A lot of Ebay sellers have a written feedback policy that requires buyer to post feedback if they want feedback from seller. This allows seller to factor in buyer's feedback when leaving feedback. It also forces people who wouldn't otherwise give feedback to do so.

I personally do not use this system. When I receive payment, I leave feedback immediately. My feedback is always positive and descriptive. If I have something bad to say, I try to work it out with buyer first, rather than posting negative feedback.

In example I used above, giving negative feedback to a buyer would be equivalent of a store owner driving out to buyer’s house and posting a big, nasty letter on person’s door for everyone in neighborhood to see.

Leaving negative feedback like this is not only is a bad reflection on my business, but it can also prompt retaliatory negative feedback from buyer.

Afterall, if someone left that nasty note on your door for all of your neighbors to see, wouldn’t you at least exercise your right to leave a response on door of that someone’s business?

. . .again, this is why it is so important to avoid these exchanges altogether.

In general, it is pretty easy to avoid negative feedback as an Ebay seller. If you create a clear store policy and adhere to it, give refunds when they are warranted, and communicate with your customers whenever there is a problem, you shouldn’t ever have to worry about negative feedback.

You will also want to add extra services and guarantees to your product that no one else offers. For example, you could give free support or free shipping. Or you could guarantee to ship everything within 24 business hours of purchase. Or you could bundle your product with other products. Whatever you do, your goal should be to gain a competitive edge over big sellers by adding an unquantifiable amount of value to your item.

. . .but even this is not enough to make you appear professional and responsible.

You must frame your products in a template that looks professionally-designed. You will need to either learn HTML or purchase a template from Ebay or elsewhere. In end, you need to ask yourself this: "if I stumbled over this auction, would I think it was professional--or would I immediately move on?"

It is also a good idea to ask another person what they would do, since it is often hard to judge your own work.

In addition to this, you will want to operate like a real business would. You should email your customers with shipping confirmation numbers. You should be polite to customers and use a systematic process to conduct all transactions and customer interactions.

Everything I mentioned in this lesson is relatively simple. Most of it can be accomplished in a matter of hours; however, vast majority of Ebay sellers neglect to do it. If you put everything in this lesson into practice, you will immediately put yourself light-years ahead of all stores that look like "that random Ebay guy."