Posted By:
MarkGreat point by Rob D... If a buyer is content he/she is much less likely to leave feedback than a buyer who needs to vent. So the good seller is inadvertantly punished, as his DSR rating will unfairly suffer.
Postage and shipping cost is the biggest issue here, IMO. This thread exists on the "Card" side, where shipping costs are pretty standard, uniform and well understood. But I can assure you that shipping odd-shaped things like pennants, bats, trophies and the like take on new challenges with the severe postal rate hikes.
Most buyers are not in tune with the new shipping costs, and to punish a good seller for buyers' naivety is ludicrous. Ebay needs to relax its 4.3 threshold on shipping, or eliminate shipping cost as one of their measured criteria. I would replace it with "quality of packaging" which I have always thought should be measured, anyway.
If Ebay is stuck on the seemingly random 4.3 number, another alternative would be to require a 4.3 on all four measures COMBINED. A composiote rating would be a much more equitable solution than the nonsense they're proposing for October.