Squeezing Blood from a Stone

EBay has a new feedback rating system! I think they have forgotten who pays their bills: The Sellers. There was nothing wrong with the old system. But ebay has decided to keep the old system of Positive-Neutral-Negative with room for a comment and in addition ADD a 5 Star Rating system when Buyers can ANONYMOUSLY give the seller Stars in four categories.

Part of being a good seller is making things right. When a buyer anonymously decides that he is unhappy, and leaves one star out of five, and leave positive under the old system, how can you make it right? You don't even know who left it or why!

And there is no 5 Star system to anonymously rate BUYERS. Only sellers can be punished under the new system. I think eBay forgets its origin and who sends them money!

Here I will analyze each of the four Star Rating categories and why it makes it very absurd to do business.

Category 1: Item As Described
The item may be as described but not exactly what you expected. This is common with clothes where a photo and a verbal desciption cannot convey the exact and actual feel and weight and color of the garment. You may have had another idea of the item in your head, and although the item was exactly as descibed in the auction, you are disappointed so punish the seller in this area by giving less than 5 stars.

Category 2: Communication:
I used to send a personal email to all the buyers at the end of the auction. Now ebay and paypal have automated everything, giving me extra time. The buyer gets 3 or 4 emails with a "personal" message from me in the text. Shall I go back to personal emails so I can get 5 stars under communication? Also it is common to get "Question for Seller from Buyer" while the auction is under weigh. If I am not on email 24 hours a day, it may take 12-16 hours to answer the questions. Shall I worry about checking my email more?

Category 3: Shipping Time:
Frankly I ship almost daily and promptly so I do not understand why I only have 4 1/2 stars out of 5 in this category. When people pay on Friday night, I do not send it until Monday. Most people are thrilled because unlike buying from Amazon or another online company, with priority mail they have item in hand 2-3 days after they pay for it.

Why am I losing stars in this category? I think that since 20% of my business is international, it must be the international buyers annoyed with how slow their nation's postal service is. I cannot do anything more than get the box in the mail ASAP. Although I admit when I know I have a few international packages, I wait (no more than one day) for all the payments to come through before shipping. The reason is that international shipments require me to wait on line- unlike domestic packages, I cannot print the postage online and drop the package off. I must get on line at the post office, wait my turn, fill out a Customs slip and be waited on by a clerk and pay the postage there. I drop all the USA boxes off without waiting in line or speaking to anyone. If I have 3 international packages, I would rather wait in line and do them all at once, rather than go 3 times. Not to mention that with the gas prices, it makes sense to combine trips. So sometimes I do wait a day or 2 until all of those come in. Plus I cannot use the US domestic shipping boxes: international shipping requires I provide my own box. Sometimes I have to search around awhile, and the packaging also takes more time. Now I have to add extra stress trying to rush out the second I get an international payment in order to avoid a bad star rating. Even though, if their customs office holds it up, they will lay the blame on me. I sent a dress to Russia and apparently it took 3 weeks. I sent it right out and it was not my fault. I also had a buyer from AUSTRALIA (on the other side of the world) complain to me after only 8 days that his package had not arrived yet, what did I do with it?

Category 4: Shipping and Handling charges:
Who is going to leave 5 stars for shipping and handling charges unless they get it for free or for less than the cost of shipping? Nobody! I see how this rating can punish those sellers who blatantly charge 4 times what it costs them. However, the buyer can always see very, very clearly how much shipping is and avoid buying from those sellers. To add insult to injury, the US Postal Service has again increase priority mail rates. On a flat rate box, which I send the suits it, it has gone up a dollar. On the under one pound box, which I send the pants in, it has gone up 55 cents. I don't dare pass this cost on to the buyers, because I will get a bad star rating in this category. I figured that do to the combination of the postal increase and the star rating, with my volume this will cost me $50-$80 a month in lowered profits. I have 4 stars out of 5 for shipping and handling fees now, when I only add about 50 cents to $1 to the actual cost of shipping. And when I ship to California I actually lose money. I used to not add any handling, but when ebay and paypal upped their fees to me by a huge margin for the second time in a year I had no choice. My profit margin became so low that I had to make 50 cents or so on the shipping in order to keep making money.

