What's Your eBay Reputation Really Worth?
Your eBay reputation is everything you are on eBay -
without it, you're nothing. Your reputation is worth as much as
every sale you will ever make.
If you've ever bought anything on eBay (and the chances are
you have), then think about your own behaviour. Buying from a
seller with a low feedback rating makes you feel a little
nervous and insecure, while buying from a PowerSeller with
their reputation in the thousands doesn't require any thought
or fear - it feels just like buying from a shop.
A Bad Reputation Will Lose You Sales
In fact, a bad reputation will lose you almost all your
sales. If someone leaves you negative feedback, you will feel
the pain straight away, as that rating will go right at the top
of your user page for everyone to see. Who's going to want to
do business with you when they've just read that you "took a
month to deliver the item", or that you had "bad communication
and sent a damaged item"? The answer is no-one.
Your next few items will need to be very cheap things, just
to push that negative down the page. You might have to spend
days or even weeks selling cheap stuff to get enough positive
feedback to make anyone deal with you again.
It's even worse if you consistently let buyers leave
negative feedback - once you get below 90% positive ratings,
you might as well be invisible.
You Can't Just Open a New Account
Besides eBay's rules about only having one account, there
are far more downsides than that to getting a new account. You
literally have to start all over again from scratch.
You won't be able to use all the different eBay features.
Your existing customers won't be able to find you any more.
Your auctions will finish at a lower price because of your low
feedback rating. Opening a new account is like moving to a new
town to get away from a few people who are spreading rumours
about you: it's throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
A Good Reputation Will Get You Sales
When a PowerSeller tells me something, I tend to believe
them. They can be selling a pretty unlikely item, but if they
guarantee it is what they say it is, then I trust them -
they're not going to risk their reputation, after all. This is
the power of a reputation: people know you want to keep it, and
they know you'll go to almost any lengths to do so.
This is true even to the point that I would sooner buy
something for $20 from a seller I know I can trust than for $15
from someone with average feedback. It's worth the extra money
to feel like the seller knows what they're doing, has all their
systems in place and will get me the item quickly and
efficiently.
You really will find selling on eBay so much easier, and
there's only way to get a good reputation: make sure you please
your customers every time. But some customers can be, well,
just a little difficult to please. In the next email, we ask:
is the eBay customer always right?
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