Please understand, this is just my opinion. I am not alone in how I feel. And I know from visiting the Feedback Board that there are a few eBayers who like the star rating system. Still most seem to feel it is unfair, unbalanced and slanted with no accountability.

Please don't misunderstand me. I love selling on eBay. After almost 9 years, buying and selling 1000s of items, I have found it the best way to sell and buy almost anything. My experience has been that almost all sellers are honest, hard working, caring people. Many of the ones I have met make very little money and work very hard to give the best products and service possible. There have been a few out of the 100s of sellers I have met that are only out for the money, of course. You will find that in any selling situation from yard sales to high end retailers. But for the most part, the sellers I have purchased from have been outstanding people to do business with. And the buyers, how can I even begin to say how fabulous almost every single one of them has been? Some wonderful friends of mine started out as buyers on eBay.

I have had the outstanding good fortune to be blessed with great buyers. I have only had one non-paying person in all these years. And maybe 2 unpleasant buyers. I realize that just that one fact is enough to make a seller happy. And it certainly has. My hubby has been royally cheated a couple of times by sellers with low feedback. He took a chance because he is a computer tech guy and that's just the way it seems to be when buying and selling tech stuff. I think he is a little careless about who he buys from. But that's a decision every buyer has to make. We have separate accounts and we don't get involved with each others eBay business.

Personally, I have been extremely careful who I buy from and have only been cheated once. And that was recently and it was on what I considered to be very underhanding methods of collecting shipping charges, not the product. That guy insisted on 2 separated flat rate box shipping fees with 2 separate payments, saying he could not combine shipping. I didn't question that because I sell soap that I can't possibly stuff any fuller than I already do and my boxes go out looking more like pillows than Flat Rate Boxes. But this guy stuffed everything not into 2 separate flat rate boxes as he stated, but rather, into one single bursting flat rate ENVELOPE. All of both separately paid orders were somehow stuffed in one single envelope. And then he stuck me with almost $19 in shipping fees for an actual shipping cost to him of only $4.60. Now let me quickly say at this point, that I understand that some people shift the cost of the product from the price to the shipping. On a few occasions I have purchased items from people who use that method if they are open about it and if they have good feedback. And if this seller had been honest about it, even that might not have bothered me. But he clearly stated that his product could not be combined. So to me it was not honest as in the case where you know you are paying high shipping and then can make a honest decision that you do or you don't buy from that seller. But you get to decide based on an honest seller with a clearly stated deal. This seller was dishonest.

Ok, with that small bit of personal eBay history, now I will get to the point of this guide. I stated the facts above to say that in my own personal experience, if a buyer and seller is reasonably careful, eBay is, in almost every case, a great place to be for everyone. And I have only had that one bad experience as a buyer and the one non-paying buyer and maybe a couple of kind of unpleasant buyers. Not bad after selling and buying maybe 20,000 items. I have no complaints. I can pretty much tell without this new Star Rating System which seller is going to be bad news and who I want to buy from. As sellers, we have little control over who buys. And my buyers have been outstanding.

So how do I personally feel about the Star Rating system? I think it hurts the best, most caring sellers and does nothing to stop the cheaters. The seller I mentioned above is still happily doing business with his 3.5 shipping fee star, his 3.9 communication star and his 3.7 shipping speed star.  While a few sellers openly cheat or are slow, or careless in packaging, several of my friends, who go the second mile have been reduced to tears and some have even quit because there was no way they felt they could do more or better and yet they were getting dings on things like shipping fees when they offer exact or free shipping. Or how fast the items arrived when the auctions clearly stated the shipping method is 1st Class, Library Rate or Media.

What I personally don't like about the system is that it is subjective with no accountability. What is a perfect deal to one buyer may be just OK to another one. There is no standard to go by. There is no way for a seller to know what the problem is, if there is one. And therefore there is no way to fix it. In my case, my ratings have been very good over all. I have been blessed with mostly 5s and once in awhile I will get a 4.9 for shipping. So, 3 or 4 people have given me a 4 for shipping fees. Ok, why is this a problem for me? I charge either exact shipping and don't make a penny on it, not even a handling fee. Or I ship free. If there is no way to do a better job than exact or free, then why would someone give a 4 on shipping? That question came up over and over in the Feedback Board discussions about the ratings. I also have a big problem with the way eBay is presenting the system. I have sent emails and called on the phone and stated my potion about it. When they say right at the beginning that a buyer can rate a seller honestly and completely anonymously what is the message? And you know, it isn't really anonymous anyway. Don't they know that if we have all 5s down the line and a 4.9 shows up, who did it? The last person leaving feedback. Not hard to figure out. So what do you do? Nothing. I just go on and try to ignore it. It's happened 3 times and it hurts but it isn't going to change anything to make a big deal out of it. Or even ask why.

Now don't get me wrong, I realize there are people in the world who see everything in tones of gray. For them, nothing is ever really good or really bad in their minds. But this doesn't seem to be the case here. People will say things like "Perfect" "Loved everything" Thanks for all the freebies" etc. And then about one out of 15 or 20 people will leave a 4 for shipping fees. One of the main complaints in the Feedback Board was that exact problem. Exact shipping and free shipping and ratings of 4 on shipping fees. It hurts. You have to wonder if they want you to pay them to buy your stuff.

I'm sorry but I don't like the system. Those of us who sell popular products, use pounds of bubble wrap, miles of tape, online tracking, Priority Shipping, send emails to every  buyer, ship the same day or the next day and charge exact shipping would like to think people would be happy with the effort since that's about as good as it gets. And in my case almost everyone is happy. But in some cases, sellers are hurt, devastated and even quitting over the system. Silly? No, because if that is all a seller does for income and they really care, and they do the very best job they can for every single item they sell and ship... It hurts to get dinged and not even know why. And it hurts even more if you get the feeling that you are doing the best job it's possible to do and you can't do it any better and you still get  an occasional ding. It hurts.

Ok, we all agree that there will always be a few people who will never be 100% happy, so, why bother? Some sellers I know have come to that place. They figure it they are going to get dinged when there is nothing they can do to make it any better, then they have decided to raise their shipping, not kill themselves running to the post office every day and live with the system.  In my case, I decided that I will still keep doing the best job I can for 2 reasons.

1). I really like what I do. I love producing my line of custom products and I get a blast out of filling every package will lots of extra things. It's like Christmas every day.  I think doing the best job I can on every single package I ship is the only way to run my personal eBay business. To me sloppy, slow and expensive isn't ever going to be acceptable.

And 2). There are 100s of wonderful people out there to meet and do business with. So I will probably always get my feelings hurt a little bit by the occasional slightly unhappy person, but I will  try to keep my eyes on the many great buyers and sellers. I realize the very small number of people who are never completely happy will always be part of the equation no matter what any of us can do. So I have decided to do the job for the 99 44/100% of wonderful eBayers and not worry about the small number. That less than 1/100th of 1% whom I can never make completely happy. But, even with those few, I will sure keep trying.

Thanks for reading my guide. Enjoy the process!