Would you be put off buying from someone on Ebay if

[Icelandholiday]

The seller has a positive feedback percentage of only 90%, which looks bad in theory.

But then you look at their feedback page and see they've only received ten pieces of feedback in the past year, one of which is negative, hence 90% positive out of ten feedbacks. They're clearly a personal seller selling their household odds and ends, they have an overall feedback score of a few hundred with years of positive buying and selling history.

Would you be put off buying from that person?

Not in the circumstances you describe.

What's the reason given for the negative?

Depends what the comment accompanying the negative was.

Bearing in mind that you can’t please all the people all of the time, I’d buy if trading the review it was a small issue. However, I’d not buy if the review was along the lines of never having received the item paid for or if the item was broken.

Generally not but depends on the content of the negative feedback.

Saw one recently where the buyer complained the item was cheaper somewhere else. Idiot, that’s entirely on them.

If the feedback was poor packaging or slow delivery I might be more worried.

It's nothing to do with anything being broken, or anyone losing any money or not having received anything. It's from someone who's clearly a difficult customer.

It would depend what the feedback comment was

In those circumstances I would not be put off.

I wouldn't buy - but only because I use eBay on my phone, scroll down and if it's not 100% positive I click straight off. I haven't ever looked at why someone has bad feedback.

If it's clear the negative feedback came from someone difficult, it wouldn't bother me.

In the case of isolated negatives, my general rule is to ignore them if they are not something I would neg for.

If it's from a clearly difficult buyer, why would you be put off?

No, I never buy anything from a seller with less than 100% feedback. Not worth the risk and there are plenty of other eBay sellers to look at over 90%.

Okay, so there's some mixed views here.

I may buy the item. I would look at the reason for the poor review (eg was it reasonable to give a bad review) and also the item I wanted to buy (if cheap, then I would).

I think it would depend on how common the item was and how much I wanted it. If it’s an item I could get from anyone I’d look for 100% feedback. If it was something specific that needed to be collected locally I’d consider the seller with the 90% feedback.

I probably would buy it. I once had a seller leave me negative feedback because she felt the size 10 used Barbour jacket I had sold wasn't a size 10 as it didn't fit her. I'd even linked to Barbour's sizing in the description. I offered to refund if she posted it back, but she didn't.

Totally depends on the value of the item being sold and what it is. For a really common item, I’d probably go for a regular seller with a lot more than 10 feedback, and 99%+ positive. For a speciality item, depends on the value. I wouldn’t buy something for £200 from someone with 10 feedback if one was negative, whatever the reason. If it’s £20 and the single negative one was for a silly reason (it didn’t fit etc) then I’d be fine with that.

@someoneontheinterweb The total feedback score is several hundred, going back years. Just that there's only been ten in the past year.

Your positive percentage is only the percentage of feedback gained in the past year, not all your feedback ever, so it doesn't count after a year.

To the people saying they'd only buy from someone with 100%, when you see that figure do you just take it as a given, or do you go through and see if they had any negative feedback over a year ago?

Ah that’s different then. I’d look at the feedback first and make a decision based on that

Btw I'm talking about personal sellers selling random second hand stuff and clothes etc from round the house, not necessarily the sort of items you could buy new from lots of places.

I treat it like trip advisor where I read the negatives and discount things like weather (not hotels fault), other guests behaviour (again not hotels fault as long as they deal with it) etc

To the people saying they'd only buy from someone with 100%, when you see that figure do you just take it as a given, or do you go through and see if they had any negative feedback over a year ago

If the item is a few pounds then no I’d just go with the 100% I can see. If a larger amount I would check and see if there was anything especially if a personal seller rather than a business on there as you are reliant on opening a case and winning should anything go wrong.

It really depends on the exact content of that negative review.

Eg: "Seller was rude and failed to respond despite 30 messages from me at 4 in the morning" vs "Seller took 2 weeks to respond to my message asking for details related to shipping"