Feedback from a store

I know we have had many topics about these feedbacks, but i was not sure which one to write in, so now i start a new one.

As a seller AND buyer. I will once again take on the topic of talking about stores, being able to write a feedback before the buyer have gotten the package.
It should not be possible for a store to leave a feedback to the customer before the customer have marked the order received.

The backstory for this is that i at the moment have an ongoing dispute with a store, that had 2 orders the same day and mixed those up. So my order went to one person, and i apparently got his order.

Now about the feedback. i got this : Thank you for using The Brick Depot. A seamless transaction and a great buyer!
The day after i had made the order. This was the 16. december and i have still not gotten my order. Now the store owner and me are in contact with each other and have had a nice talk, but from the start i was going to leave a very negative feedback to him. But he tried almost everything since HE had left me a positive feedback, being "a great buyer"

But again, since the transaction is not done. I think it should be made near impossible for a store to leave a feedback before the buyer have marked the order received. Because i can surely tell that the transaction have been a mess, i am in contact with my local toll post office, because they will not release the package, since info is missing. And all in all, there is just so much going on with this, that i have ONLY been a great buyer, because i myself is a store owner, and i do know mistakes can happen.

I have done a lot of learning an improvement on my store it self, and the whole shipping process, but i would never write a feedback for a transaction that is not done.


Now as an ending point. We have talked about this before, both for the feedback as a store, to see if it is a good store, but also to know if a buyer is good or bad, i think we should maybe have a new system, or something extra to be able to mark feedback or se if the buyer is trustworthy. Because i am getting tired of this, both as a seller and a buyer.

Long post, but i hope we can have a talk about this and finally come to some sort of agreement on how to do this in the future.

Comments

  • 17 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • I leave feedback for buyers after the package is shipped. As far as I'm concerned the buyer's part is over when they've paid. If they then become annoying or abusive for whatever reason, I will delete the feedback I've left, but as I can't leave a neutral or negative in any case, that leaves me in the same position as if I'd waited to leave feedback until after they confirmed receipt.
  • But even though we can only mark it as positive. You still close your option to write a text as feedback. If you delete the standard "thank you" that you wrote to the buyer, and the buyer then becomes a problem, you can only delete your comment, you are not able to make a new one. Saying something like "this buyer is a scam, watch out"
    Or something, just an example.
    So why not either wait to write anything. Positive or negative or simply not write anything at all.
  • Why would you leave a positive that called the buyer a scammer? Report it to BO and that way sellers see on the order which buyers are potentially problematic. Feedback in not a useful way of communicating with other sellers in my opinion.
  • Well it was just an example.
    But on the other hand, why leave a feedback before the order has arrived at the buyer.
    We as sellers have no idea how it will go down. So that just as much gives the wrong impression on both the buyer and the seller.

    the seller has giving me a nice written feedback, but then if i now write a bad feedback for the store, because of this bad transaction. Then who should the next buyer trust.
  • @Malnaborg. Leaving any kind of feedback that says "this buyer is a scam, watch out" is no help at all to a seller. You don't see the buyers' feedback before they place an order, and do you check out all a buyers' feedback before picking an order? I don't.

    The only real thing to do if you have a problem you can't solve is block the buyer and report if necessary.

    To be honest the impact of feedback is so low once you have a bit of it that it's not worth worrying about.
  • Okay forget my comment about the buyer is a scam. That was just an example.

    My point is, i just think that it should be blocked to leave a feedback, both for the buyer, but also from the store, from both until the order has been marked received.
    THEN we can talk about having an experience, being the sale or the buyer and so on.

    until then, i will be neutral in both getting a feedback, and leaving one for the store. Because it is not possible to leave a feedback of any kind, before the order has arrived at the buyer. Then you can write if the process was easy, great buyer / shop, got a little note with my purchase, and so on.

    If it is possible to leave a feedback before the buyer get the order, you can write whatever you like, being true or not. And then only have this one feedback to do it. Because as you say, if you delete your comment, you will not have another chance to write a new one. Hence leaving the whole experience blank, from the shop side and the buyer to write a negative feedback without the shop having a way of counter that.

    That is my point and issue.
  • In all honesty I don't feel it is necessary for sellers to leave feedback for buyers. It counts for nothing really, but I still do it for two reasons. (1) many buyers expect it because feedback is/was a big part of the BL/Ebay experience; (2) it helps other sellers see a buyer's pattern of orders, which may help if they have a concern of some sort.

    Given that leaving a negative comment goes against the spirit of posting a positive feedback, I guess I'm struggling to understand why what you would say in the feedback is somehow crucial to the transaction?
  • It is still not about either leaving or not leaving.

    It is about IF you want to leave a feedback, either as the store or as the buyer. It should not be possible to do so, BEFORE the order has been marked received. Then the transaction is done, and a feedback can be written.
    Now when it is possible to do it, right after the order, it is not a full view of the order process and either side could turn up going the other way.

    As for me now, when i have a store writing "A seamless transaction" and it has been nothing like that.
  • Okay I think understand your point, but I just don't agree it's necessary.

    I can see, by viewing your feedback, that you haven't left feedback for some buyers, even though they've confirmed receipt by leaving you feedback. Is your point that they're not clicking the completely optional 'Received' button?

    I would rather have that button removed than make it mandatory before I can file an order and move on.
  • Normally with my orders i leave a note in the package. So by that, i do not leave a feedback here on the page.
    So yes, my point or talk with this would be some form of "alternation" with the whole feedback system.
    And i know @Lawrence have been in on the talk before.
  • If there's a problem with the feedback system, it is that it is subjective and not objective.

