Purchase
How to evaluate an eBay seller reputation (rating)?
We recommend you to pay attention to the following points in assessing of a seller's reliability:
Number and proportion of the positive and negative feedback. For example, if a seller has 10,000 comments in total and 80 of them are negative their reputation is 99.2%. This seller is reliable. Yet still, check the period the seller received most of his negative feedback in. If the bad feedback started coming in the last few weeks, it might mean that the service quality has recently dropped and you'd rather not buying from this seller.
Date of a seller’s registration in the system. The longer a seller has been operating on eBay, the better. Although, this parameter should only be taken into consideration in connection with all other factors.
Sales history and goods correlation. If a seller has a lot of feedback and you're planning on buying something expensive from him, make a note on type of items they sell and how they got the feedback. For example, a seller who successfully sold 50 cars can be more reliable than one who sold 1,000 buttons.
Feedback for the past month. For expensive purchases it is reasonable to check and evaluate Ebay seller activity and feedback for the past month. Current sales can be seen in the seller’s profile by clicking on the "Items for sale" link. It makes for a closer look into their reputation if a seller has been selling inexpensive items and suddenly has switched to TVs and laptops in the past week.
Seller’s location. It may happen that the item is claimed to be located in the UK but a seller is registered somewhere in China. This would lead to the extended delivery period from China.
Always read the feedback. EBay forbids sellers to leave buyers negative feedback that resulted in many sellers posting formally positive reviews with the negative content. This is the only way for a seller to leave a bad feedback to a “bad” buyer. Such a buyer may happen to become your seller, therefore it’s always useful to read the feedback thoroughly.
Detailed Seller Ratings. It’s also worth checking out the Detailed Seller Ratings. It is a small table showing user feedback and rating based on four main criteria:
- Item as described
- Communication (quality of customer support)
- Dispatch time
- Postage and packaging charges
Example:
We hope these tips will be helpful in your shopping. The vast amount of eBay sellers are decent and honest people, yet better judgement always adds to your positive experience. If you have any questions on how to assess the reliability of an eBay seller – feel free to contact us!