Why negative feedback means nothing

Of all the years we have been selling and buying on Amazon and eBay we have had our share of negatives and neutrals. What makes it worse is how little positive we receive. Maybe no news is good news?

This is why negatives and neutrals means nothing.. at least to me.

When I receive a negative or neutral I can remember each case. Its causes a scar in my memory and sticks there.  With the details I receive I try to fix things so it does not happen again in the future.  There are times when someone will leaving a negative or neutral for no reason at all.  There area also some people out there that you just cant please no matter what you do! 

Ill give examples:

The newest neutral we got says: When they went to use them they tore and didnt work... etc.  What are they talking about? We sell tattoo stencils. They are one time use items and made for professional artist. Not only that these are NOT cheap ones from china, these are made in the USA of top grade materials and it takes a lot of strength to tear them.  If they dont work for the buyer its because they dont know how to use them. Its like those commercials where you see the doctor trying to be a construction worker. It takes a lot of patiences and practice to use these. 

When your not familiar with how to use the product how is it the sellers fault that you dont know how to use them? 

A recent neutral on Amazon (score of 3 out of 5) says: Item could have been described better. I had expected something more colorful and a higher gloss to the finish. At this point I'm undecided as whether to keep or send back. 

I was going to ask Amazon to remove this since its a product description but as it turns out when a buyer checks 'no' under the items as described it means Amazon will not remove it.  The problem I have with this is that since I am not the only seller of this item  Amazon groups the information into one listing, its not totally bad 'but' if one of the sellers 'write' or uses the 'wrong image' then its 'wrong' for everyone! I have a current listing of a frog item and the image shows an owl because the 'buy box' belongs to someone with the same title but the wrong image. So it screws the rest of the sellers up. I did contact this person and offered a refund if they didnt want the item and it turns out they want to keep it and are pleased with it?!? So Im confused but now Im stuck with this feedback. Yes I could ask them to revise it but is it worth the trouble? 

The other day I got a score of 4, ok its not bad but they complained about the post office being slow. The item was delivered within the eta provided by Amazon, can you image how crazy its going to get when they stop delivering on saturday? Why dont I use UPS or FedEx? Cause 99% of my items are under a pound and its just not worth it to me. 

Newest negative... this is my favorite:  I had gotten an email from a buyer asking where their items are. So in my investigation the description provided by USPS days 'Available for pickup' . I admit its something I had never seen before so I just copied and pasted it and emailed it to the buyer telling them they may have to pick it up and they should contact the local post office as they have it. Immediately I got a reply saying:

why do I need to pick it up when it suppose to deliver to my home address? it is seller's responsibility to ensure delivery. The tracking number didn't state that usps has attempt any delivery. is it because of insufficient postage? im not happy


So I replied trying to sooth the buyer: 

Sorry you're not happy, please understand I dont represent the post office, its in their possession and at last scan it says Awaiting Pickup. This could mean anything, it could be on the truck on route to your house, it could be awaiting the carrier to 'pick it up' and deliver it, it could be at your house right now. Their system does not update until after the carriers return from delivering the mail. So it may not update till later or tomorrow. I would suggest you contact your local post office directly. They would be able to help you better then I can from all the way over here.

I think I replied well. I didnt get a reply back after that and the next day I replied again in the AM as the USPS now shows it was delivered the day before! Strangely enough delivered just before I got the first email asking where the item was.

Then I noticed they left negative feedback saying:

Package missing and no help from seller. No sense of responsibility.Disappointed

To my surprise of course... as I thought I was helping. I replied:

Here I thought I was being nice by letting you know the package was delivered yesterday as I said it would be and I am sure you know it was delivered as you received it. Even eBay is telling me you received it yesterday. Surprised I just saw that you decided to leave negative feedback claiming the package is missing and I was not helping you?

Was I not trying to help?

And of course I didnt hear back.

Here is my thinking of the whole situation.

If you purchased an item, doesnt matter where, what wesite, what buyer... if the item you purchased does not show up what do you do? Ive had items marked delivered (yes I have) and not received so I contact the seller and of course tell them I didnt get it, send another. But if that didnt work I dont know about you I would file a complaint with my credit card company or with the company I purchased the item from. Off ALL the negatives I have ever received buyers have NEVER filed a case against me. NEVER asked for a refund. Ive NEVER given a refund. Dont say you dont want to offend a seller, dont say you want to do the right thing, ... call me crazy, if your item NEVER arrived why would you allow yourself to LOSE MONEY?

