Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Feedback

As some of you may know, I am an eBay fiend. I sell and buy. Mostly buy. And I've been doing it since eBay was a pup. Like since the late 90's. (Which in cyber world is positively ancient) I don't sell stuff every week, or even every month, and I certainly don't make a living out of it. (Nor do I put in EVERY SINGLE LISTING, "I'm a stay at home mom, and I'm selling these items so I can stay home with my beautiful children." Not that theres anything wrong with stay at home moms, no hate mail please. The idea that you should buy Precious Moments figurines and onesies from the flea market so Becky can stay home with Cody, Cory, Morrie and Chad is just wonderful, but I don't need to read it in every blasted description.)

I like it. The whole idea of being able to find what you want (90% of the time) from the comfort of your dining room table (no wireless here, kids) in your jammies, pleases me. And then theres the whole selling thing. Love that too. Getting rid of your stuff because out there, somewhere, someone wants it.

Alas, being lazy even comes into play here. It takes awhile to list stuff on eBay. Take the picture, write an interesting description (harder than you think sometimes) upload the pictures, calculate shipping, and on and on. I guess it takes about 15 minutes per item. But that still beats the crap out of standing at the flea market all morning haggling with the great unwashed.

One of my eBay gripes (besides the fees) is feedback. I've worked very hard to keep my feedback clean and happy. I have one negative, and that came many years ago when I had a really shitty computer, no internet access at work, and buyer's remorse. The ugly handpainted VW bus tote bag I didn't buy in 1999 haunts me daily. I take feedback very seriously.


With that being said, I'd like to know why some sellers (and buyers) don't do feedback. Surely everyone knows that feedback is an integral part of the eBay 'experience' (hate that, but for the lack of a better word) If you don't want to feedback because the service was shitty, or the product was lousy, SAY SOMETHING. The eBay mail system is pretty good. Just don't say NOTHING! That irks the living shit out of me. I keep my eBay transactions 'active' in my email until I've received the product. Then I feedback and delete the transactions out of my inbox. It's not that hard, really. Feedback for stuff I sold is even easier. As soon as I'm paid, I feedback. Easy. I'd think everyone would have the system, but apparently not.

So I've taken to sending people (buyers and sellers alike) a little note: "I've received my item, thanks very much. I left positive feedback for you this morning/afternoon. Again, thank you for an easy transaction" or "I shipped your item today, please let me know when it arrives, and you're satisfied. Thanks for your quick payment" 99 times out of 100 I get an email back, and the feedback accordingly. But thats not good enough. I want EVERYONE to feedback, be it positive or negative. It's irksome to go through all that to get no response at all.

The whole idea to this rant is that if you buy or sell on eBay, leave feedback. It's the courteous thing to do.

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