will find selling on eBay so much easier, and there’s only way to get a good reputation: make sure you please your customers every time. But some customers can be, well, just a little difficult to please. In the next email, we ask: is the eBay customer always right?
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4 Comments on this post
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Frank C said:
You can have more than one eBay ID if you want. In fact, many people keep 3 ID’s, one for selling, one for buying and one for commenting on eBay forums. This prevents one from affecting the other, although, with the recent feedback changes this isn’t as important as it once was. Some people also have multiple ID’s so that they can have an ID that matches the product they’re selling.
I’d also point out that a single bad feedback isn’t the indicator of a bad seller, just a bad transaction. There are feedback extortion rings, deliberate sabotage by competing sellers and just plain psycho buyers who often dish out unwarranted negatives.
Frank Cs last blog post..Arby’s Collectible Christmas Glasses
June 11th, 2008 at 12:04 am -
Lyn Leckie-Matassa said:
Hi Frank,
Thanks for your comments. I agree you can have many more user ID# in eBay. But I think if you are starting to build a reputation you should concentrate on one ID#. You will always get bad feedback if a parcel arrives damaged or broken that is a risk the buyers take.
I also agree a single feedback wont stop someone from purchasing but as a purchaser myself from time to time on ebay I know I look at the negative feedback and if it is just something like an accident then thats ok but if its something on the quality of the product then that is another story. I also look at what the seller responds to the negative feedback to get some idea of their credibility.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:57 pm -
Frank C said:
I agree that it’s best to maintain one ID for selling unless you’re trying to establish multiple brands or separate business from personal selling. For example, a friend of mine sells guitar parts on one ID and photography equipment on another. His guitar business is his business while the photo gear is a personal sideline.
What gets me is that there are high volume power sellers who sell real junk, get tons of negatives and yet people still buy from them. I haven’t checked on them recently but I wonder if eBay’s seller quality campaign has put a dent in their activities.
Frank Cs last blog post..How to Buy a Used Pool Cue
June 11th, 2008 at 11:18 pm -
Lyn Leckie-Matassa said:
You made me smile with that comment frank, I actually got stung really badly by an overseas high volume powerseller who was selling Ipod covers well at least they were suppose to be. I ordered them and they were actually stickers, I was furious as they were made to look like the silicon covers in the photos.
Hence I had to order the correct item from someone else.
June 11th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