Another reason I am failing miserably in this category is the Canadians. They feel that shipping should be the same as to ship to the US- if not less- if not free. I have explained to countless Canadians that there order requires 3 times more work than a domestic order and costs more. A lot of them try to get away with adding the US price to their order hoping I won't notice when it says in HUGE red letters what their shipping price is. They also want me to lie on the Customs Form, but that is stuff for another blog entry.

Now if I up my shipping rates even to cover the cost, it is going to look too expensive for a buyer to want to bid on the item. Every time there is a shipping increase, I wind up selling my items for much lower prices.

I feel like between eBay and the US Postal service, the honest seller is being squeezed out of any sort of profit. Not to mention gas prices and now I have to make extra trips to the post office instead of waiting an extra day to combine shipments.

Since the star rating just started I was hoping maybe I would look better than the bad sellers at least: that 4 1/2 stars is actually outstanding. Until I started looking around at other sellers' feedbacks vs. Star ratings. Check this out:

Recent Feedback Ratings (last 12 months)

Positive
8138 - past month
62088 -past 6 months
114243 - past year

Neutral
102 -past month
715 - past 6 months
1367 - past year

Negative
119 - past month
860 - past 6 months
1562 - past year

One of the WORST sellers on eBay with 119 negatives A MONTH?? Isn't that about FOUR per day? And neutrals are just people too nice to give a negative but he has anohter 102 neutrals per month. Yes, I see he had 8000 happy customers in the past month. Wait a minute! Red flag, how does anyone keep track of 10,000 transactions a month without messing up a few every day? I won't by from these megasellers. Also their communication is atrocious. If you have a problem, good luck getting a person. The real kicker is that his STAR rating is essentially exactly the same as mine. Why would anyone buy from this seller? Yet his stars look identical to mine! The star rating system isn't flushing out the losers. It is just giving me angst. Stupid buyers will always buy from bad sellers and no worry that 4 transactions a day go sour. I had 3 transactions go sour in 7 years! True I only had 10,000 transactions total.

I need to come up with a new racket.

The Latest Catastrope

This is why a camera phone comes in handy. So I dropped my son at baseball practice and was driving home and I hit this-- sticking out in the road:



It is some type of stake to hold up a silt fence:

I hear something like a blown tire and pull over and I see this:




It also scratched some paint off the car:



A friend came to help and said I should call the police to get a police report about a hazard in the road. So the police in the area where it happened are the meanest on earth I really didnt want to. But he came and wrote up a report and said that it was the County D.O.T. who left the hazard that I should call them. I am glad I had my cell phone camera. I just do not have the energy to call them. It's just another big headache.

In Memory of Paul

BIKE PAUL
1971-2007
Rest in Peace

I changed the words a bit to a song I really love that for some reason reminds me of Paul. The original song is about feeling like a misfit and not fitting in with all the cool people. It specifically talks about rock and rollers. Paul was not a rock & roller but he did rock and roll that bike! It is about healing. They lift up their hands in celebration of healing, friendship and love.

Rain falls hard
Burns dry
A dream
Or a song
That hits you so hard
Filling you up
And suddenly gone

Breath
Feel
Love
Give
Free
Know in you soul
Like your blood knows the way
From you heart to your brain
Know that you're whole

And you're shining
Like the brightest bars
A transmission
On the midnight skate & roll
And you're spinning
Like a 360
Stunt bike rider
Spinning to your bike and roll

Here's to Bike Paul
And Skating
And Fixing
And David
And Wheelies
And Paul
And Sam

And all the strange bike skate rollers
You know you're doing all right
So hold on to each other
You gotta hold on tonight

And you're shining
Like the brightest handle bars
A transmission
On the midnight skate and roll
And you're spinning
Your new 180's


All the misfits and the losers
Yeah, you know you're skate bike rollers
Spinning to your bike and roll

So hold on to each other
You gotta hold on tonight

Lift up your hands
Lift up your hands
Lift up your hands