Tip For Ebay Sellers: Buyer Feedback Is Useful.

"Why is that?" you say... after all, buyers can only have 100% positive feedback for years now, and stealth neutrals or negatives left via the comments typically get yanked by eBay.

This is likely only useful for sellers who do fixed price listings with Best Offer, as it allows you to "vet" the buyer before decideing whether to accept their offer or not. Obviously, if someone does a Buy It Now outright or you're running an auction, you're at the mercy of whoever clicks the button.

However if someone is sending you an offer, *especially* if it is a "lowball" offer, it's probably worth spending the time to do some sleuthing, as in my opinion, those wanting items the cheapest also typically are the most problematic buyers with respect to demands, payment, returns, etc.

So how can 100% positive feedback actually be helpful?

It's not THEIR feedback we're looking at. What you want to look at is the "Feedback Left for Others" link on their feedback page. That shows you how they've treated sellers: the number of positive, neutral, and negative ratings they've left, along with all their feedback comments.

The question you're trying to get an answer to before the fact is "Is this buyer a potential headache waiting to happen?"

What prompted this post was an offer from a buyer earlier today. I looked at the feedback they had left other sellers, and immediately blocked them and then declined their offer (in that specific order... you block first and then take action on any pending offer).

The images below (no identifying information shown about the buyer in question) shows their "feedback left for others" over the last year. You can see any number of problems here, all pointing to a nightmare customer.

Sure, a buyer might have a negative experience with a seller backing out after a sale, but this many?... nah. Something's rotten in Denmark.

I would argue that any buyer leaving more than 10% neutral or negative feedback is a potential problem customer, and this buyer is at about the 50% mark. Thanks, but no thanks.

Check feedback left for others before accepting offers. It's worth the time.

Thanks for the post. Wise guidance.

Nice job - pretty clear that you avoided an aggravating situation with your research. Otherwise you would have probably been the next in line to get an offer, have no payment show up, and then receive the copy and paste description of a seller cancelling because of not getting the price wanted. Greatly appreciate the guidance in utilizing the feedback of eBay for a very useful purpose.

A very good informative post!
I've actually had three sellers in the past two months who cancelled auctions I won at a great price,
but the buyer you mentioned is claiming this happens to him every few transactions.