Home › Forums › Customer Issues › Got our First Negative after 16 Years .. Seeking Advice
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Zach.
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04/26/2018 at 9:16 am #38370
Well we knew sooner or later we would get our first negative.:-( ๐
With the new Ebay processes going into effect wondering what would be a choice of action, if any.
We received an email from an Ebayer telling us a listing was a reproduction and new ones were readily available at a third of what we were asking. Ours was also in bad shape to boot. So we pulled that item out of our inventory. It sat for a long while and then either we donated it, tossed it, sold it at our yard sale. Can’t really remember but best we can remember it is gone and we forgot to kill the listing. Ooops! Yep our fault.
Then after months of that listing still showing actively someone bought it. We went to pull it and of course it was gone. Then my wife reminded me that we had donated or discarded it and she asked me why it was still an active listing. Only answer was I forgot to kill the listing and then I just forgot about the whole thing.
Now a few weeks ago a customer bought that item. I went to pull the item and couldn’t find it. I wrote the customer immediately and informed him we couldn’t find the item [I forgot what had happened to it], apologized nicely, and refunded him 100%. We also told him if we find the item or get another one we would send it to him at no charge.
Now over a month later, [must have been the Ebay auto. message they send asking for a feedback], he does reply with a negative. It simply states, “Seller informed me after auction that they couldn’t find item. BS.”
With the New Ebay policies, Is this just a matter of it is what it is, or is there maybe some course of action to maybe get this removed? It was not an auction, it was a BIN, but it certainly was the buyer of that item we pulled out of inventory.
Guess if this has to stay, it will take a year to go away and also ding our rating. Wonder how much one negative will hurt our ratings number?
Any thought or input??
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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04/26/2018 at 10:24 am #38378
Welcome to the club. I cant believe you went 13 years without a negative.
In this case, you made a mistake. A normal buyer would have accepted your apology and moved on. But you got a grumpy buyer who wants to make sure everyone knows how grumpy they are.
Since you made the mistake, I dont see how eBay would remove the feedback. And I dont see how you could convince the buyer to change their mind.
As we’ve mentioned before, we get one or two negatives each year. Just part of being a full-time seller. Sales keep coming.
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04/26/2018 at 10:36 am #38381
That’s what I thought. Do I get a badge or something for “joining the club”?
I do get a chance to reply which will be posted under his comment. Will post something positive like ..
“We apologized and refunded 100%. Thank you for your patronage and for Supporting American Small Business”. Please visit us again!”
What do you think?
Mike at MDCG
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04/26/2018 at 11:34 am #38388
Thanks guys. Will reply to the feedback shortly. What can you do; c’est la vie.โ From French, meaning โthat’s life.โ
Michael, Susan and Lisa .. the team at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
SmartParts Small Equipment Parts -
04/26/2018 at 12:50 pm #38399
MDC Galleries,
Since you do not have many characters to use, I would offer that you stay with โWe apologized and refunded 100%. Anything else takes away from the apology.
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04/26/2018 at 1:13 pm #38403
If it were me, I’d write the individual and ask why they left a negative feedback. In my life experience, folks like this guy who passive aggressively attack always backpedal when confronted.
I’ve received two negatives and I’ve called them both out on it. Both folks apologized and revised their feedback.
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04/26/2018 at 2:10 pm #38407
RT-WV: That may be an option but he wasn’t happy when we first notified him that we couldn’t ship his purchase. We apologized in an email to him and informed him we would keep looking but we were just unsure if the item was still in our inventory someplace or that it got donated earlier and we forgot to kill the listing. We offered at that time to refund him 100%.
His only reply was .. “Keep Looking”. We went ahead and refunded the next or so. Susan said she was fairly confident we donated it with the pile that went to GoodWill but not positive. I looked again several rows above and below and didn’t see it. So I think once we found out it was not a real hood ornament from a Packard automobile but a generic winged lady repro and damaged besides, we just pulled the inventory tag and threw it into the donation pile.
That has been well over a month ago and what we think happened is Ebay sent one of those emails that they send to customers who have not left feedback after a month goes by, he got it and then decided to give us the burn.
At this point unsure how he would react and we can’t say anything else. we have apologized twice, gave him his money back and the listing is gone. What more could we say??
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
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04/26/2018 at 2:29 pm #38412
We used to try to negotiate with grumpy buyers. Never had any luck. I’m always amazed when someone says they are able to get a buyer to change their feedback. Good for them!
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
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04/26/2018 at 9:41 pm #38438
I wouldn’t do a thing or give it another thought. It’s really no big deal at all to have one negative feedback. It’s not going to affect your sales at all.
