FAIR SHAKE

MY DSR SCORE (DSR=DETAILED SELLER RATINGS)
Note-ratings are a lowest of 1 through a highest of 5:

Item as described: Rating: 4.8, Rating tier: Middle-50%, Number of ratings: 36

Communication: Rating: 4.8, Rating tier: Middle-50%, Number of ratings: 36

Shipping time: Rating: 4.7, Rating tier: Middle-50%, Number of ratings: 36

Shipping and handling charges: Rating: 4.8, Rating tier: Top-10%, Number of ratings: 36
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I HAVE THE SAME RATING AND THE SAME NUMBER OF RATINGS IN 3 OF THE 4 CATEGORIES.

WHY IS A 4.8 COUNTED IN THE TOP 10% IN S/H CHARGES, BUT ONLY 50% IN ALL OTHERS?
USING THIS RATING TIER SYSTEM, 2.5 SHOULD EQUAL 50%.
4.8 OR EVEN 4.7 SHOULD BE EXCELLENT RATINGS.

THIS DSR SYSTEM EQUALS BURIAL IN THE NEW "BEST MATCH" DEFAULT METHOD OF SEARCH.

I HAVE 1800+ FEEDBACK, 100% POSITIVE, AND 8 YEARS OF HARD WORK ACHIEVING IT, BUT NOW THAT WILL NOT MATTER.

On eBay I have over 1000 feedbacks which were mostly for selling, and I've maintained 100% positive feedback for 7 years. But here are my DSRs (which I am really unhappy with at the moment):

Item as described 4.9 Top 10-25% 19
Communication 4.6 Bottom 10-25% 19
Shipping time 4.5 Bottom 10-25% 19
Shipping and handling charges 4.8 Top 10% 19

Positive feedback: 100.00%

So how does a person have two DSR scores in the "top" percentages, and two in the "bottom"? Well, I moved last fall to a rural location where my only choices for internet access are dial-up, or DSL through my phone company. Of course I went for the DSL, but there were problems with my new hook up where both my phone and DSL would go out. When I would try to get someone from the phone company to come to fix it I would have to wait 2 days before someone would show up. This happened to me so much in the first month when I had moved that I literally only had phone and DSL half of the time.

To try to make a long story short, I had a couple of items that sold while I did not have internet access, so I couldn't get online to get the addresses to ship for a couple of days. Another time when I had an outage I had the addresses and shipped, but I was unable to email my buyers to let them know it was on the way like I normally would have. Even though I explained the situation to the buyers when I was able to email again, even though they seemed to be understanding in their replies and did leave some positive feedback comments where they sound like they are very pleased with their items, my communication and shipping time stars got dinged pretty badly. I had all 4.8 or 4.9 ratings before this happened.

So I'm sharing my "shame" with you all to illustrate how unusual circumstances that are out of your control can cause you to take a big hit on the DSRs. And I think this also goes to show how inaccurate this system is as well. eBay tells a buyer that a 4 is GOOD, but my 4.6 and 4.5 are in the "bottom" of the percentages at the moment. Since when is 4 1/2 stars out of 5 considered a BAD thing? I know if I saw a hotel, restaurant, or a movie rated 4 1/2 stars out of 5, I would think it was pretty good!

Cherie

What's so AGGRAVATING about this is the way eBay is sorting it to make sellers look bad, when they should be APPLAUDING sellers for having such HIGH ratings!!

Personally, if I am asked to fate something--ANYTHING-- from one to five stars, I look at those categories like this--I'm starting with 3, because I would consider it to be the most NEUTRAL of the ratings you could assign to a category:

3 stars: Average performance--neither exceptional, nor were there major problems

2 stars: There were some glitches that caused me some wasted time or considerable frustration, and I didn't feel like I was adequately apologized to or

1 star: If the whole category was a complete disaster--unresolved issues, and I would avoid doing business with that person again, I voice my EXTREME displeasure this way.

4 stars: Wow--this person went out of their way to make things happen smoothly, I am very grateful, so I express my thanks by giving them an above average rating, thinking they should be PLEASED with this.

5 Stars: In my book, this is very hard to accomplish. This would mean the person put chains on their car to get my package to the post office while their neighbor tended their sick child, and they upgraded my shipping from Parcel Post to Priority without charging me because they knew I really needed this item quickly and I had inadvertently selected Parcel during checkout!!

I believe when individuals and Institutions dilute a rating system by expecting or giving TOP ratings for adequate service, it becomes meaningless. There are undoubtedly people who only ever give 5 stars or 1 star. I'm either HAPPY or I'm NOT. If eBay is going to say anything 4 stars (or even 4.6!!!) poor service by whatever method they use to arrive at that conclusion, then at the LEAST they should drop the five star ratings and let it simply be a plus or minus.

How could 4.6 stars POSSIBLY be considered poor?!!!!

That is absolutely INSANE.