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Need advice on what to put in packages for DSR ratings
 

I am sitting here wanting to put a short letter in each package thanking the buyer, etc and want to make sure they understand the DSR ratings and how important they are to us sellers.

I end up with a huge long letter that I am sure will bore the hell out of the buyer. anyone got something shorter that works well??

Thanks

"Thank you so much for your business. I hoped I shipped this item to you in a manner that is consistent with your needs.
Please take the time to leave me positive feedback along with 5 star seller ratings in all categories. Any less than perfect and ebay will think I'm a fraud, and kick me off. eBay's new rules are very strict with sellers these days. If I have performed any less than perfect, please contact me before leaving feedback. Thanks :)"


Or some such wording.

When gas was like 5 dollars a gallon I included gas saving tips that I downloaded from the epa website.

I like it short and simple...

Please leave me a positive 5-star feedback as it is important for an eBay business.
I look forward to leaving you a positive feedback as well.
Thank you and have a great day!

A buyer has left me negative feedback with all 1 star after i including this statement in my product. WTF !:surrender:

What was the reason for the negative feedback?? Bad/Wrong Product?? ⊗⊗⊗⊗?? What exactly does the feedback say that he left?

I don't bother with notes like this. Ask yourself how do you react when you see them? I tend to react in a negative manner. Truly I think it's begging and impersonal.

I ensure the service given to the buyer earns high DSRs.:ranger:

BTW, have any of you noticed that you need to be very careful when you fill these in? I wish ebay would change to boxes to tick instead of hitting stars:ranger:

Greenbean I disagree, with all due respect :)

IMO most buyers do not understand the huge impact DSR's have on a seller.


Although I do agree with earning the rating, but I make sure I emphasize to let me know if I haven't earned it.

@FirstEdition, we can agree to disagree. Buyers may not be receptive to a technical explanation. Ergo I do not spell out/beg for DSRs. I certainly manipulate them into giving the same result:peace:

I have tried both strategys, I agree with both Green and First. The main issue is that all people are different.

There are some buyers that will think "Oh I did not realise this DSR thing was so important, well in that case I will leave 5 star postive feedback and hopefully get the same in return"

And there are other buyers that will think "cheeky sod, well im not leaving 5 star feedback as they charged me £1.50 extra for postage and now I am so angry that this may affect the stars I leave and I am also thinking of a neutral aswell"

I used to send a small note or business card in with all purchases, but I made the extra effort and purchased 500 business cards from vistaprint.com.

These cards are free and you can design your own logo, and they look really professional. Sometimes a tacky piece of paper printed off in Microsoft Word will often work against you.

Agreed there are some buyers that will read the note and it will work favourably and there are others that will react in the opposite way.

I currently dont bother will the notes at all, all I do is send out emails (auto) to let buyers know the item has been posted and hope for the best.

But with DSR's getting even stricter in April its a must to have a "back up" ebay and paypal account.

My advice if you want to enclose a card is enclose a professional business card from vistaprint. I say they are free, but all you pay is for the postage. My cards used to simply have the message on.

Thankyou for your purchase.

Please leave me feedback and I will respond in kind.

Check out free business cards at: http://bit.ly/bjgjZJ

I hope you are delighted with your purchase from ******. Please note that neutral feedback, anything less than an outstanding 10 or 5 stars can be potentially very damaging to an eBay business. So should you have any problems, feel free to contact us so we can help you. Thanks very much for your purchase.

Leaving these notes don't make any difference to be honest. If your item went out late for whatever difficulties you had, people will still leave you a 1 star rating. Some people are just malicious and some people will leave glowing feedback too. If it helps inform someone who doesn't understand the system then the note has fulfilled its purpose.

On the subject of feedback I came across this thread on an ebay blog.

h**p://ebayinkblog.com/2009/05/20/ebay-conducting-feedback-tests-in-the-marketplace-5-minutes-with-brian-burke/

I noticed this new feedback system for the first time last night and now they have added marks out of ten for sellers. Buyers will be presented with 1 of 3 feedback forms. It's worth reading the reaction!

The notes are useless, but if you do nothing, you can blame that on bad scores.

Often to do nothing in this case in sometimes better as Green said. Just write an honest description, post out fast and set up auto emails.

Oh yes and try not to charge too much for postage. Some buyers are funny about this one. They think postage should be free, however bubblewrap, packaging, boxes and time and diesel all figure in this equation and I think its fair to charge for them within reason.

However sellers will often be penalised for any postage charge exceeding "free"

Exceeding free.. lol

You would be surprised at the number of ebay buyers that scrutinise the ebay postage cost and are not happy about any charge at all.

If these ebay buyers do not sell at all then thet will find it very hard to appreciate all the extra things that go into postage cost, ie materials, tape, time etc etc.

Yes any charge "exceeding free" may sound funny but with the April armageddon DSR changes looming even closer using free may have to be strongly considered to avoid potential problems and restictions.

Dont forget we said that we only need 2 buyers out of 100 (2%) to complain about postage charges.

This has been ebays plan all along that sellers offer free postage, Dont forget if the postage is free then an ebay item will potential end higher (due to no postage to pay)

That means ebay will get a few extra pence or pounds in every sale in Final Value Fee's. And that ladies and gentlemen will add up to literally millions in extra revenue.

By that time I will be using Paypal postage labels and not printing the price on the label. But if a buyer is unhappy, they will leave 1 star for all options anyway.

Yes, ebay buyers that are scorned will often leave all 1 star just to spite you.

I Have re-read this thread about putting a note in with packs to hopefully help with DSR ratings.

