Your eBay reputation is everything you are on eBay without it, youre nothing. Your reputation is worth as much as every sale you will ever make.

If youve ever bought anything on eBay (and the chances are you have), then think about your own behaviour. Buying from a seller with a low feedback rating makes you feel a little nervous and insecure, while buying from a PowerSeller with their reputation in the thousands doesnt require any thought or fear it feels just like buying from a shop.

A Bad Reputation Will Lose You Sales.

In fact, a bad reputation will lose you almost all your sales. If someone leaves you negative feedback, you will feel the pain straight away, as that rating will go right at the top of your user page for everyone to see. Whos going to want to do business with you when theyve just read that you took a month to deliver the item, or that you had bad communication and sent a damaged item? The answer is no-one.

Your next few items will need to be very cheap things, just to push that negative down the page. You might have to spend days or even weeks selling cheap stuff to get enough positive feedback to make anyone deal with you again.

Its even worse if you consistently let buyers leave negative feedback once you get below 90% positive ratings, you might as well be invisible.

You Cant Just Open a New Account.

Besides eBays rules about only having one account, there are far more downsides than that to getting a new account. You literally have to start all over again from scratch.

You wont be able to use all the different eBay features. Your existing customers wont be able to find you any more. Your auctions will finish at a lower price because of your low feedback rating. Opening a new account is like moving to a new town to get away from a few people who are spreading rumours about you: its throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

A Good Reputation Will Get You Sales.

When a PowerSeller tells me something, I tend to believe them. They can be selling a pretty unlikely item, but if they guarantee it is what they say it is, then I trust them theyre not going to risk their reputation, after all. This is the power of a reputation: people know you want to keep it, and they know youll go to almost any lengths to do so.

This is true even to the point that I would sooner buy something for 20 from a seller I know I can trust than for 15 from someone with average feedback. Its worth the extra money to feel like the seller knows what theyre doing, has all their systems in place and will get me the item quickly and efficiently.

You really will find selling on eBay so much easier, and theres only way to get a good reputation: make sure you please your customers every time.