04-18-2008, 02:42 PM
Quote:Well it happened.
A brand new, zero feedback, buyer left me a neutral and dinged me for "not as described" AND "shipping charges", because I charged him all of $2. Shipping and Handling. (My competition charges $6, nevermind.)
She must have been one of my off-eBay buyers. I've had a couple of buyers leave us bad ratings recently because they paid for flat rate shipping (or in one case received free shipping) and were pissed that I wouldn't give them a free upgrade to FedEx 2-day or UPS overnight shipping because they needed the item right away for a gift, child's birthday, etc.
Buyer #1 left us a 1-star rating on Google Checkout and left a comment that our shipping costs were more than the item cost. Her order was $36. We charged her a flat rate $5.95 (actual shipping was $10, the FedEx 2-day she wanted a free upgrade to was $48). The ratings left through Google Checkout do effect your item's position in Google Product Search when the buyer sorts by seller rating.
Buyer #2's order was over $100 so she qualified for our free shipping and didn't pay a shipping charge but left us negative marks in all categories on BizRate, including shipping (she wrote that our shipping charges were high) because we couldn't give her a free upgrade to UPS overnight (actual overnight charges would have been $76). She ordered the item late Friday night and left the BizRate rating at 6 am Monday morning because the item hadn't shipped yet and she hadn't received a response when she called our 800 number--never mind that the after hours message on our phone system states that our hours of operation are M-F 9am-6pm PT.