People are Talking: Feedback and Ebay

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything."
Mark Twain

The Date: Early 1990's
The Place: Tech Alley, CA
The Characters: Pierre Omidyar and his girlfriend, trying to come up with an online auction system to sell her extra Pez dispensers
The Dilema: Getting buyers and sellers to trust each other to send money and merchandise through the mail
The Solution: Feedback

Ahhh...Ebay feedback. The positives, the negatives, the neutrals. The powersellers, the colored stars, the "top rated." No other site places this much emphasis on feedback.

If you are going to play on Ebay's playground, you are going to have to follow Ebay's rules. And Ebay loves feedback; it is a required game on their playground.

The easiest way to succeed on the site is to always keep feedback in mind. Keep it in mind when you list, when you send emails and when you ship.

A few tips to ensure positive feedback:

1.) List Carefully. Buyers will be inspecting the item closer than you. As tempting as it is to gloss over minor flaws (and it is tempting!), it is far better to make any problems clear in the begining.

1.) Ship Quickly. Yes, they are buying online, but nobody likes waiting. Shorten their wait as much as you can.

2.) Communicate. Answer all emails. Send a small note in the package saying "thank you." Follow up and see how they like their stuff.

3.) Fix any problems. If your buyer has a problem, make it better. Most buyers on Ebay are honest. If they say the item arrived damaged, it most likely did. Refund the money or ship another. If you think they are lying, fix it anyway and then block them from buying. The impact of a "negative" is much worse than taking a small loss.

4.) Admit your mistakes and don't make excuses. It is tempting to blame the blizzard, the computer or the HINI going through your house. Try not to though- buyers don't want your story, they want their stuff.

5.) Realize you cannot avoid negatives entirely. Take a deep breath and some time before responding. Respond, but don't get into a back and forth with the customer. Nothing is uglier than reading through feedback and seeing an argument. If you made a mistake, admit it. If you didn't, explain it. And then move on.

I imagine Omidyar had no idea where his feedback concept would lead.