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04/26/2018 at 10:13 pm #38447
I just want to second AdventureE and sonia. Just leave the “We apologized and refunded 100%” and then don’t give it another thought. I got my first negative after being on eBay since 2002, of course just dabbling in it for most of that time, but it hurt! It didn’t change my sales one bit though, I think everyone knows you can’t please everyone all of the time and that there are some people who are just negative no matter what. I don’t think people look at 99.something positive feedback and think anything but “wow, great seller”. Also for me, the negative was really freeing – after that I didn’t ever worry about getting my first negative and it ruining my 100% positive feedback rating. So that’s the silver lining.
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04/29/2018 at 11:29 am #38644
Well guys, here a very interesting situation. The negative we got was because an buyer purchased an item that we couldn’t find and had to cancel and inform him that we couldn’t find it. Also told him if we found it we would send it to him at that time free of charge.
well we went to pull a candle holder from bin #1413 and low and behold there was the winged hood ornament item in that bin. The item he had purchased that we couldn’t find on March 30. The same item he gave us a negative on.
So now the question of the day is, should I contact him,tell him we found it and then follow through with sending it to him for free, or just let sleeping dogs lie? If we send it to him, like we said, he may decide to change his negative feedback or at least maybe we can ask him.
Now the second question of the day is, if we do want to send to him [we have his address in PayPal], do we send it to him which would be outside of Ebay. Or tell him we would relist it for $1 one dollar and free shiping. Let him re-buy it and then refund him his dollar. That would make it totally free for him.
Any thoughts on this since we have now found the item in question?
mike at MDC Galleries
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04/29/2018 at 11:43 am #38648
You could try to contact him and see if he still wants it. Personally, I’d just relist and move on. That buyer didnt seem reasonable.
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04/29/2018 at 1:06 pm #38679
“… We also told him if we find the item or get another one we would send it to him at no charge.”
“So now the question of the day is, should I contact him,tell him we found it and then follow through with sending it to him for free,…”Yes. You’re a long time experienced business man with integrity, at least you come across that way to me. Swallow hard, pick up the phone and call this guy to explain the current situation. Tell him you intend to follow through on your promise and before hanging up let him know how punishing a negative can be to your online business and you hope he would reconsider and remove the comment.
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04/29/2018 at 1:23 pm #38682
Calling him directly is something we did not even think about, since we have never done that before. good idea.
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04/29/2018 at 2:15 pm #38692
Mike,
I just want to offer that a phone call and its contents cannot be tracked or verified.Has there been a time when you were very upset with someone and did not trust them because you thought they were lying to get away with something? Could they have said or done something (while you were uoset) to change or mind or the situation without aggrevating it some more?
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04/29/2018 at 2:24 pm #38694
I hear you AE. to answer, yep. One of my former businesses was a remodeling contracting business and yes, both from customers and from sub-contractors. In most cases, the sound in the tone of the voice speaks volumes. You can decpher if they are real angry or just slightly miffed. In the later it is not too hard to take care of the situation. Then if they are extremely agressive and abusive, swearing, threatening, then that gets handled a different way and at times just unresolvable.
I am going to sleep on the phone call idea, but like what you state about it becomes off the record, if sending him the item is his desire, I can do it outside of the Ebage protocols and buy my own shipping label through PayPal and discuss the feedback issue as you said. It would be nice to just have it removed by him.
I’ll see tomorrow. It has been over a month now and a day or two more won’t hurt.
Thanks for giving me support and I appreciate your thoughts and input.
Mike at MDC Galleries
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04/29/2018 at 3:46 pm #38698
Mike,
Regardless of what you decide to do about this, I just want to offer – Find 10-20 items you are comfortable putting on sale at low cost. People love sales. Let the items sell. Be your excellent seller self in getting all of the items to the buyers exactly as described. By the time the new positive feedback comes in (which buyers can see by date) this negative (if still there) will just be a blip on the radar. It will leave buyers thinking – he has this one negative with an apology and refund but look at all the postive before and after. -
04/29/2018 at 4:11 pm #38703
That’s a real good tip on the deep discount sale on a few items. But we also run 15% to 20% Off Sales every week. We Run [usually but no some weeks like this week] a Sale that Starts on Wed. morning [12:01 AM PST] and ends Sunday Night at 12:01 AM PST. 5 day sales and run those probaly 40 times a year +/-.
So just time to do another.. AND Here’s a tip back. If you want to “visually” drive any neutral or negative down the viewing screen, the reply to every feedback you get and that adds an extra line [space] to that feedback and drives the feedback lines down faster. So if you have your screen set to show 20 items per page then those 20 will take up about twice the real estate line wise and many people just won’t scroll down that far. It is just a visual thing. But, I reply to almost every Feedback we get. Certainly every other one. Still have the time to Thank them, etc. Also we have a ton of feednacks on our “special Cocoon packing process”. Customers love it so we try to thank them and re-state how carefully we pack our items.
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04/29/2018 at 4:20 pm #38704
I never thought about that. Good tip.
