At online auctions, as in life, it's nice to leave kind words after a job well-done. So if you enjoyed a deal, let the other person know with a positive feedback.
But, if the deal went sour or you got ripped off, you may consider leaving a neutral or negative feedback.
But be careful! This should only be a method of last resort, when all other attempts at communication have failed. Otherwise, you might get a "reverse-negative" in return!
Earn Positive Feedback • Avoid Negative Feedback
What is auction feedback?
Who should leave the first feedback?
Is it OK to ask for Feedback?
When should I post Negative Feedback?
Read full article below
Quick Tip: Good Communication is the best way to receive positive feedback during a smooth sale, and for avoiding negative feedback during a bumpy deal!
Taking The High Road: Your Feedback Rating
To Earn Positive Feedback:
• Respond to all e-mails quickly.
• Communicate politely, clearly and briefly in e-mails.
• Sellers: E-mail your buyer at each step: When the auction ends, after their payment is received, and when the item is sent. If using Delivery Confirmation, send a tracking number to the high bidder. Always send an invoice, and use good letter writing skills: include a logo or personal header, polite greeting, and final thank you ("sincerely" etc.) in all e-mails. Ship items promptly!
• Buyers: Respond to e-mails and send your payments quickly! Follow all auction terms, e-mail when you send payment & after you receive the item.
• People love compliments- if there is something about the deal you liked, tell them! "Great packaging, nice item, accurately described" etc. These will stand out in the seller's mind when they are leaving feedback.
To Avoid Negative Feedback:
• Follow the polite business guidelines above...
• Neutral feedback has the same impact as negative to many a potential buyer, so be sure of yourself when posting neutrals- They may earn you a neutral comment or negative feedback in return.
• Never, ever, use foul language, or e-mail 'flames'
• Do business in a timely, prompt, courteous manner.
• Be professional at all times, especially if problems arise.
• Bidders: Don't make sellers wait needlessly for payment! This is the number one way to get negative feedback as a buyer.
• Sellers: Don't make buyers wait for their deliveries! This is the number one way a seller will get negative feedback. They've trusted you with their hard-earned money, now send them their stuff quickly.
• DO NOT use Instant Messages (IM) unless the seller asks you to. Many sellers see this as an intrusion into their private lives! (see auction etiquette).
• DO NOT call the other party unless there is a real problem, and only after a few weeks have gone by (see auction etiquette).
• DO NOT save negative comments to copy & paste into ebay as a "time saver." The chances of leaving a negative instead of a positive are too great- type those rare negative feedbacks MANUALLY.
See more about negative feedback in our review of ebay hacks.
Online Auction Feedback: Saying 'Good Buy'
What is auction feedback?
Feedback is simply a comment that is left for an auction user by the other party in the sale, after the transaction is concluded. Both buyers and sellers can leave feedback about each other. On ebay and many other auction sites, there are three kinds of feedback: positive, negative and neutral. All auction houses have slightly different feedback systems, but they all serve the same purpose; to indicate a buyer or seller's standing in the website, so you can get an idea of who you are dealing with before the sale.
A person's feedback 'score' or 'rating' is shown by a number in parentheses right after a person's auction user ID. If you click on that number, you will be taken to that person's feedback page, where you can read all the former comments (feedbacks) posted about that auction user. A positive comment adds one number to the rating, a negative posting subtracts a number, and a neutral remark does not affect the overall feedback score. A neutral comment still looks bad however, these translate into a negative impression for prospective buyers.
Auction users are almost always highly protective of their feedback rating and will go to great lengths to avoid negatives. This is unless they are just a one-time buyer, new to the auction site, or a fraudulent user- these people may not know or even care about the feedback system. But the majority of the informed auction users out there know exactly what feedback is and can quote their current feedback rating off the top of their head. Serious auction users do not take kindly to a negative feedback that is left on a whim, especially from an uneducated or newbie user.
