Sales Exceed $13,500 As Of This Week As Wildings Listings Continue and My First Neutral Feedback on E-bay

Well it had to happen sooner of later: I received my first neutral feedback ever on E-bay. After an unbroken streak of over 2,000 positive feedbacks, one customer left me a neutral. So what happened?

Well I went to check the mail yesterday and I saw that something I sold just under 2 weeks ago was returned to me due to "Incomplete Address" according to Canada Post. I was puzzled because the address looked very complete to me. So I contacted the customer to let him know that the item had been returned to me and could he please confirm his address. He replied and it turns out that his address contained a comma as in "32, 36" and the street name. I had "3236" on the envelope. The postal code was right, so in my mind the mail carrier should have been able to deliver it. I apologized profusely about what had happened and told him I would post it today. But it bothered me for the rest of the night.

So this morning I was all set to write him back and refund his money as a goodwill gesture and send him the stamps. It was a relatively small purchase and he is a new customer. When I went into my account I saw that he left me neutral feedback in French saying something to the effect that it took me 15 days to send him his stamps.

I can only surmise that people new to E-bay do not understand the effect that their feedback has on sellers. They think that it is harmless and constructive, when it is anything but. To me, and to a lot of other sellers, you just don't leave neutral or negative feedback unless your seller has been uncooperative, unresponsive, rude or it is otherwise warranted. It seems these days that if a buyer doesn't receive their merchandise right away, they think that is grounds for leaving less than positive feedback. Again I can understand that when a seller is unresponsive or does not notify a customer of the problem, but in this case I actually contacted him to tell him and put things right. I guess I should have offered him the refund right away. But at the same time, I don't want to have to make a regular habit of giving refunds to people just because their item is a few days late.

I have been hard at work trying to get through my listings of the 1954-1963 Wilding Issue, but it is taking FOREVER!. I have been working on the 2c green value all week long and expect to finish it today. But I still have the 3c, 4c, 5c, 6c, 10c, 15c, 20c and 25c still to go. Fortunately, all of them except the 4c and 5c are relatively quick to deal with, but the 4c and 5c will each take just as long as the 2c has. This is a very complicated set that has given me a whole new appreciation for these stamps.

On a good note, a new customer bought four stamps from me for $750,bringing my total sales since July 22 to just over $13,500 and my total for November to just over $5,500, which is amazing. I couldn't have imagined that I would be half way to my sales goal after just five months. It will really be interesting to see how this Elizabethan material performs. So far, it seems to sell just as well as the early material, albeit to different customers.