eBay Seller Survivor Tips: Staying Afloat in Shark Infested Waters

If you are an eBay seller, you might be struggling to survive and keep both your sales and your feedback up to par.

With all of the changes on eBay, such as increased fees and unrealistic performance standards, for instance; it has become tougher to hang in there and make a decent profit while simultaneously maintaining the too-stringent requirements governing sellers.

Due to a combination of the recession and unfortunate changes made to eBay itself such as a search function that fails to function properly, buyers and sellers alike have deserted the World’s Largest Flea Market in droves.

Here is a tip that might help you navigate a little more safely through the shark infested waters of the Bay:

Screen your bidders!

Feedback and DSRs, or Detailed Seller Ratings, are crucial to your success as an eBay seller. In fact, if either of those things slip by a fraction of an inch, you will be suspended and not allowed to sell on eBay at all for 30 days or longer. Besides that, if you manage to achieve and maintain Top Rated Seller Status, you will get a 20% discount off your Final Value Fees. Therefore, you must constantly strive to keep those numbers up.

One way to do that is to get very proactive about managing bidders. You should routinely check the feedback left for others of everybody who bids on your auctions. Checking the feedback they have received is a lesson in futility, since buyers can’t get anything except positive feedback no matter how horrible they might be.

So, take a minute or two to look at what they’ve said about other sellers. If someone has left a disproportionately high number of bad feedback for other sellers, you can bet your bottom dollar it will be your night in the barrel if they buy from you.

Just as important is to not only look at the feedback ratings left, but read over some of the feedback comments, as well.

Some buyers leave positive feedback for sellers but their feedback comments sometimes reveal a disturbing pattern of rip-offs.

If you see a buyer who has left quite a few comments along this line “Problem with item but seller made it right,” or something similar---run for your life!

It seems incredible that some of these penny ante crooks would actually tell on themselves in the feedback they leave sellers but it happens, and you should sit up and pay attention.

Comments like that are a dead giveaway that a buyer is systematically demanding full or partial refunds with the unspoken threat of negative feedback if a seller doesn’t cave to their demands.

If a buyer has made a habit of leaving bad feedback or using extortion to get an after-the-sale discount, they are all too likely to do the same thing to you.

Just cancel the bid.

It’s your stuff, after all. If you want to cancel a bid, you can. If you wait until they win the auction, it’s too late and you’ll have to take your chances.

After you’ve canceled, add the potential PITA buyer to your Blocked Bidders List.

Screen those problem buyers and cancel their bids! This can save you a world of lousy, undeserved feedback; not to mention money if you have to issue partial refunds just to avoid lousy feedback.

Being an eBay seller these days isn’t easy, but there are still lots of people making money and surviving there just by watching their Ps and Qs!