Thats the good thing about this forum. We thrash our ideas out and I am always happy to change my mind and even say I am wrong if something comes along that could work better.

I appreciate all the comments here especially those about buyers not knowing the impact they can have with their actions.

I have decided to give the note idea a try again as I have had a couple of low DSR scores and for the life of me I do not understand why.

I did try this a long time ago but things have changed a great deal over the last year.

The reason I am not already doing this is that I would not want to potentially antagonise those buyers who are already angry and on a "hair trigger" anyway.

Anyway here is what I have written to go into each pack:

----------------------------------------------------

Thankyou for your custom!

Please can you leave 5 star feedback for me.

Ebays new policies mean less than 5 star feedback will mean that in some cases action will be taken against the seller.

I will also leave positive feedback for you.

Please let me know if you have any problems with this so that I have the chance to sort them out.

--------------------------------------------------

What do you think? Only worried of any potential adverse affects it could have.

Any tips on the content? Anything missing?

Thanks!

I do put little notes in my packages and I've seen my DSR's increase in the last 6 months from an average of 4.4/4.5 to 4.8/4.9 on most accounts.

I have a sticker that I put on the invoice abut the DSR's. They have gone up. And charging actual postage has helped as well. Before I would only charge $.25 above actual and in December, I got hit with a few nasty feedbacks because I "overcharged".

I raised the price of my product and went to free shipping. Of course its not free but buyers know in advance exactly what they are going to pay. Most of my sales are international (USA) and American buyers like free "postage."

I found that one the whole while my US buyers were happy to wait 1-2 weeks for their package to arrive it was the few UK buyers I had who whinged about slow dispatch or if I posted any slower than next day. Now this is difficult for me as I am a disabled non driver and have to pay an assistant to do the postal runs. Thats one thing I do put on the little packing slip and how leaving a 1/2 rating will be literally taking the food from my table. I also enclose a little bonus item if the buyer buys more than one item. I have lots of small items I cant sell alone and I use them as freebees. Buyers love them.

MY DSRs are solid 5s and 4.9s.

With the April things now upon us there are ways of protecting your DSR but there would be no point in my posting them here. It all depends on your business model.

I am TRS and have been since the system began in October 09. Ive worked out a cunning plan to protect my status which involves gaming eBays rules rather than breaking them. I have always enjoyed gaming the system.

Some UK buyers are a pain in the arse. They whinge and whine no matter what.

They can bugger you up. All you need is 2 or 3 idiots, and believe me there are loads out there.

It's turning into a face to face retail situation, in the sense that ebay is entitling people to be treated like Kings. Eventually, I'm sure they will set a fair market value for items that we will be required to sell at or below.

i dont understand how some people,first i ship everything as fast as possible,if you order in the pm,it will be at the post office shortly after waiting to leave! i dont charge anything for shipping,most my items will get there in 1-4 days,and one my accounts for shipping charge i have a 4.6..its mind boggling i swear, how can i get a 4.6 for shipping charge when everything is free and i have all positive feedback,alot of buyers are freakin idiots

I don't think alot of the buyers really pay attention to the DSR's and then just click on 3 or 4. Since I have started adding a note about DSRs, mine have gone up. I ship that day or the next. And my shipping is actual. Not much more I can do to make my buyers happy except to exceed their expectations.

Some buyers are idiots and do not understand how leaving a negative comment can affect a seller.

I listed a Tennis racket and stated in the title and main description "the racket has one broken string, please make sure you understand this before bidding. Please take a look at the pictures"

The buyer won the racket for £2.89 and got FREE postage.

The buyer then leaves me a NEGATIVE comment. "Nice racket, however a string is broken"

Some of them are just idiots and this can cause issues for a small seller.

I accidently sent a guy, a wrong but similar item, he didn't mind but left me a neutral and got hit with DSRs.

I simply emailed him and explained the effect that this can have on my account. He was very apologetic and was more than happy to revise the feedback. I sent him the new item for free.

Does anyone know if DSRs can be revised?

I've had it quite the opposite. I rarely get complaints from international buyers when they realize the item is not what they expected. It's the Americans that don't realize when they get a hard to find item at a great price.

As far as I know you can send a "feedback amendment" form where the feedback can be changed including the DSR ratings.

I have never used this, if anyone can confirm that would be good. I think the form is 5 uses in every 1000 feedback.

so you think the vistacards are a good idea and would you put your address on them?

No need to put your name or address on them. That way you can use them on multiple stealth accounts and not have to buy new ones if your account goes down

how does this sound on a vistacard with the orders

"If you are happy with our products and services we would appreciate your positive feedback and DSR (Detailed Seller Rating) as it will help us to continue providing premier customer service in this highly competitive market! We will do the same for you!"

what do you think?

But you are not telling them that 3 is damaging.

@lucy, buyers are too dopey to understand what DSRs mean.;)
Sounds like begging & that is going to annoy people

I'd rather educate than let some idiot ruin my business, it can be worded politely and informatively.

dont understand what you mean there bode?

greenbean, i think you are right, but other sellers include a note or card, what if it was just a card with your ebay name and a simple note saying thanks for your purchase, enjoy...............etc

Anything less than perfect, in other words.

still dont understand, do you mean the dsr has to be perfect?:noidea:

If you get less than perfect, ebay will hurt your business :)

The DSR ratings must be a perfect 5 stars. Anything less and it's like receiving a neutral or negative only this will affect you financially. Some people receive a different feedback form and on that form you need to get an outstanding 10 for full marks.