Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
Accountability: The Evolution of the eBay Feedback System
Yesterday I sat down with Brian Burke, Director of Global Feedback Policy, to get a full run-down of all the changes being applied to eBay’s Feedback system. During our discussion, I was able to get the rationale and reasoning behind the changes as well as ask some of the questions that had been provided by Ink readers over the past few days.
Before I jump into the overview, interview and presentation, I wanted to give my two cents. The overarching theme coming out of these changes seems to be a trade of transparency for accountability (hence the title of my post). I’ve received a few emails stating that this is very “un-eBay”. However, I get the impression that eBay’s public feedback system was always intended to provide transparency and accountability but that over time, the transparency of the feedback system has taken us away from the accountability goal. So, with these changes, eBay should return to a more healthy balance of the two.
NOTE: I’ve just checked out the AB post about the changes and in retrospect, I am definitely toeing the company line on this one.
Here is a breakdown of what is being introduced this month:
1. In order to encourage repeat transactions and reward good service, eBay will provide credit for similar repeat transactions going back to when the system was introduced in 1996.
2. In May, sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers.
3. eBay will remove negative and neutral Feedback left by members who are suspended or who fail to respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) Process.
4. Positive Feedback percentage will be based on the past 12 months of Feedback, rather than lifetime on the site.
5. Restrictions on when Feedback can be left:
- Buyers must wait seven days before leaving negative or neutral Feedback for active PowerSellers who have been registered for at least 12 months.
- Members must leave Feedback within 60 days of the transaction closing (today members have up to 90 days).
6. eBay is removing Mutual Feedback Withdrawal.
This is a global eBay site-wide initiative which will start to roll-out in May, 2008.
5/12 Australia
5/15 UK, Ireland
5/19 US, Canada, Canada.FR
5/20 France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Belgium.FR, Belgium.NL
5/21 HongKong, Singapore, India, Malaysia, Phillipines
5/22 Germany, Austria, Switzerland
Additionally, he provided me with the presentation that summarizes the evolution of the feedback system:
Q&A with Brian
Can you please explain how the 2004 and 2007 ratio of retaliatory feedback numbers (shown on slide 5) was determined?
We used a really simple definition when determining exactly what constituted retaliatory negative feedback. It was strictly a user who received a negative feedback and subsequently left a negative feedback. That second negative feedback was counted as being retaliatory. There wasn’t anything that we did to go back and look to see if that negative was justified rather we observed how behavior changed in the marketplace over time. We saw that 4 years ago sellers would do that two times as more frequently than a buyer and today it is eight times more likely.
It’s basically how our members interpret retaliatory negative feedback so we wanted to keep it simple; getting a negative after receiving a negative constitutes retaliatory feedback.
A week or two ago the eBay developer blog announced “We will base the Positive Feedback Percentage on the past 12 months of activity (and will include neutral feedback in the calculation.” Is the above quote still accurate? If so, why are neutrals now going to count as negatives?
The above quote is accurate. As for neutrals, they’re not counted as negatives but they’re going to not count as positives either. When we first introduced the feedback percentage we had, within our feedback system, something that was called NARU neutrals. Basically, what had happened up through 1999, whenever a member got suspended we took any feedback that they had left (whether it was negative, positive or neutral) and we converted it to Neutral. The majority of feedback that was left for users was predominantly positive so we didn’t think it was fair back then to include NARU neutrals in the overall feedback percentage so we chose to count only positives and negatives in calculating the feedback percentage (although ideally we would have liked to track all). Now we’re going to a 12-month window, we no longer have to worry about NARU neutrals unfairly affecting an overall feedback score. So what we can do is make the Positive Feedback Percentage be exactly that. What’s the percentage of positives that a seller has received over all of the feedback they have received? Which is really what sellers should be measured against.
How is eBay going to protect the sellers? How is eBay protecting the sellers from bad buyers? How can I truly block an eBay bidder given that anyone can create a new disposable eBay ID at any time to circumvent my blocked bidder list?
First, what is good for the buyers is ultimately going to be good for the sellers in our Marketplace and we’ve already seen a lot of sellers changing behavior and focusing on what’s most important to the buyers just by the announced changes we’ve made.
