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?
About the author:
Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet auction enthusiast from
Nashville, TN. Visit
http://www.auctionseller411.com/ for more
great tips on how to make the most from Ebay and other online
auctions.