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04/29/2018 at 4:56 pm #38707
How do you reply to a positive feedback? I’m looking at my feedback page, and I don’t see any way of doing it. I do remember that when I replied to a negative feedback a few years ago, it was easy to do.
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04/29/2018 at 5:05 pm #38709
Of course I have that book marked and added to my dashboard so I can go to ours with one clcik. But here is what it says at the top of the page my book mark takes me to?
Home > Community > Feedback Forum > Reply to Feedback Received
So check in the community / Feedback forum or Search Ebay for Reply to Feedback and see what you get.
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04/29/2018 at 5:31 pm #38711
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04/29/2018 at 5:35 pm #38713
OK, here’s the correct link to the page where you can reply to feedback, for anyone who needs it:
https://feedback.ebay.com/ws/BayISAPI.dll?PersonalizedFeedbackLogin
I think I’ll bookmark that now.
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04/29/2018 at 6:46 pm #38716
Hey Sonia.. this link and the other one you had posted takes users back to my personal pages. Would you please delte these. I do not wish my personal stuff to be published. Many of the SL posts get picked up by Google and then my personal dashboard is open to public access.
Sorry if I included anything, but by clicking on this link, you wind up on my replies and feedback.
I sure would appreciate it.
Thanks.. Mike at MDC Galleries.
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04/29/2018 at 6:53 pm #38717
you’re only seeing personalized results because you are logged into ebay. anyone who clicks on that link will see the ability to respond to their own feedback, not yours. (is that the link you mean?)
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04/29/2018 at 6:55 pm #38719
Mike: I can confirm what Ryanne said. When I click on that link, I am seeing only MY feedback, not yours.
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04/29/2018 at 6:59 pm #38721
Got it now. didn’t think about being logged in.
In any case hope everyone can get to there’s and maybe input some good replies and thank you for the kudos to their buyers. ๐
mike
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04/29/2018 at 7:00 pm #38722
Thanks Ryanne, got it. Got jumpy for a second. Appreciate all the quick feedback. Didn’t think about being logged in.
mike
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04/29/2018 at 6:54 pm #38718
Mike, the link only takes YOU back to your personal page b/c your browser knows that you are logged in to ebay (via the cookie that got set when you logged in). The link takes me back to my personal page. I have no way of getting to your personal page. I’m not sure I even know what your ebay id is, so how could i have constructed a link to your personal page? If you look at the URL, you will see it is generic – has no user info in it at all.
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04/29/2018 at 6:58 pm #38720
Thanks guys. Got worried for a minute. thoght the partial header I sent to you contained the link into mine. Sorry, but better safe than sorry.
mike at mdcg
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04/29/2018 at 7:02 pm #38724
and if you click on that link and are not signed in to ebay, it makes you sign in.
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04/29/2018 at 7:05 pm #38727
Got ‘cha. Thanks everyone for such fast replies. think it may be time for a Vodka & Tonic. Anyone want to join me??? ๐ ๐
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04/29/2018 at 7:07 pm #38731
Bourbon for me please, preferably Single Barrel.
But…I have to pick up Veronica from the airport tonight, so have to wait. She played in the sun and sand with her Mom and Sister since Wednesday night…while I played with data… ๐
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04/29/2018 at 8:16 pm #38735
Have some Maker’s Mark.. will that do. Susan did a new style old fashion with Badda Bing Cherries, Yuck!
You did play with data today and loved every bit of it. Going to make some modifications in WondeLister tomorrow to pick up some of your relisting methodologies. you have me convinced and especially after I re-listened to the Ebay Cassini engineer’s video again. Man it all sure makes sense to me.
But Susan is just like Veronica, while I am mulling over your data she is showing me where we need to go next week for some great stuff at an estate Sale. She loves to shop and leaves me to, as you call it, the back end stuff.
Great stuff today. all of your data [loved it], some art dialogue and we have had a great day selling also. cha ching after cha ching all day and still a couple of pending offers to deal with. 8 Sales with over 32 individual pieces [some sets sold] to pack and ship tomorrow. Almost $300 today all while sitting here and posting on SL. Maybe you guys bring us luck.
Well here’s to another tomorrow.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
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04/29/2018 at 9:45 pm #38740
Makerโs will work, and 46 even better!
Hope the luck goes your way as well. We had a hell of a good week, and passed $400 today.
Our test with sales may be paying off…
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04/29/2018 at 11:48 am #38650
Good point and if I sent it to him free outside of Ebay and he then goes and revises the negative feedback and says something about me sending it to him for free, Ebay may see that and come back on me for doing an end run around them, since the initial contact was through Ebay.
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04/29/2018 at 7:01 pm #38723
it would be like if i posted this link
gmail.com
you would only see your own email if you were signed in, not anyone elses.
