An eBay Star

I’ve noticed that, though some of my items get quite a few looks and may generate a couple of watchers, the items still don’t sell. I have been wondering why. Are people just messing with me? Or are people scared to make that commitment because I’m new to eBay? I’ll admit that if I were to buy something eBay I would probably be hesitant to bid on an item from someone without much feedback. People tend to subconsciously view a seller’s feedback as indication of how trust worthy they are. That is something I can understand even if it is a little frustrating for us newcomers. After all, if we are going to get feedback someone has to first take a chance on buying something from us right?

After surfing for a little while through some eBay auctions my perception of those with thousands of feedback responses began to change, however. Now I started to question if it would really be wise to put more faith into that seller with over a 1,000 feedbacks versus that new guy?  I noticed that several eBay “star” sellers post items with a bid price of 1 cent and offer free shipping if the buyer comes to pick it up.  While some of the auctions look legit others make you wonder “who really wants to buy a single paper clip for 1 cent?” It’s my guess that most of the time these items up for auction don’t even exchange hands. After going through hundreds of 1 cent auctions I began questioning if this so called feedback system is of any use at all. 

Sure eBay allows you to view all of a seller’s feedback for the past 12 months and it may help you in somewhat determining how the seller actually operates by allowing you view to whatever negative feedback remarks the seller may have gotten. However, when someone has sold several thousand items I’m going to expect there will be a few negative feedback remarks. That’s just the way it is. People do make accidental mistakes. No one is perfect and some people are just never satisfied. 

What I really want to look for is the percentage of negative feedback remarks versus positive remarks to determine how good of a seller this person is but in there lays the problem. With the thousands of 1 cent auctions for the exchange of positive feedback remarks taking place every day how can you tell for sure how many positive remarks a seller has is really genuine. If a seller had received 1,010 feedback replies, 10 of them being negative reviews due to the item being slightly damaged on arrival and some due to unusually long shipping times but the rest are all outstanding positive reviews from completely satisfied customers that is someone who I might be willing to take a chance on with my money. Now, if I found out that 990 of those so called satisfied customers wrote positive reviews for the purchase of a 1 cent paperclip I wouldn’t even waste my time to ever look at another auction posted by that seller. Because a buyer does not have to mention the item they bought when giving feedback you may be completely clueless as to how the seller actually conducts business until it’s too late. The feedback system was supposed to help sellers and buyers ensure a smooth transaction. Now it’s helping to lead people astray. 

I have to admit, however, there was one 1 cent auction that I came across last night that I actually had admiration for. This seller was selling one used slightly wrinkled USPS receipt. The seller was very up front with his or her intention of selling this item which was to boost selling numbers by 1 in order to meet a quota set by eBay that would remove the 3 week hold on their money. While I can’t be 100% sure what was stated to be the true reason for the sale of this receipt I have no reason to doubt it. 

I can remember myself wondering why I had to wait 3 weeks to receive money for the first 2 items I sold on eBay. I did understand that holding the money can help deter sellers from trying to scam people with bogus auctions. However, after my customers had received their items and had left positive reviews I did not understand why I had to wait another 2 weeks to get my money when it was already sitting in the hands of PayPal. Was eBay trying to tell me if I wanted to receive my money instantly all I had to do was make 23 bogus auctions for a single paperclip? Would that insure them I was not out to scam people? The seller of the USPS receipt stated “this receipt symbolizes what is wrong with [eBay] selling policies” and, though I have only been using eBay for a short while, to some degree I agree.  EBay needs to consider taking a long look at some of their policies.  

You can find the auction for the USPS receipt here.