When we made this change we understood clearly that we were taking away both a real and a perceived protection. For the seller who had never left a negative – it was just a perceived protection that they had. We needed to make sure there was a balance to the system. The goal behind the changes was not to enable buyers to just leave negatives. Rather it was to go back to the original intent of the feedback system - to make sure that both buyers AND sellers are held accountable for their actions in the marketplace. We’re going to hold sellers accountable through a public reputation system, leveraging our buyers. The way we’re going to hold buyers accountable is through private reporting from sellers; through enhancing the tools that we’ve given sellers to help protect them from buyers. We’re going to rely on sellers to let us know when a buyer has violated policy.
Why is my blocked bidder list no longer alphabetized and why are some seller’s blocked bidder lists disappearing all together? How can I truly block an eBay bidder given that anyone can create a new disposable eBay ID?
We haven’t made any changes to the blocked bidder list system so I’m not sure why someone would be experiencing that. I’ll have to look into that further. I haven’t heard about blocked bidder lists disappearing all together so if you could get me an example I will get that to the product team to find out why that is happening. In the case of a bidder circumventing a seller’s blocked bidder list with a new ID, that is against the rules and there has been no change in policy here at all. If that buyer is identified, he/she is suspended from the site.
I rechecked Feedback criteria today and it seems that the reason eBay couldn’t censor feedback was due to potential legal liability to eBay if they did. How do the shifts in feedback procedures pan out legally? Does the shift in policy constitute censorship?
In the United States only, eBay is given protections as a hosting service for the comments and content that another person puts on our site. As we don’t actually edit the comments or make changes to the comments – there is no difference in how we’re protected. All we’ve changed is how a user is rated in the marketplace. We’ve always had rules in place that allow us to remove negative feedback or positive feedback and the comments – but we won’t go in and edit the comments. Under the US law we can’t do that. To be clear though, we don’t get those same protections outside of the US but we still have a very similar set of rules so even if that law was to go away in the US we probably wouldn’t make changes to the system because we’re trying to design a system that instills trust within the marketplace, not one that is in place because of a US law.
What steps did eBay take to educate the users, both buyers and sellers, during the 3-year period that showed a trend in retaliatory feedback?
Well, the focus on retaliatory negatives didn’t just happen overnight. We examined a number of other alternatives before coming to the conclusion that the feedback system needed to change. The one thing we learned was that when a buyer gets a negative feedback in the eBay marketplace, they discontinue participating in the marketplace and it’s not healthy for anyone. All of the alternatives we examined still didn’t address one of the leading reasons why buyers were not comfortable continuing to participate in our marketplace.
There’s been a lot of focus on buyers but what are the changes we’re making to protect sellers?
One is basing the feedback system on a 12-month window rather than a lifetime window. For example, in the past, a seller’s feedback score has been negatively impacted by a negative left 7 years ago even though it doesn’t necessarily accurately reflect the seller’s participation in the marketplace today. So they’ll no longer be dragged down by old feedback and it’s more relative information for the buyer.
Second, if the buyer receives an Unpaid Item Strike and fails to respond (and that occurs more than 70% of the time today) we’re now going to remove the rating and the comment (in the past we just removed the rating). In the future, if a buyer responds in a manner that doesn’t fault the seller, we’re going to take a look at what buyers are saying in the UPI console and remove it if it is arbitrary.
We’re going to remove all negative and neutral feedback when a member gets suspended.
We’re going to prevent negatives and neutrals being left for PowerSellers that have been on the site for more than 12 months (within 7 days of the transaction end). This is a big deal for us because we’ve always felt that we shouldn’t be able to prevent a buyer from leaving a negative feedback but we feel that PowerSellers who have been on the site for 12-months are pretty safe. We’re going to start with that group of sellers so that if a buyer tries to leave a negative or neutral within 7 days of the transaction end, we’re going to provide a link that encourages communication between the buyer and the seller to see if the buyer has given the seller enough time to deliver on the transaction.
In order to cut down on potential extortion situations we’re reducing the number of days someone can leave feedback from 90 to 60 days.
For Cross Border Trade we’re going to include messaging in the leave feedback flow to remind the buyer that it was a CBT transaction.
