During the last postal strike I was locked in battle with an exceptionally cheesed off teenager who was convinced that I stole fifty pounds of their hard earnt pocket money by selling him or her my copy of Guitar Hero (complete with guitar) and then not delivering the goods. I can assure you (and I assured the teenager in question) that I dutifully sent the item and due to the postal strike, it got lost in the bowels of the Royal Mail. 

The end result was that I had to refund the money and Guitar Hero never reached either its destination or its previous home.  I was left out of pocket and even more upsettingly, with a blemish on my beautiful eBay account.  The buyer chastised me with a negative rating and a review that A.A.Gill would have been proud of.

I contacted eBay to let the company know what happened and was predictably told that I should try and resolve this with the buyer and that there was nothing they could do.  I did manage to get over the situation; after all, my living does not depend on my eBay reputation or online buyer perception.  However, these days, many small businesses are at the mercy of the detailed seller rating (DSR).

The recent postal strikes have caused a serious problem for eBay merchants, many of whom are having to deal with PayPal payment disputes, negative feedback and an unresponsive customer service, as a result of goods not arriving on time.  These online sellers rely heavily on buyers trusting them and letting others know of their positive experience. 

eBay’s response has been to come out with a statement advising sellers to contact buyers and inform them of the postal strike. 

But why does eBay not make more of an effort to do this itself?  Surely a homepage banner wouldn’t be too much of an effort, maybe even a few emails here and there would help?  The fact is, eBay’s policy on customer service is simply ‘Do it Yourself’.  But in times of crisis, users need a little more help and support.

Last Sunday an Observer article listed some various rants from eBay users.  One of which raised an important question; should DSR be suspended or restricted during disruptive events such as postal strikes?  Clearly not everyone even knows a postal strike is on and some are very quick off the mark to deal out seller retribution in the form of one star ratings and negative feedback. 

Maybe DSR should be reviewed on the whole?  eBay should take note of eBid.net’s simple system of positive, negative or neutral feedback with a bit of factual blurb and more crucially, the feedback can be altered by the buyer at a later stage, for example if an item eventually arrives.

Right now, online sellers need to ensure that they engage with individual buyers from the off.  Hopefully, by keeping them informed of any potential problems and clearly communicating any posting difficulties, sellers can avoid the dreaded black mark against their name.

In the mean time, eBay might want to review how it communicates business effecting events to its users and how its rating systems can have such a negative impact on the community of sellers that the company relies upon.