The days when a eBay was a happy playground where sellers and buyers traded items and ratings are been and gone.

Now eBay for sellers is a bear pit where great sellers do well, good sellers struggle to make a profit and less experienced sellers struggle to survive.

Much of that struggle comes from the strong emphasis eBay puts on customer feedback for sellers, with people that get good DSL scores getting massive discounts for seller fees.

Sellers can't leave negative or neutral feedback on buyers' accounts and removing negative feedback from an account is next to impossible

It doesn't only pay, then, to be a good seller on eBay it is a matter of survival.

When selling on eBay here are three things to remember:

** Be A Good Guide For Customers **

Anybody can sell one or two pieces a month, but to constantly sell items and lift sales figures you need to guide the buyer through the purchase process.

A good seller starts thinking about guiding their customer through the transaction process the moment they write the description and doesn't let the customer slip away after the transaction is completed.

In many ways an eBay transaction is like a journey. It has a beginning and an end and your job is to get the buyer through the entire process.

In the end your customer shouldn't only be looking forward to further journeys (transactions) with you, they should also be willing to tell their friends about the products you sell, the way you go about your business and how happy you made them.

If you are professional and responsive both you and your customer will get a degree of satisfaction and trust.

This, more than anything else, will make the difference to either receiving negative feedback or glowing feedback from your buyer.

One of the maxims of retail is that finding a new customer costs six times more than retaining an existing one.

Therefore, it makes sense to do everything right in the first place and keep return sales coming in rather than spending your time addressing problems and customer complaints.

** Don't Focus On 'Damage Control' **

It is very hard to remove negative feedback.

The good news is that your positive feedback percentage it is only one of the criteria that buyers use to determine how good you actually are.

The process used by buyers to evaluate your overall professionalism and salesmanship is complex and may include:

• The quality, content and layout of your auction pages, where they look for:

• Professional appearance

• Clear relevant and helpful information

• Useful and accurate photographs

• The quality of the communication from the seller where they are interested in:

• Timely, responsive and professional responses

• Responses that address the issues raised by the buyer

• Dispatch time where they want:

• Reasonable delay between payment and them receiving the item

• Appropriate packaging

• The condition, size and quality of the item which includes

• How closely the item matches the description on the product page

• How problems are resolved where they are interested in:

• Whether or not returns are accepted

• Whether or not refunds are issued in a timely manner

The seller and buyer CAN come to an amicable agreement even if one doesn't seem possible (if for example the item is no longer available or the shipping company is at fault).

Whether or not such an agreement is reach depends mostly on your ability to communicate with the buyer and your willingness to discuss the problems in a transparent manner.

** Share What You Know **

Never underestimate the importance of sharing knowledge, tips and resources from existing online groups of eBay sellers.

All eBay sellers have problems at some stage in their selling careers and it is worth remembering that someone, somewhere, will have experienced it before.

To find solutions you can often visit these locations:

*Powersellers Unite

*Powersellers Forum

*US EBay Community Discussion Boards

*UK EBay Community Discussion Boards

So if you take the following steps you are sure to see happier customers, better DSR scores and bigger profits:

1)Review your eBay listings and seller page and make sure that you're giving your customer all the information they need to proceed in confidence with your order.

2. Take an objective look at your communication method to make sure your customers leave happy and come back to you first, instead of 'shopping around' on Google when they're in the market again.