Rating the New Feedback System on eBay

Have you heard? Ebay has rolled out a new feedback system. I just received an item in the mail that I bought last week on ebay and was able to give my first detailed feedback. Here's what I learned.

First, I rated the transaction as positive overall and filled in the box with my comment, then the drop-down part of the page appeared with the opportunity to rate the details:

• I rated the seller 4 stars for item as described (the colors weren't quite what I expected).
• I rated him 3 for communication because I heard absolutely nothing from him, but it wasn't a big deal because the item arrived quickly.
• I rated him 5 for shipping time - I bought it Friday night, it arrived this Friday morning.
• I rated him 5 for shipping and handling charges - I would have given him a 6 if it was available; he had very low, reasonable shipping.
  

After I completed the form and posted my feedback, I went to check his overall feedback. He does a large volume, so he already has 28 of the detailed ratings (ebay does not show them until a seller receives 10). At first glance it appears he has 5 stars on everything, but if you look closely you see the last ones aren't quite colored in all the way. Hover over them and you see he has 5.0 on “item as described” and 4.8 on everything else. Kind of interesting because I gave him a 4 on “item as described” and a 3 on communication and his ratio is still quite high, and I seriously doubt he communicated with anyone since he did not communicate at all with me.

So, as a seller I feel rather relieved by what I see. Again, at a glance his feedback appears excellent (and it is - 100% positive) but if I were going to purchase from him and had any special concerns about any of those categories, I could examine them further. Which brings up another observation. There is no category for how well the item was packed. Packing is very important and I'm curious why that wasn't included. Perhaps that is an even more subjective category than the others? I don't know.

What can sellers learn from this? Number one, describe your item accurately and thoroughly. Number two, do communicate with the buyer. Drop a quick e-mail to let them know their package is in the mail. Say thank you; that goes a long way. Three, ship quickly. And four, set your shipping and handling at a fair and reasonable rate. In other words, keep doing what you should have been doing all along. Provide five-star service – and you’ll get five-star feedback in return.