Ebay's new feedback rule.
 

Anyone know why Ebay would do this?
Their feedback system is the whole heart of online buying and selling, so why try to remove it?


Granted I buy more than I sell, but I still want to read feedback from the people I am selling my items too.

wtf! Can someone explain to me why this is good.

i guess maybe they mean a buyer who leaves a comment about a seller can't get a bad response in retaliation.

I've had several sellers tell me up front that they'll reply with the exact same rating I give. Even one guy that didn't have the advertised product and held my money for a couple of weeks before I finally got a refund gave me a negative rating when I gave him one. I can absolutely see why Ebay felt that honest seller ratings important.

It's been an issue for awhile. Sellers don't leave immediate positive feedback (say, after an immediate Paypal payment) with the hopes of hanging that over the heads of buyers so their feedback to the seller will be positive.

I just left neutral feedback on a buyer (I think negative should only be used if the wrong item is received - or never received at all) because he got my Paypal payment on April 27th and he shipped it on May 10th. Sorry, but that's way too long. He had already left me positive feedback for the payment, but if he didn't already, he would've been able to say some bullshit about how I didn't pay quickly or gave him the wrong address. Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter, because most people don't read it (just see the number) and I don't think it can be fought through ebay.

This is a good thing.

I think this is bad, why fix something that is not broken.

I never sell, so in theory this should be to my advantage.
This is the internet, if people can post negative comments without consequences, they will. Everyone will have negative comments and hide people who truly deserve them in white noise.

I found a couple of blogs that try to explain it.
http://www.bcchardware.com/index.php...=5660&Itemid=1
[i]What this basically does is avoids the situation where a seller provides crappy service, then when the buyer leavers negative/neutral feedback, the seller in return does the same unfairly. However, for sellers, it removes the ability to leave bad feedback for buyers, and might open the doors to stupid buyers leaving negative feedback unfairly without the Seller being able to do anything. eBay also says it will remove any negative feedback for sellers if the feedback was left by a suspended buyer or left by a buyer who hasn't responded to the unpaid item process. More on the changes can be found over here.

Damned if I buy the logic in this change.

First they raised fees on the sellers, now this. Looks to me as though they're trying to reduce the number of sellers, looking to get as many as possible in their storefront program (whatever it's called) and wipe out the smaller sellers.

What kinds of things can buyers do to deserve negative feedback, anyway?

The main driving force behind this was that some sellers were giving negative feedback towards buyers when they were given negative feedback so, they decided to go this route and they have expanded the number of days from 3 to 7 before you can leave feedback.

In a perfect world, a buyer buys and items, pays, gets the item and if they are happy they post positive. If disatisfied they contact the seller and work out an agreement and then feedback is left. I've had issues with items sent where I still left positive just because the seller worked with me, no one is perfect and just because there is an oversight doesn't necessarily mean that is a bad seller.

Unfortunately.. there is an element that uses feedback incorrectly or to extort (both sellers and buyers). For example I've seen people buy perfume and then leave negative because they didn't like the smell. (How in the world is that the seller's fault)

Will this change result in more negatives? Sure and people will have to rethink what is a decent score for a seller.

The bigger joke is the shipping/handling star. We have a 4.6 score out of 5 and charge exact shipping, use Uline boxes and packing peanuts and send it out the next day and we still are low and there is not a damn thing we can do to improve that part other than pay the customers for shipping. (And I've seen people with free shipping have 4.8 ratings)

Some things...

1. Not pay
2. Not pay in accordance with the sellers requests (that is, they take 3 weeks to pay when the seller requests 1 week.
3. Are abusive towards the seller
4. Try to extort $ from the seller.
5. Fraud

You can be a bad buyer. I'm sure we all know people that when something goes wrong they just fly off the handle. Who wants to deal with that?

Can't they separate it into Buyer and Seller Ratings?

I think they basically just assume they've got the market cornered as far as places sellers can go. They aren't too concerned with offending them at this point. What they can do is make it a less intimidating/unpleasant experience for new buyers and increase the amount of total customers faster this way.

I think they could be underestimating how much more difficult/annoying this could make things for a seller. The feeling like you have a say when you run into a bad customer is gone.

I guess the question, ultimately, comes down to: Will sellers ultimately still run the same risk of running into a deadbeat/jerk customer? Was having feedback merely the illusion of some control over that? Or will the new lack of rules actually lead to the terrible customers running amok and ruining things for as many sellers as possible?

Dola - It seems weird that I used the / between terms 3 times in that post. Once per paragraph.

Should be the same. If I was a jerk customer, I shouldn't care about my feedback score anyways and I could just do whatever I wanted and moved onto the next account. Feedback for buyers was just a badge of honor.. didn't do crap. So, you're at 98% as a buyer... eh.. Low feedback for a seller, yes, that is more costly in the way of sales and discounts.

yeah, feedback for buyers is silly anyway. what - you not gonna sell to me if i have bad feedback and i win your auction? you gonna pay money to list your item again?

it's a useless rating. the importance is on the seller being reputable. since the seller has to get paid first before you get your item its more important you don't deal with someone who's gonna sit on your money for weeks before shipping out. worst case scenario with a bad buyer is it takes him longer than you want to pay for your item. if he doesn't pay then you don't give him the item, what's the risk?

