This guide was originally intended to help explain why most sellers do not leave FB first. It can still be helpful in understanding the dynamics of feedback past and present.

If you read this and still feel strongly that sellers should go first, that's fine - but please at least understand the other side better so you don't let the fact that most sellers won't do that sour an otherwise excellent transaction! And remember, you can always choose to only give your business to sellers who leave FB first.

What a seller is owed in a transaction is their money; what a buyer is owed is their item - neither party has any obligation to leave feedback at all. Many buyers feel, understandably, that their 'job' ends when they pay, but by that same logic, the seller's 'job' would end once the item has been sent out. For feedback exchange to be effective and fair, both parties still have a job to do - the buyer needs to communicate that they got their item and whether they are happy with it (any problems or concerns should be communicated to the seller before, not in, feedback), the seller needs to make sure any problems within their control are dealt with to their satisfaction.

Please understand that honest buyers may experience bank or credit acct issues that affect the sellers payment after the fact - we can in fact have that money 'taken back'. Buyers who are scam artists can often get their money back long after payment has been made, make false claims against a seller, or attempt to extort money and/or additional items from a seller. Scammers often target fb-first sellers, for obvious reasons. Buyers of both sorts may try to make unreasonable demands to exchange for another item, demands to ship internationally marked as a gift (which is a crime), or demands to send at a different price or via a different shipping method. An unfortunate reality is that buyers who do need something addressed are more likely to give the seller a chance to fix things if the seller hasn't left fb yet. Another unfortunate reality is that we have competitors, some of whom will go to great lengths to sabotage our sales and reputation, and leaving feedback at payment leaves the door wide open for that kind of sabotage.

So, if you receive your item, and are happy with it, it is much easier to let us know that by simply leaving positive feedback than for us to look up every item and delivery date to spend countless hours flooding you with messages asking 'Is it there yet and are you happy with it?'

If you have trouble getting your item, we, of course, will do everything we can to help make things right for you - but if we shipped promptly and the mail service or customs cause a delay or a lost item, that should not be factored into the feedback - we are NOT in control of the package once it has been shipped. People leaving neutral or negative feedback for shipping issues beyond our control is one of the major reasons sellers don't leave feedback first, as well as one of the major reasons so many sellers won't ship internationally.

If you receive your item and are unhappy with it, then it is time for you to hold up your end as a good buyer and tell us there is a problem! A buyer who pays immediately, but leaves neutral or negative feedback without ever communicating with the seller and giving them a chance to make it right, is not a 'good' buyer. Neither is a scam artist who tries to make a claim to recover their payment once they have the item in hand in an attempt to shop for free at our expense.

If your seller really is lousy, or a scam artist, and your communications have been ignored or handled disrespectfully - then yes, they probably also have a buyer-first policy, for all the wrong reasons. But this is the core of the misunderstanding that led to this guide - the fact that a bad seller will also have a buyer-first feedback policy does NOT mean all sellers with buyer-first policies are trying to scam you. You can usually weed these out by looking at sellers' feedback carefully before placing any bids!

To every rule there are exceptions ;) Low feedback (new) sellers - my advice is mostly the same now as before. I recommend that new/low feedback number sellers leave positive feedback for their buyers upon payment. Your number one goal is getting your base number up, period. People will bid higher on an item from someone with 100 fbs at 99 percent than they will on an item from someone with 10 feedbacks at 100 percent. Bidders need to know you have something invested in your id to feel more confident it will be an honest transaction, and more bidders will leave feedback for you with a seller-first policy. After your base number is up you can assess the risk/benefit of changing to fb last or not. However, if you are selling in an area especially prone to scam buyers you may want to just start out fb-first.

Sellers who know they are honest but have recently received a neutral or negative feedback - my advice has changed. Before I would have said go to fb-first for a while because someone who saw your problem feedback but got feedback upon payment will feel more confident about their purchase than if they saw problems AND you waited for them to go first. Now I recommend an honest seller who has recently received a neutral or negative stay, or change to, fb-last. The inability to receive a negative as a buyer has led to a great deal of abuse and at the very least you don't want to be improving the feedback of malicious bidders and scammers.

Sellers want you to be happy. We want you to buy from us again, and to recommend us to other buyers. Unless you have been unreasonable or tried to scam a seller during the transaction, you have no reason to expect anything but a positive for a positive, even from a lousy seller. Sellers, however, have many reasons to fear undeserved neutrals or negatives after we have left a positive, from people who don't read the auctions, don't understand what is a shipping issue versus a seller issue, don't communicate problems to us, or have some other malign reason for wanting to damage a seller's rating.

We have far more at stake. Your rating (unless excessively bad) did not affect your ability to make more purchases - it was an annoyance to get an occasional neutral or neg, but did not really impact your life. Our feedback directly affects our number of sales, people's maximum bids, and the degree of confidence people place in us. It costs us money, and affects our reputation. And even one non-positive feedback for a small to medium seller can have a discouraging effect on potential buyers. Picture this - two people are poised to exchange a $5 bill for a $1000 bill, but one must go first. Would you hand the $1000 bill to someone who seemed unwilling to hand over the $5 bill first? Probably not. The person with the $5 bill is in a much better position to show good faith first.

I started out with a firm seller-first feedback policy, and have written posts in the past defending it as well as chastising other sellers for not going first. I did this because I know I deliver accurately described items, and handle the rare problems quickly and professionally. I found over time that the most abrasive complaints were from buyers who did not read the auctions, or who blamed me for mail/customs delays even though I could prove I shipped immediately. I also received a very few non-positive feedbacks (4 total in 8 years on eBay) - all from buyers who never made the slightest attempt to communicate any problems to me. Those few (yes even the neutrals) had a small but noticable impact. Please, no matter what course you may choose personally for handling feedback, always tell your seller if there's a problem first and give us a chance to make it right for you!