My last article related the incident of the “three shirts buyer” who thought an immediate invoice wasn’t fast enough and killed my PowerSeller status. I also detailed eBay’s callous response. Here are my thoughts on coping with such scenarios.

1. Accept that earning PowerSeller status is impossible most of the time. And I think eBay has deliberately engineered this into their policies governing sellers. It’s the same principle as the synthetic rabbit the greyhounds chase at the dog track. Furthermore, the policies governing PowerSeller status are geared toward extremely high-volume sellers (those selling thousands of products a month).
2. Yes, PowerSellers get a 20% discount on fees. What you have to do is accept the fact you don’t have that discount, and adjust your item prices accordingly. If you do manage to get it later, wonderful! I guarantee you that unless you’re a high-volume seller, you won’t hold it for very long. So run your business as if you will never get that discount, to save financial heartache later.
3. Don’t spend a lot of time chasing PowerSeller status. Your time will be more productively used in sourcing, writing up, photographing, and listing products. eBay is, after all, a numbers game. You’ll get more of a revenue boost from doubling your number of listings than you will from managing to get PowerSeller status–something most of us can only hold briefly anyway because we’re not high volume sellers.
4. Do your absolute best to deliver high quality customer service to your buyers. Then you know you did everything possible and within reason, and your conscience is clear.
5. When one of your buyers goes kooky on you anyway, don’t bother contacting eBay. It will just get your blood pressure up further and eBay will do nothing for you. Just take a deep breath and move on.

Finally, remember that one bad apple does NOT spoil the whole bunch. Yes, there are some wacko eBay buyers out there. But my experience on eBay has been, overall, very positive. I’ve only had a handful of nut job buyers. Everyone else has been courteous, responsible, and a pleasure to deal with. That’s why I won’t be quitting eBay anytime soon. After all, we all have to deal with wackos in any job or profession.

This article is a rant about eBay’s callous attitude towards its sellers. Many eBay sellers who have dealt with insane buyers have learned that eBay actually cares much more about its buyers than it does its sellers. That is understandable up to a point. After all, they’re not a charity operation. They’re in business to make money, and that money comes from the buyers. But I know from personal experience that eBay has the attitude there will always be plenty of people willing to sell on eBay, so they don’t have to do much for their sellers.

Please don’t get me wrong. I enjoy my eBay business. I enjoy selling on eBay. Because I need to be self-employed to care for my father who has advanced stage cancer, and because eBay works for me, I won’t be changing my income earning method anytime soon.

Now for my case in point. A buyer purchased three shirts from me a few months back, on a weekday morning. eBay automatically sends out an invoice with each purchase. Not only do I not usually send out a second invoice, since eBay does it automatically, but I was also out of the office that day for medical reasons. When I got home that evening, however, I did send out a second invoice–something I do only if a buyer doesn’t pay for an item within 6 to 8 hours.

The very next day, that buyer left me the lowest possible Detailed Seller Rating (DSRs) for communication on each of those three shirts. The buyer didn’t leave negative feedback, but their low DSRs on communication caused me to lose PowerSeller status. And when the buyer left feedback, the comment they left was: “Invoice took awhile.” Well, as stated earlier, the dang invoice goes out automatically!

I contacted eBay, who told me they could do nothing. The rep I spoke with said “the buyer has the right to their opinion.” My response was that opinions are very subjective things, and it was not fair that as a seller I had no recourse to an opinion so obviously rendered by a psycho buyer with completely unnecessary expectations.

I’ll write more later on coping with this type of situation.