Would you say this was a 'negative'? It feels it...

[Mummagumma]

So Monday last week I bought something Buy It Now from a business seller - an item I could have bought from dozens of vendors, but I chose this one as her goods are listed as estimated delivery within 2-3 working days, and I wanted it for the weekend. She didn't in the event dispatch until Saturday, so I didn't receive it until the following Monday.

I'm deeply unimpressed. It's a small item, easy to pop in an envelope, no wrapping etc. I emailed her to ask why it took so long and she replied saying she was really snowed under at the moment with orders. That seems a little implausible given the current climate, and even so, it's not really good enough, and you should certainly let people know or change your listing if you can't manage. And five days instead of 24 hours!? That would have to be an avalanche of orders...

So, I can't see how my experience could be considered anything but negative. If it were a regular shop, I'd have no qualms about feeding back honestly about what happened. Seems silly to feel it makes a difference on ebay, but it sort of does. WWYD in terms of feedback?

So it took a little longer than you hoped for. In a way I can empathise as I was in a similar situation but with an online department store rather than eBay. On the other hand, is everything else satisfactory? I would put it as neutral and comment on late despatch and mark her down on the DSR. However, your experience not mine.

I think if she promised a set delivery time, and it arrived too late, I would leave a neg and bad stars, maybe I am harsh but I look at delivery times when deciding when to buy, if she had said it would take a week to dispatch you would have gone elsewhere wouldn't you.

she could have emailed you and said item will be delayed, would you like to cancel then you could have bought from a different seller who would have delivered in time

either way, feedback is your decision and your perception, if you considered it a negative experience then leave a neg. You don't have to justify it to anyone, it is your opinion, and that is absolutely fine.

Did she dispatch it on Saturday...or are you just assuming that she did as you got it on the monday? My parcels are taking a long time to get where they are going at the moment!!!

In this situation, I would say leave a neutral unless you're unhappy with the item itself.

Item all fine but crap delivery time - neutral

Item crap/broken + took ages to arrive - negative.

But as others say, it's your view and if you're really unhappy, it's your right to leave your honest opinion.

There are 4 components to the DSRs, to leave a neg because one of them was unsatisfactory seems too harsh to me.

If it arrived too late AND was wrongly described/comms were bad/overcharged on P+P, then you'd have justification for Neging.

Thanks for these responses - sorry, not been online and all sorts of ghastly stuff going on [heads off to start thread in legal...]
Okay, I think a neutral is in order. Ebay's a funny old world.

I hardly ever use negative and i have only used it once after a Christmas present came in rubbish order! I have used neutral 2-3 times after communication problems. You expect even the smallest of business's to have satisfactory communication and posting skills

God Bless

Can I just add that I sell on eBay for a living and our orders are up 150% so it is plausible that she is snowed under. She should have emailed to let you know/apologise for the delay but it is a busy time of year and I think it would be unfair of you to leave negative. Even if she had dispatched it in two days there's no guarantee you would have got it we are seeing delays of up to a week with royal mail even with recorded items