What is Your Reputation On eBay Worth?

The reputation you build up for yourself on eBay is everything to you, without, you are nothing. Your eBay reputation is practically worth every sale you make.

If you've ever bought anything on eBay (and the chances are you have), then think about your own behaviour. Buying from a seller with a low feedback rating makes you feel a little nervous and insecure, while buying from a PowerSeller with their reputation in the thousands doesn't require any thought or fear - it feels just like buying from a shop.

A Bad Reputation Will Lose You Sales

To be frank, a poor reputation would potentially lose you all your sales. If someone leaves you a negative feedback comment, you will feel the effects of it almost immediately as that rating and comment will go right to the top of your user information page, for all potential buyers to see. Who do you think would want to do any business with you if they read on your user information that you took almost a month to deliver a product that a client purchased or that communication between you and the buyer was relatively poor and you sent a damaged product, the simple answer is no one.

Your next few items will need to be very cheap things, just to push that negative down the page. You might have to spend days or even weeks selling cheap stuff to get enough positive feedback to make anyone deal with you again.

It much worse if your receiving negative feedback from buyers consistently, once your over rating drops below 90%, you might as well kiss your eBay business goodbye.

You Can't Just Open a New Account

Besides eBay's rules about only having one account, there are far more downsides than that to getting a new account. You literally have to start all over again from scratch.

You will not be able to utilise all the features that eBay has to offer. Your existing buyers will not be able to locate you. Your auctions will generally finish at lower prices because of the toll of having a poor feedback rating. Opening up a whole new account is the equivalent of moving to an entirely different city to get away from a few individuals who are spreading bad rumours about you; it's simply throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

A Good Reputation Will Get You Sales

When a PowerSeller tells me something, I tend to believe them. They can be selling a pretty unlikely item, but if they guarantee it is what they say it is, and then I trust them - they're not going to risk their reputation, after all. This is the power of a reputation: people know you want to keep it, and they know you'll go to almost any lengths to do so.

This is proven to be true even in my case, as I know I'd much rather purchase a product for $50 from a seller than I know is kosher than for $40 from someone who has an average feedback rating. It's most certainly worth paying the extra money to have the feeling of confidence in the seller, that feeling of knowing that the seller has the necessary infrastructure in place and will deliver the product to me quickly and efficiently.

You really will find selling on eBay so much easier, and there's only way to get a good reputation: make sure you please your customers every time. But some customers can be, well, just a little difficult to please. In the next email, we ask: is the eBay customer always right?

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