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A highly-rated seller does add value.
I'll use an offline example: I recently purchased two water plants. One came from a big-box store; a plant identical in name came from a local nursery. The one from the big box store was cheaper by almost a third. But ... the damn thing still hasn't grown; essentially, I bought a flowerpot. Next time, I'm not going to bother with the big box store, despite their being cheaper (and having water plants earlier, which is really what seduced me); I know the ones from the nursery are healthy and thriving.
It's the same thing with ratings: I'll pay extra to know I'm getting what I paid for (and I'm actually getting it). If two vendors have an out-of-print book I'm looking for (and actually, I bought a half-dozen last week for a project, so this isn't just hypothetical) I'll pay extra for the one with the 100% rating instead of the 90% rating, not just because I don't want the hassle of being the one person out of ten who's unhappy with their purchase, but because I know the higher-rated seller is making sure that their customers are happy, and avoiding hassles in the first place is the best way for them to do that.
I actually paid $10 extra for a book (yeah, a fairly scarce one) and one reason was to buy from a more reliable seller -- the cheaper seller had complaints about the grading and quality of their books, and when you're buying a used book, you're trusting the vendor on grading, so that was a big turn-off right there.
So, yeah, a high rating does add value. You know you're really going to get your book, and it's going to be what the vendor says it is. Like my water plants, the one that grew and the expensive flowerpot, it makes a big difference.
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