I despise it when people click "Buy it now" and then wait 3-4 days to pay. It already takes forever to get money out of PayPal.

Seems like a reasonable change to me. Feedback never had any value for buyers anyway unless it was negative and smart buyers with negative feedback would just create new accounts anyway.

I have about 150 feedback and its about 50/50 from buying/selling. In the old system as a buyer I never left negative feedback for the seller no matter how crappy the experience because of the threat of getting undeserved negative feedback that would affect my ability to sell things. Now that isn't a concern. I think its a great change.

I know many sellers who say in their auction that they can refuse buyers who have bad ratings.

This seams like it is going to lead to many people not going through with an auction they won. Then the sellers will be trying to get their money back from ebay. Ebay charges you fee for the listing and then again for the completed auction.



EX: I see an item on ebay I want, so I bid on three auctions that each have the same item. I then win all three auctions and then only pay for the lowest auction. The sellers can not leave me negative feedback and if ebay asks I will claim to have paid the other sellers with a money order. This is a win - win for both me for getting the lowest bid, and ebay for being able to charge 3 different sellers. The only loser will be the guy trying to sell his item and getting stiffed by the buyers and then trying to have ebay collect their fees on an item that never actually sold.

This should be convenient next christmas when I bid on 10 "Mi Llamo es Elmo" dolls at the same time. I'm sure to get one at a reduced rate, and this way I won't have to fight the rush at the store.

I think I am going to go bid on a Dodge Viper now.

Just think, when this day ends I could own a Viper, a Porsche, and some house in florida according to ebay anyway. :)

The only negative feedback I ever received was to spite me after a seller blatantly sent me a used broken item when his add clerly described it as "New In Plastic"

I contacted him before leaving feedback and he basically told me to go fuck myself, so I left negative feedback and he gave it to me as well then listed the reason as "a bad transaction"

I was furious because I both buy and sell with the same ID and that negative point for a seller can hurt business.

thankfully its well over 2 years gone at this point but its still shows up if you dig for it.

I love digging through old feedback on other you get some good ones.

I agree completely with this. I've had sellers give me bad feedback when i gave them bad feedback in retaliation. Totally agree with this. I'd rather change it to sellers leave first, then buyers (which makes sense since the buying happens first in a transaction), but I'll take this.

Yeah, screw that. If I used Buy It Now, I'm paying immediately because I want them to ship ASAP. Otherwise, why not wait for a better deal?

SI

There's been a couple of cases I've heard about on a sports card forum where a buyer gets a card, has some buyer's remorse, and basically tries to blackmail the seller into getting a refund by saying that they can leave a negative and there's nothing you can do back to them. Paypal is a joke at defending sellers, so this new system will not be good. But ebay won't do anything to change it as long as they are making money.

That's when you wait till the last possible minute and hope you can negative him without recourse.

Lemme guess, you thought you were getting a mint Carson Palmer starting Lineup figure, and instead you got the Von Olhoffen version where his knee was bent sideways?

;)

I guess I'll have to buy you a beer if I visit buffalo this summer for that comment.

Same thing happened to me.

Tho the downside, of course, is that they've completely neutered buyer ratings. Not saying it's good or bad but that's what they've done. Not much of a point to leaving a buyer rating now if you may or may not get a rating back.

SI

Sellers never generally gave feedback until buyers gave feedback anyway. This is how the whole problem came about in the first place.

If they really want to make feedback better, they should limit the number of plusses you're allowed to give in your comments. We get it, you're giving positive feedback. An A+ is adequate, you don't need to say "A++++++++++++" just because they sent you something on time.

Value of seller feedback >>>>>>>>> Value of buyer feedback

sellers can still comment on the feedback they receive, can't they? Maybe getting buyers to be more honest outweighs the loss of buyers able to identify bad sellers. If a seller is bad enough, Ebay will handle it, I suppose.

The star system is a relatively good gauge right now on a seller. Feedback is just.. eh, whatever. (My main use in feedback is seeing how a seller reacts to neutral or negative comments. If they are pissy, I try to avoid them).

For the last year or so you could rate the seller on 4 different aspects and not have to leave feedback... they generally match up pretty well to the seller IMO.

Well, I just had a situation happen with me. We're moving fairly soon so I've been selling some stuff off on ebay. Is there any reasonable recourse to this now?

SI

Sent you a PM.

I don't see that this is changing anything.

If you're that concerned about a buyer backing out, just set it to a sale, not an auction, with the requirement that the buyer actually pay before they win.

Or just set a 2-day limit for paying, and if they don't pay, relist. You can get a refund through ebay for the service fee for the non-buyer, and ebay counts it as a strike against them.

The more I think about this, this change looks and works better and better. Sellers simply don't evaluate buyers, buyers evaluate sellers. Ebay has functions in place to limit any loss from a bad buyer, other than a little inconvenience.

Interesting Feedback we just received....

'If we were in prison, I'd protect you in the shower. Highly Recommended!!!'


Hooookay...

Anytime pal.