It is extremely important to think about what you say and do before lodging a negative feedback. Comments that are untrue or without merit may open you to legal or civil liability, as auction users take their credibility very seriously. Many users will lodge a counter-negative out of spite, if they feel they have been unfairly dealt some lackluster comments. This tit for tat type of negative feedback is called a 'reverse negative', and may also be referred to as a 'revenge negative' or 'revenge neg'.
It is very poor form for a newbie user to just fire off a negative feedback at the first sign of a problem, without adequately trying to resolve it. I had used ebay for six years and successfully completed several hundred deals before receiving my first negative, and this was from a user who did not understand the system or the website. This user never made any attempt to contact me over an easily correctible problem that I was not even aware of. Six years of perfect scores, blemished by a needless remark.
It is always potential grounds for discipline from an auction site or perhaps even a lawsuit when a user goes around arbitrarily trashing people with libelous (untrue) remarks. This type of 'flaming' may be acceptable behavior in some chat rooms, but the feedback systems at auction sites are not the place for this, and will get a user into hot water fast.
Who should leave the first feedback?
It's our position here at BidLab that the SELLER should be first to post feedback after a deal.
Why? Although many sellers might dispute us on this stance, we feel it's the naturally correct thing to do. Think about it: in a brick and mortar store, it's considered normal and good form when a customer is leaving a shop to thank them and say "have a nice day", "thanks for the business" etc. A customer shouldn't have to be the first one to thank the shopkeeper in the real world- and if they are, they're shopping in the wrong place. So why should an auction site be any different?
Think of it this way: if a buyer pays some online seller their hard-earned cash for some dusty old trinket in an auction, they are taking several things on faith. They've never met the seller... Will they ever see the item? Will it be in the condition advertised? Will they receive it in a timely fashion? Are they overpaying? Buyers generally have a lot more to lose than sellers- they have to pay first, taking it completely on faith that the seller will hold up their end of the deal. It's only fair then, that the seller should at least leave the first feedback, when the buyer has kept their end of the deal.
If you are the buyer and would prefer to leave feedback first, then that's OK. But you should wait until you actually have the goods in your possession, and are sure that your'e happy with the item and the deal. It's a rare occurrence, but some unscrupulous auction users will be less inclined to resolve a problem once you've posted a positive feedback for them. Why? Once you leave a positive feedback, you can no longer leave negative remarks to lower their score.
Expert Tip: When posting positive auction feedback, you can cut and paste previously typed comments like "Great Item, Good communications & Fast Shipping" so you don't find yourself typing them over and over.
You can even save a block of these in a simple Word or Notepad file, to use for different situations as a buyer and seller. This speeds up the process of leaving positive feedback considerably.
Always type your neutral and negative feedback comments manually. For an explanation, see below: When should I post Negative Feedback
For more information about feedback, please see our Auction Etiquette section.
Is it OK to ask for Feedback?
It can be an annoyance to ask anyone for feedback: before, during or after the auction. However, if it is handled delicately and professionally, it can be acceptable.
You should never be insistent about it- This always screams "I'm an auction newbie" and really turns the other party off- If it was a good deal, that dealer will probably get back to you with a positive feedback anyway; after all, they know they have much better chances of getting feedback when they do. And with the powerful new posting and auction management systems out there, no one can use the "I didn't have time" excuse to avoid posting feedback anymore.
In fact, we offer several tools you can use for feedback right here, for free! We have polite e-mail templates for requesting overdue feedback, and examples of feedback comments you can cut and paste into any auction site to speed up your feedback posting. Check out our free online auction tools section for more info.
When should I post Negative Feedback?
NOTE: Before you post any negatives, since ebay now allows multiple User Ids, we would recommend this: Create a "for fun" buying only account, and if you absolutely have to, post your negative comments from there.
Once you have the separate buyer ID, make all your purchases from there... And don't even think about using your seller ID to post a negative. This way, all the responses back and forth go into the the other feedback account, and don't stick out like a sore thumb.
When you neg someone, they almost always are tempted to leave a counter neg (a revenge neg) in return. Especially if they are the kind of person who truly deserved the negative in the first place.
By using the buying account for posting negative remarks, you aren't messing around with that pristine auction seller feedback score that you rely on for credibility with future customers.
