Also, the sellers can really get frustrated because of such buyers, and in that post it is also mentioned :
Now, if the buyer just gives negative feedback without even contacting us, how do we sort the problem? And in fact why should we sort the problem till the false negative feedback is not removed? We have mentioned clearly in our terms that the buyer needs to contact us and we will sort the problem out, but if he gives us a feedback directly, we cannot help unless his feedback is withdrawn. We have even sent a feedback withdrawal request to most such buyers and many have even agreed and their problems have been sorted out by us. You can see there are 14 feedbacks withdrawn from our account. So it proves our commitment to make it a happy transaction for him, but then he too should co-operate. You will see in our resolution replies that we are rarely at fault and in most cases it is not our fault at all, but still we are facing suspension!!! In fact we are still ready to replace the item provided the buyer withdraws the false feedback he has given us and returns the item in unused condition.
Such issues rarely happen with sellers outside India as the buyers there are much more educated and thoughtful about buying online. They do read the sellers terms and understand the way things work in an online transaction. But this is really missing in India buyers as it is just the way the Indian Buyer’s mentality is. In fact maybe even I as a buyer would be very similar. You will understand a bit about how the Indian buyer’s mentality works in the resolutions I have provided to the outstanding issues. Internationally the buyer’s would first email the seller the issue being faced and then give their feedback, but in India they will just give –ve feedback. So, there has to be something done in the whole eBay system to sort such issues otherwise new buyer’s will find all the sellers with inflated –ve feedbacks and shy away from buying, which will even be a loss to eBay.
This fact was very well understood by the erstwhile Baazee.com and they had this system wherein the buyer’s could edit the feedback given by them to positive/neutral, but that does not happen on eBay. And believe me, more that 70% negative feedbacks were edited by the buyers; I have over 150 such orders in my earlier Baazee account. I can prove to you how useful it was and the difference it made to the sales:
- The seller “silconvalley” had Zero negative feedback on Baazee.com, but has received 9 negative feedbacks on eBay in just a month!!!
- The seller “cellphonewala (4785)” with a feedback score of almost 5000, 25 negative and 1689 positive in the past 12 months, has received 6 negative feedbacks against only 43 positive ratings in the past 1 month. So has he suddenly turned into a bad seller???
- The seller “gifts2gifts (5054)”, the only 5000+ score seller on eBay India, and with 4052 positive and 101 negative in the past 12 months, has received 13 negative feedbacks against only 41 positive ratings in the past 1 month.
- On his other ID “gifts2giftsauction (2012)” with a feedback score of over 2000 and 2245 positive and 68 negative in the past 12 months, has received 11 negative feedbacks against only 30 positive ratings in the past 1 month. So is he doing something very different from what he was doing earlier???
The truth is “NO” these are not bad sellers, they are still some the best sellers on eBay India, but it is some rules of eBay which do not seem to be working in India. This has also caused the sale to go down drastically as well as the sellers’ feedback ratios. And the worst thing is that this trend can be seen with all sellers on eBay India!!! The only reason being that buyer’s in India do not believe in contacting the sellers for resolving theior problems, they just love giving –ve feedbacks at their whims and fancies.
So why is it that eBay is always against the seller with an idea that the seller is out only to cheat the buyers? We are here to do nice clean business and have repeat buyers coming back again and again. But eBay’s terms are such that they hamper our business, atleast in India. It can also be seen that many sellers have already left quit selling on eBay due to such problems of low sale and high negatives. I hope something is done by eBay soon to stop this trend.
