Automatic 5 star rating for free post items paid with PayPal

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From today any items offering free postage that are paid with PayPal will automatically be awarded a five star rating for the P&P option. Items must be paid for with PayPal so that eBay are certain that no postage was paid. It’s worth remembering that free postage qualifies you for a small boost in search results, although listing popularity (sales!) and Top Rated Seller status both give a bigger search advantage.

If the transaction qualifies, then buyers won’t be able to change the automatic 5 star rating. Sellers can still offer additional payment methods, but only transactions paid with PayPal will be eligible to receive 5 stars for P&P charges automatically.

In addition if a buyer is about to leave a negative or neutral feedback then eBay will start to display a message encouraging them to communicate with the seller. The pop up messages will also ask buyers to confirm their intention before they can submit a neutral or negative feedback.

Edited to addWe’ve had it confirmed by eBay that the auto five stars are awarded when free shipping is selected, not when it’s offered. In other words if you offer free shipping as a 2nd or 3rd choice option if the buyer chooses the free option you’ll get your five stars. On the other hand if your first shipping option is free but the buyer opts for a faster paid for option then you won’t get an automatic five stars.

21 Responses

  1. I think they should leave an automatic 5 star for despatch time if it is posted within 24 hours. They can get this info from selling manager pro.

  2. Ebay insistent in retaining this stupid grading system is now starting to make sense.

    It never had anything to do with the ‘A Positive Customer Experience’.

    Its pounds, shillings and pence

    What a Surprise!

  3. When you have your worst rating as shipping time despite sending off items within 48 hours one begins to wonder if disallowing people to leave a poor star for shipping costs will not make people who cant leave that star apply it to shipping time instead.

    But yes this and the return of the screen between the impulse and the negative feedback are generally good things.

    Free shipping by the way seems to be odd — I watch my father bid and when he sees something with shipping he considers reasonable he doesnt even think of the shipping price with the decision. When he sees something with free shipping he doesnt tend to add the implied value of that shipping to the item — and if he does it is like +5 when the shipping of the item might be 12.

    Hence doing free shipping in general transfers a decent amount of extra money into ebay fees and reduces the amount of money you get for your items from some people. If it werent for the small bonus in placement I dont see why anyone would do it.

  4. It’s about time this happened. 99% of my items include free shipping and still customers give low ratings! Why!
    It’s hard enough relying on royal mail to deliver on time which impacts the dsr’s on dispatch time.

  5. I bought some batteries today.

    Couldn’t find any without free shipping.

    So because I purchased 2 lots, I was overcharged for shipping.

    I wanted to buy batteries from a seller on a BIN that didn’t offer free shipping so that the multiple purchase shipping cost could be reduced.

    But could not find one…

  6. I bought some batteries today.

    Couldn’t find any without free shipping.

    So because I purchased 2 lots, I was overcharged for shipping.

    I wanted to buy batteries from a seller on a BIN that didn’t offer free shipping so that the multiple purchase shipping cost could be reduced.

    But could not find one…

    Next time I think I will go to Amazon…

  7. Or you could have checked out the websites of the ebay sellers? That’s what I usually do – if they’ve got reasonable feedback on ebay, I’m perfectly happy to go straight to the website, especially if it’s cheaper…

  8. Ebay is a massive market and sellers should be free to charge postage or offer free postage as suits their particular product lines. As a media seller it suits me to charge a postal cost and offer postal discount. I like it and the number of multiple purchase order customers I get suggests that my customers like it also.

    It is not unreasonable for buyers to look for a discount when making multiple purchases, and at the moment the only method of providing a discount is via postal discount. If I could offer free postage and a multiple purchase discount (as I do on my own web site) I would offer free postage on ebay.

    Postal discount on multiple orders saves both the seller and buyer cash.
    Why do you think ebay wants everybody to offer free postage?

    It is to stop buyers and sellers making a saving in order that ebay /Paypal can cream off their percentages.

  9. Here we go again – buyers will simply knock stars off somewhere else if they see a five star rating for p&p and weren’t happy with some aspect of it. Seems all obvious stuff to me.
    E_Bay MEDICALSHOP

  10. DSRs are a joke anyway. Everyone knows it, including eBay, but they still persist in not only keeping DSRs, but including them as part of the calculations for TRS and other stupid stuff. But at least the feedback check screen is a good idea; I have had several buyers (who must have been drugged up), leaving positive comments with a negative rating. Duh.

  11. It’s about time this happened. 99% of my items include free shipping and still customers give low ratings! Why!
    It’s hard enough relying on royal mail to deliver on time which impacts the dsr’s on dispatch time.

  12. It’s about time this happened. 99% of my items include free shipping and still customers give low ratings! Why!
    It’s hard enough relying on royal mail to deliver on time which impacts the desires on dispatch time.

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