How to Leave Great Buyer Feedback
June 21st, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
So your buyer has paid on time, you’ve shipped them the item, and they’ve left you positive feedback.
Everything is going great! You know that leaving your buyer some nice feedback will finish everything off, and make them glad they chose to buy from you.
When you see that little feedback box, though, you might find that you have no idea what to write to make your buyer happiest. Well, here’s a guide.
Don’t write “A “. Once upon a time, leaving grades on eBay buyers actually meant something. Now, though, writing an ‘A’ and filling the rest of the space with pluses seems to have become a common way of saying ‘good’. The meaning of the grades is gone entirely no one ever leaves a B-, after all so it’s a pretty useless thing to write. Try something more descriptive.
‘Prompt/fast/instant payment’. Did the buyer get on PayPal within hours or even minutes of winning the auction and pay you as quickly as they could? If they did, then your comment should include the words ‘prompt payment’. This is a big thing for buyers, as other sellers will really prefer to deal with someone they know will pay on time.
‘Great communication’. If you found the buyer was very responsive to all your emails, then point this out. It’s especially worth putting this if there was a problem that you had to overcome, and the buyer was co-operative and easy to work with.
‘A pleasure to deal with’. If this was one of those very easy transactions where nothing went wrong, then you should put that the buyer was a pleasure to deal with, or ‘the way ebay should be’, or just a ‘great ebayer’.
‘Great as always’. When it’s the second or third time that the buyer has bought from you, make sure to point it out. The fact that they go back to the same seller more than once and build up a relationship is a good thing for them to have on their record.
The Main Rule: Praise to the Skies.
Think of anything good you have to say and try to fit as much of it as you can in that limited space. Don’t worry too much about punctuation. Here’s a good example comment: “Instant payment, great communication - excellent buyer!”.
As a side effect, this then gives you the power to leave slightly negative feedback for some buyers without actually having to make it negative, like this: “Paid quite quickly, communication fine”. Making very short, to-the-point comments also reflects badly on the buyer: if you just write “OK”, it means “I really wanted to leave a neutral or a negative”. Don’t do this if that’s not the meaning you intend.
Don’t spend too much time agonising over what to write in your feedback comments, though the chances are you’ll be leaving hundreds every week. You might find it worthwhile to come up with a few standard ones for different situations, and use eBay’s Selling Manager to leave feedback in bulk.
Of course, before you can leave your buyer any feedback, you need to make sure they’ve paid you. Luckily getting your buyer to pay is easy, as eBay handle most of it for you. In the next article, we’ll take a tour of eBay’s checkout.
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Creating eBay Selling Opportunities by Communicating with Your Buyer
June 17th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
One thing many eBay sellers neglect is to actually communicate with their buyers not with some automated ’suggestion’ system, but with actual person-to-person contact. If you can be friendly and sound nice, then you can make them think you’re doing them a favour while you make a few extra sales.
‘I Could Throw In…’
When you receive an order for an item that costs a lot for shipping and needs some kind of equipment, this is an ideal opportunity to make a ‘friendly’ extra sale. For example, if someone has just bought a computer, you could send an email like this:
“I’m just emailing you to ask if you’d like a mouse or a keyboard since you’re buying a computer from me, I can throw in any accessories you want without charging any extra shipping. If you’re not interested though, then don’t worry about it it was just a thought.”
Note how informal this email has to be. It can’t stink of sales, or the whole ‘communication’ thing will be ruined. Would you rather buy something extra from someone who says “you might as well, since you’re paying shipping anyway” or from someone who says something like “our valued customers will also love our GREAT DEALS on mice check it out!” I know what my answer is.
Know Anyone Else?
Here’s a simple thing to try: when you thank your buyer, simply say that if they’re pleased with you then you’d really appreciate it if they could spread the word. Many eBay buyers feel like they’ve got a real bargain, and combining this with good customer service could be enough to make your customer go out and start writing down your eBay store’s address on pieces of paper for their friends. If you notice a lot of orders coming from the same town, then you’ll know that this technique is working.
Any Problems?
If you contact the buyer a few months down the line to ask if their product is still working fine, you might find that they’re having a problem you can fix, by sending a spare part or an upgrade. This is another opportunity to make a sale not to mention helpful for them.
Anything to Sell?
If you’ve just sold them a brand new item, ask your buyer if they have an old one that they might like to trade in. They will often be delighted to take you up on your offer, since they were wondering how they were going to get rid of their old one anyway. Give them a fair price for it and offer to pay their postage and you won’t believe how happy they’ll be and the chances are you can make a good profit on what they send you.
When everything is going to plan with your buyers, it’s nice to be able to spend a while every week leaving them all big chunks of positive feedback. But how do you make this feedback the best it can be? We’ll take a look at the dos and don’ts of leaving feedback for buyers in the next article.
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