A buyer can file a case and no one would really know if a case was filed against the seller but I KNOW! All the negative leavers are just grouchy people looking to ruin the reputations of genuine sellers.

If your in a situation where you item has not arrived contact the seller, dont get mad, they dont own the delivery company. They provide a service and call me crazy but they should not be held responsible for what a delivery company does!  The USPS, FedEx and UPS ALL LOSE items!  Thats their fault! Dont lie just to get a second one! Thats not fair to anyone and lies catch up with you.  Just be honest and give people chances. 

And thats why negatives mean nothing... To me...

Requested Feedback adjustment

While I do make mistakes with my listings I am quick to correct them.  I have listed items that have disappeared from my store, or miscounted a product, or returned something to the vendor and forget to remove the listing. Sometimes an item will sell in our store and again I forget to remove the listing.  This are all honest mistakes but there are some people that you cant please no matter what you do.

I mentioned a few days ago that someone left us negative feedback saying I never refunded them and I wasted their time.  I wasted a feedback revision request on this buyer.  All they did was change the wording around and left it negative!  How rude.

You know you do everything you can to help the buyer and they dont care. Wasted their time? You waste time when you sit at the DMV day after day and still dont get your business taken care of. Or when you have a 10AM appointment at the doctor and dont see the doc until 1PM thats wasting your time.  Oh when you order something from a catalog and find out weeks later they dont have the item in stock!  Not when your refunded within a few hours of your order coming thru!

Once we noticed that we did not have the item we immediately refunded the money and sent an email of apology.  What more could we do?  Nothing!  Its not the first time this has happened to us, but we do our best so it does not happen. When it does we correct it quickly. Sometimes people do not accept the cancellation of the order and thats OK, we lose on the selling fees.  Many people do not bother leaving negatives but there are some people that are just horrible.

Maybe I shouldn't talk since I was trying to sell something I didnt have.

Ebay business is great but people are crazy!

Ive been staying away from blogging, I dunno why people do it, does anyone actually read what I wrote? Does anyone care?

So I am home, bored, there is nothing to do right now. Its actually quiet.

So its 2010 - what am I doing?

Well in Janaury I finally got my business official. I sell all things I can. Ive been doing a lot of research and buying products to list in my store.

Now I am dealing with more and more crazy people on ebay. The latest: Someone purchased an item from my, which I shipped, but it was returned to me by the post office, they say it was an insufficient address. I cant make this stuff up. I emailed the buyer to tell them and they request a refund, telling me the address is correct. So I go thru the steps to issue a refund, it was less the S&H costs. S&H was paid for even it was sent back to me, I wont get that back from the post office. So I marked it in ebay as a canceled transaction. The buyer agrees with it and I get my fees back. So not even 5 minutes later I get an email from paypal, this person wants a refund. But I already issued the refund! Not the whole paid to me but the amount less S&H. So now I am waiting to see what paypal will do. Everything looks to be in my favor but we will see. This person cant leave negative because they agreed and canceled the transaction but now I have to wait for the hold to come off.

In January I got my first negative! I was shocked, Ive been on ebay since 1999! Ive always done everything correctly and never had problems. Well this person claims I sent them something that was half empty or partially used! I would never thats just not cool. Well they wanted a refund and I told them I did nothing wrong, they could not prove to me that I was in error as I asked for a picture. I even said the bottle gives an illusion there should be more, she then threatened negative feedback! Then I dont hear from them for about a week. Well I went away for the weekend only to return and see the negative on my account. This person said i was not nice and there was no customer service! I replied to all her emails and never left her hanging and never said a mean word! Whats wrong with people? So she files a claim with ebay, says I never replied to her, gave her empty product and all she wanted was a partial refund! I replied saying this was all lies, the proof was in my message section within ebay and they could find the correspondence there. Well ebay came back and found no one at fault - they refund this person all their money. Not a dime came from my account, it was ebays choice to refund! Then this person goes back onto my feedback page and writes "my feedback speaks for it self paypal refunded"! Well it sucks i cant reply there, cause well buyers cant get negatives anymore! So your feedback wouldnt show red now would it? Man I was so livid!

Well nothing I can do, the fantastic thing is that since then, all the feedback Ive gotten celebrates my service! Ive tried to appeal her negative feedback but ebay says it stays cause it does not violate policy.

So Im stuck with that negative for now.

Buyers are holding feedback hostage and its just not right. You sit on the edge of your seat waiting to see what they write.