Remember all those great freebie templates for positive feedbacks we mentioned we have for you? Well, for negative feedback, you'll just have to use your imagination and probably a good deal of restraint.
Why? Well, we could give you access to some choice, juicy zingers that we thought of the last time we ran out of coffee here at the editorial desk, but we are (ahem) far to polite for that, and we don't want to be responsible for any negative mojo waves floating around out there.
Remember, negative feedback cannot be erased once posted, so check your radio buttons carefully when leaving positive comments. Make absolutely sure you are clicking 'positive', and not 'neutral' or 'negative' unless you really mean to. Think carefully about what you are going to say, and consider the results your words may have in the long run.
Your comments will be there close to forever, so if you are considering a negative feedback, count to 10 first! Then try yet again to fix the problem with the other auction user one more time, and use a negative feedback only if and when all else fails.
Remember, if you leave a nasty little surprise for a powerseller with 650 positives and it later turns out it was your mistake or a misunderstanding, there may be repercussions for you... either from the auction site or in the form of a reverse-negative from an irate seller.
You should ALWAYS check a seller's feedback score and comments, especially those made in the last few weeks or months, before leaving a negative comment... for that matter, you should check their score before doing business at all- it may save you a huge headache later on.
If the other user has 2600 positives and only three negatives and has no recent problems indicated, you might want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep trying to contact them; it's possible that there's a technical problem with a server or the web that has nothing to do with them at all.
An absence of responses to one or two e-mails may just mean a personal problem on the other end. Remember, the majority of auction users out there are a staff of one. You aren't dealing with amazon.com or Walmart- cut them some slack and remember this, if you haven't heard from them for a few days. But if they constantly ignore your attempts at communication and it's been several weeks, then this changes things.
Always give another party at least 48 to 72 hours to respond to your e-mail at a minimum. I once won an auction for 3 old (and valuable) sci-fi movie posters, and flew home to the east coast right afterwards. An hour after the bidding ended, I was at the airport to catch a red-eye, and I was home 12 hours after the auction ended.
When I arrived home, an e-mail was waiting for me from the seller which just blew my mind- it stated that since I had failed to respond to the seller the night the auction ended, they had sold the posters to someone down the street.
Seeing this for the absolute baloney that it was, I was furious. The seller had obviously found a better offer after I won the bid fair and sqaure, and wanted to back out. When I contacted them, they stated they no longer had the posters (they claimed to have sold them to a person in town that morning). The person claimed to be new to online auctions, blah, blah, blah. Luckily, we worked it out in a civil manner, but I was still furious.
If I had wanted to, I could easily have left them a negative and it would have been within my rights to do so: they had violated the ebay guideline of waiting 72 hours for an auction user to respond to an e-mail before terminating a deal.
Since they made an honest attempt to rectify the situation, I did not post negative feedback, but they risked a biggie neg with me and lost me as a customer for life. What was my incentive to trust them in the future? To paraphrase an old Arab expression: "Forgive, but tie up your camels."
When Enough is Enough - A Timeline
So, here's when to think about leaving a negative (if you must):
• Wait a minimum of two weeks before you start e-mailing about the whereabouts of a payment or a package unless it's Fed-Ex or overnight, etc.
• Allow three to four weeks before you even start thinking of reporting someone for no-response problems.
• Five to six weeks with no response or action and you're deep into negative posting territory. At this point, all bets are off... negatives can and should be posted when you KNOW the deal has gone bad, and have been dealing with someone who turns out to be a confirmed stinker. Pull the arrows from the quill and let the zingers fly...
Remember: Never post negative feedback with your seller account!
Expert Tip: When posting positive feedback, it saves time to cut and past pre-typed blocks of text, to speed things up.However, when you post neutral or negative feedback, type in your words manually.
This gives you time to be certain of what you are saying, before you hit the send key and leave that little bit of bad karma floating around on ebay forevermore. It just might prevent you from getting a revenge negative too, especially if your posting was an error.
For more info on feedback, please read our article series:
Auction Etiquette
Learn at ebay: feedback