    If buyer feedback was limited to three states: 1)no issues 2)issues resolved 3)issues not resolved…that should be sufficient to gauge the quality of the seller from a buyer's perspective. The only other thing that comes to mind relative to some orders I've placed is that on occasion a part is "not as described" being the listing says "good condition" and then it arrives with bite marks. If I could see a feedback trend where the buyers were consistently getting "not as described" from a particular seller, that would lead me to exercise caution with regard to the seller and perhaps the seller would get the hint and list more appropriately.

    If seller feedback was similarly quantified into information that was of use to sellers, and I don't know what those points would be, but possibly 1)no issues 2)payment problem 3)address problem 4)order cancelled 5,6,7) [whatever other things].

    Leave a comment box for those so inclined for both buyers and sellers.

    I don't know how to deal with all the issues surround shipping problems, but those generally should not be strikes against a seller. It seems that too often shipping problems end up reflecting negatively on the seller. Maybe shipping issues are a separate component and get noted elsewhere in a shipping feedback section…then buyers and sellers both know that within the last x time period shipping from country A to country B is slow or okay or whatever…and that could be information useful before placing an order.

    There is a feedback "score" in the store sidebar, but it is ambiguous. Is that Number/Percent displayed the number of orders or the number of feedbacks or number of orders giving feedback or some other number…and is the percent the percent of positive feedback, negative feedback, percent of the Number providing feedback or what?

    If that is supposed to read as 92% of 16 respondents of 84 orders are satisified…that concept isn't being communicated clearly.

    Is it really any wonder why the feedback system is largely ignored? Ultimately any system is going to be as useful as the quality of the information provided, and if sufficient information isn't provided then it is probably not worth the effort to program and maintain it.

    Anyway, in another three months no doubt this topic will raise its head again and we can beat it to death again and in all likelihood the feedback system won't change.
  • @mfav Couldn't have put it better myself!
  • Well that is another thing about the feedback actually.

    Answering your talk about the feedback score mfav.
    The score is only showing for those who have given a feedback, so it only represents that amount of orders.
    So yes you can have 200 orders, but your feedback score is only made out of say 7 people who have written back.
    Hence why i can understand that 1 person with a negative feedback can shift that % number very much if the store do not have many feedbacks in general.
  • My humble two cents: There is no rule, law, or regulation as to WHEN or even if we as sellers or buyers must leave feedback. So this is really up to each seller's personal business rules, sales/customer service approach, or even daily mood. And that's the right thing to do. We each have our own business approach and strategy, and flexibility accommodates the diversity of 1800+ stores on this platform.

    For me, I work similar to Hoddie - I leave feedback (positive) as soon as I ship. They paid me, so as far as I'm concerned they did their part. If there's an issue later? I work it out. If unworkable and they are clearly unreasonable, I can choose to block them after refunding them (if appropriate). Or even post on the forum. But that is by a far (thankfully) a very teeny tiny itty bitty minority on this platform.

    For any other store, such as yours Malnaborg, you can choose to leave feedback when and if you see fit, ya know? We each have different buyer/seller experiences which inform our business strategy, so this platform's flexibility in allowing us to set our own feedback rules (heck, some sellers never leave feedback at all, though that's rare <s>) is optimal for BO's diversity of sellers.

    My respectful input: not being permitted to leave feedback until an order was received for my store, simply would NOT work. There is no corresponding law or regulation to back it up. It is not even typical behavior on any of the LEGO resale sites...

    That would be an approach that creates MORE work for my store. I'd have to periodically look back at all orders and tracking to see which have been delivered and then leave feedback. Blech.

    As a US seller, meeting mandatory US tax code requirements for calculating mycost (I primarily sell used parts) based on weighted averages from purchased lot to purchased lot based on the collective sell price, etc., creates a crazy enough admin nightmare (even with advanced Excel, formula, and macro knowledge on my part), leaving me and anyone else who follows the rules to likely avoid unnecessary tasks at all costs! Simply adding new stock takes FOREVER, particularly when this is a moonlight gig for many of us. ;-)

    This is just an alternative opinion to consider, not an attack to be clear, Malnaborg. You know I dig you! :-)
  • @Malnaborg Totally agree with your points, at least we can write comments on negative feedback.

    Also, the fact that is quite unfair when a buyer gets aggressive against you, while you try to fix an error made. Therefore, I decided to cancel the order as his language was very very rude and was not reading my mitigations proposal to fix the situation.

    At least it would be indeed fair to write a status on his profile too to warm others.

    On other platforms as Ebay and BL we can warm other sellers/buyers of difficult situation.

    So the feedback especially on cancelled order should be allowed to the seller as well.
  • @mfav Very good idea, should be take as a new feature in deed!
  • @Calibrick
    Thanks for your input.
    But as i try to point out with a order. The transaction is not like in a store, where the buyer get the... well Lego right away and can be happy with the full transaction.
    We here on the page and as an online store, will not be completed with our transaction until the buyer have the order in hand.

    hence it should not be possible to write a feedback until that point. You can be just as good with your part of the order, but if anything is wrong when the buyer gets his order, and not at all in a bad way, calls you out for it, i should not be told to "please not leave a bad feedback" because the store owner wrote me a positive feedback. That is not my fault, or the buyer in this case.

    I may be alone with this, but i still think it is wrong. If anything, the brickowl should maybe be programmed to mark an order received after 1 month of shipping date or something, then making the store able to post a feedback to the seller.

    Or all in all, make this feedback system gone and deleted. And if needed make a little forum topic about bad stores and bad buyers.
Sign In or Register to comment.