Thursday, May 1st, 2008
The F-word…
…As in “Feedback” (what were you thinking?).
The pending changes to eBay’s Feedback system have been a topic of much discussion since they were announced earlier this year. Early next week I am sitting down with Brian Burke, Director of Global Feedback Policy, to go over all aspects of the changes coming later this month and am looking forward to posting our Q&A here on Ink.
In the meantime, I must address a very timely post by Chris Dawson over at TameBay. I’m making a direct reference to the post titled, Who Will Leave the Last Neg? for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I had wanted to ask a number of the same questions he asked in his post:
1. What is your policy for negs?
2. Have you stopped leaving them already?
3. Are you one of the sellers who has got a neg saved up to leave at the last minute?
4. If you’ve just left your last neg (or are about to) tell us why you left it and what you’ll miss about leaving negs in the future.
Secondly, I thought the resulting discussion in the comments section was even more interesting. One comment in particular caught my eye:
northumbrian Says:
May 1st, 2008 at 10:41 am
we were die hard never leave feedback until its left for us
activists.
though since this was announced
we have on a major id left feedback on payment as an experiment,
which is in effect the same as not being able to leave negative,
we have had no problem with feedback at all
on more than a thousand transactions, despite one or two nutters and problems with delivery
our 100% on the id still intactso we are not worried at all about this
I heard similar sentiment from some folks I spoke with down in New Orleans last week but must admit that the folks that have been posting to Ink (and emailing me directly), about the feedback changes in particular, have been far less nonchalant.
Look for my conversation with Brian early next week.
Cheers,
RBH
Tagged: brian+burke, buyers, ebay, ecommerce, feedback, Marketplace, sellers
BrendaOn 05.04.2008 at 4:44 am Said:
I rechecked feedback criteria today and it seems that the reason that Ebay couldn’t censor feedback was due to potential legal liability to Ebay if they did.
How does the shifts in feedback procedures pan out legally?
Does the shift in policy disallowing sellers the ability to leave neutrals or negatives constitute censorship? If so, does Ebay incur any liability with the new feedback procedures? If the new policy is not a form of censorship, would someone explain this to me from a legal perspective.
What are the gains? What are the losses?
BrendaOn 05.05.2008 at 6:20 am Said:
As I continue my campaign for real customer service:
The following is a link to an active thread in the AC. It is withiin the feedback subcatagory.
1st post
http://answercenter.ebay.com/thread.jspa?threadID=900132915&mod=1209943532335
I think that the thread may be up to part 3 by now.
There needs to be better advice given to members. There needs to be more structure. The die hard contributors are also boycotters. Is this really the best approach for helping members?
JewelrySellerOn 05.05.2008 at 9:51 am Said:
Buyers are unhappy about negative ‘public’ feedback so sellers are no longer allowed to leave negative feedback.
I suggested/requested that sellers be able to leave honest BUYER FEEDBACK that ONLY SELLERS COULD SEE!
This allows sellers to review this non-public feedback about a buyer and decide whether to accept a transaction from this buyer or not.
The buyer is not publicly reminded or humiliated. The seller community has some level of protection against abusive or fraudulent buyers.
eBay achieves their objectives. All the honest buyers are happy. Sellers have some protection.
Win-Win-Win.
Patricia1On 05.05.2008 at 10:12 am Said:
“I suggested/requested that sellers be able to leave honest BUYER FEEDBACK that ONLY SELLERS COULD SEE!”
You mean have it transaction related same as giving feedback? A seller can only see a buyer’s feedback if the buyer bids on the seller’s item? That would be SUPER - but ebay would never bother themselves to do that…doesn’t put any revenue in their pocket….now they might consider doing that for an extra fee…… 
PermacrisisOn 05.08.2008 at 8:51 am Said:
KD, your post was so on target, I printed it. God bless you.
It’s going in the binder I am keeping to someday explain to my 2-year old son what happened here, and why Daddy had to leave.
Patricia1On 05.08.2008 at 10:54 am Said:
Great post KD - lets hope NO sellers just quietly go away but repeat the facts over and over again until ALL the buyers get it! My buyers are good, honest people and are shocked by the baloney and backhandedness being shown to sellers this year. Apparently ebay thinks our intelligence quotient is pretty darn low. Well, I have news for them…some of the brightest and most intelligent people are among your lowly sellers! Many of them are here taking your nonsense and bringing it back to other buyers and putting it into comments on articles and blogs. We are helping to spread the word…Ebay will pay for what they’re doing. Its imperative that we hang on and keep it in the eyes of the public and the eyes of our buyers - that is the only way to give ebay what it rightly deserves!
We close the comments for posts after 30 days. If you would still like to comment on this post, please use our contact form.
51 Responses on this post. Click to add yours.