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04/29/2018 at 12:00 pm #38656
Mike, I would relist the item, then contact the buyer saying that you found it. See if he is interested and maybe you can negotiate the negative away. But if not, just move on. 1 negative isn’t a huge issue on your score.
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04/29/2018 at 12:11 pm #38662
Mike,
I would hold off on relisting it for awhile. If you relist it immediately and the buyer sees it, it could look like you are playing games which could wind up in the feedback. In researching items, I have seen that kind of review in some sellers’ feedback -it says something like – I won the auction or paid and then the seller said they did not have it or could not find it. Then I found the item listed again/for sale by the seller. Do not buy from this seller.
Seeing this kind of review makes the seller look fishy. Even though you had a legit situation, buyers will not know that.
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04/29/2018 at 12:16 pm #38664
That is exactly what Susan just said to me. She said she maybe would just put it in this springs yard sale that we do occasionally. If not then maybe relist early next year.
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04/29/2018 at 12:20 pm #38666
Mike: You could also contact the buyer first, let them know you found it, offer to honor the original sales price if he wants it, and you can relist it at that time and he can purchase. If he doesn’t want it, you can let him know that since you found it, you will relist the item.
Let him drive your decision point.
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04/29/2018 at 12:32 pm #38670
T-Satt,
I appreciate your perspective but this buyer already does not trust Mike as a seller. Opening a conversation with this kind of buyer may be like “opening a can of worms” which is just bursting at the seams. Once worms are out, getting them up and back into the can can be very complex and take a really long time. Much time will be lost finding and picking up worms that could be used researching, listing, packaging, and even sourcing.
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04/29/2018 at 1:00 pm #38676
Yeah he really wasnt happy. He may even think we sold it to somebody else for a higher amount, then it got returned and now we want to try to resell to him. PLUS.. I also said in anearlier email to him, if we ever did find it we would sned it along to him for FREE! as a consolation for the error.
Thanks t-Satt but think I will go along with AE and Susan. Just move on, no big deal with our first negative in 16 years and let it disappear. As Jay told me, “Welcome to the Negative Feedback Club”. I still want some sort of a badge for joining the club ๐
If I get this guy going again, he just may have too much time on his hands and then he comments on the second effort to contact him.
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04/29/2018 at 3:06 pm #38695
Wow, you found the item.
You went the extra mile to make up for the cancelled sale.
It sounds like this guy is a bit grumpy and not worth dealing with. You’ve already got the negative. It’s unlikely he’s going to change it, regardless of your actions.
I wouldn’t send him anything for free at this point. Zero, Nada have a nice day.
Block him and relist it.. maybe even cheaper.. I know, I know asking for trouble. The smart adult move would be to do what others say and list it later on or just not at all. Who needs the drama.
I had a negative revised a couple of years ago. Basically, I apologized for doing nothing wrong, let her keep the item and gave her a 100% refund. When it was all said and done, I didn’t feel it was worth the hassle to get it reversed.
You’ve got to love a buyer, who has no problem leaving the first negative. on your account.
I’d block the guy and then list list list. Life is too short.
Good Luck.
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04/29/2018 at 3:30 pm #38696
Wow.. let us know what happens. Too bad he left the negative and was rude or it would have been an easy choice to just send it to him for nothing – it would have made your day and you both would have felt good about the transaction. To me “revised feedbacks” are obvious because of the revision date in the feedback thread and may send flags because there was some “issue” going on at one point and this may just be me, but I wonder if it may encourage others to complain also, just to give you a chance to ‘make it right’ (and give out a partial refund). I would probably just make sure he was blocked and relist it in 6 months or longer. (Next time don’t offer to send it for free, so you don’t have to deliberate over it. ๐ The negative will soon be a blip on the radar disappearing fast with all your new sales and positive feedbacks coming your way. What kind of feedback has he left for others, just curious? Seems like there is a good chance he will blow you off and not even change the feedback anyway and in general you are re-opening an unknown can of worms.. just let him go. GOOD LUCK!
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04/30/2018 at 11:27 am #38777
I would send him the item for free, just as you promised. Be the bigger person. Don’t ask for feedback revision unless he contacts you afterwards and is apologetic. It is the right thing to do.
He had every right to be mad that you did not fulfill the order as promised. However, I think most buyers who leave negative feedback are doing so not just because of the present transaction, but due to poor experiences with sellers on eBay in the past. Most people on this forum are very attentive sellers with good customer service, but there are also a lot of awful sellers on eBay who misrepresent items, frequently cancel sales, and overall provide horrendous or hostile customer service. These awful sellers lead some buyers to assume the worst about all sellers on eBay.
Show this person you are an honest seller who made an honest mistake and you might be surprised by your buyer’s reaction.
Of course, some buyers are just grumpy and/or have horrible lives and enjoy taking out their frustrations on others semi-anonymously. In that instance, still take the high road, but block them from future purchases.
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