When a buyer goes to leave a negative or a neutral – and very single buyer will see this, every single time they leave a negative or neutral – we’re going to ask them three key questions:
1. Have you communicated with the seller?
2. Have you allowed enough time?
3. Have you kept the feedback factual?
The big difference between then and now is that before, buyers saw the above questions but moving forward, they will have to check each question before proceeding. So it is creating a speed bump for buyers in leaving a negative or neutral and we hope that it will educate buyers, the first time they go to leave a negative or a neutral, that it is important to communicate, it is important to allow time for shipping, and that it is important to be factual.
When satisfied buyers attempt to leave DSR ratings of all 5’s they are prompted with the following message: “Are you sure? Remember, the ratings left by you are anonymous and can’t be seen by the seller.”
Why does eBay feel they need to doubt the satisfied buyer’s desire to leave 5-star DSR ratings?
The short answer is we don’t do it just for those with 5. We do it for anyone who is leaving detailed seller ratings. Whether someone intends to leave a 1 or intends to leave a 5, they’re going to get that message. This isn’t about us doubting someone whose desire is to leave a 5. Rather, it was an effort by us last Summer to address an issue we saw arise when we first introduced detailed seller ratings. Our conventional feedback system is a public system that is transparent to the marketplace and we wanted to communicate to the buyers that DSRs were designed to be more anonymous with the ultimate goal to obtain more accurate, honest feedback from buyers.
Since eBay has made such a point that DSRs are anonymous, what faith do we as sellers have that eBay is accurately reporting the ratings that our buyers are actually leaving for us? While still protecting individual’s anonymity, why not provide to me some DSR information of value? For example, what is my DSR rating from international customers versus domestic buyers for each DSR?
To answer the first part of the question… it really is in eBay’s best interest to accurately represent how buyers are reporting on sellers because that will favor those sellers that are performing best which is exactly what we want.
With regard to seller reports and information, I absolutely believe this is an area in which we can dramatically improve. We’re introducing the Seller Dashboard that provides basic information to the seller about their DSRs but we’ve heard from a lot of sellers that they would like to slice and dice that information so we’re working on a separate project right now that will enable them to either create their own reports or for us to provide a much more robust reporting structure that our sellers can take advantage of. All I can say on that is to stay tuned; it’s not something folks are going to see in the next couple of months but it is something we’re working on.
Brian, thanks very much for taking the time to provide answers to Ink readers. It is greatly appreciated and we look forward to having you back on the blog soon.
My pleasure. Anytime.
Tagged: brian+burke, buyers, detailed+seller+rationgs, dsr, ebay, ebay.com, ecommerce, feedback, Marketplace, online+marketplace, sellers
implogOn 05.07.2008 at 10:22 am Said:
Can you please explain how the 2004 and 2007 ratio of retaliatory feedback numbers (shown on slide 5) was determined?
We used a really simple definition when determining exactly what constituted retaliatory negative feedback. It was strictly a user who received a negative feedback and subsequently left a negative feedback.
Severely flawed research error. The definition of retaliatory feedback” is based on an assumption not a fact.
implogOn 05.07.2008 at 10:27 am Said:
3. eBay will remove negative and neutral Feedback left by members who are suspended or who fail to respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) Process.3. eBay will remove negative and neutral Feedback left by members who are suspended or who fail to respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) Process.
What EXACTLY does “fail to respond” mean? This is the still unanswered question I posed to Lorrie Norrington in this blog nearly one month ago.
Laurie BordenOn 05.07.2008 at 10:45 am Said:
“The way we’re going to hold buyers accountable is through private reporting from sellers; through enhancing the tools that we’ve given sellers to help protect them from buyers. We’re going to rely on sellers to let us know when a buyer has violated policy.”
As a seller having dealt with eBay’s dispute resolution system (eBay directly or pay-to-play SquareTrade) I have no confidence in eBay’s ability or willingness to really look into abusive buyers and ‘hold buyers accountable.’
Bottom line is, transparency and fair trade is gone, and sellers must “suck it up”, as the saying goes.
Kevin_TOn 05.07.2008 at 11:14 am Said:
Richard,
Thank you for addressing all of the questions from the other blog post, it is appreciated. Thank you also specifically for addressing my concerns relating to neutral feedback.
If I can carry an additional comment I made in the other thread to a more specific but very hypothetical situation, since there are buyers with the attitude “chill out, it’s only a neutral” (a recent true quote to a seller) :
I previously asked: “As an example should something to the effect of “Brilliant Packing, but Post Office Truck ran over parcel and smashed item” really ruin a sellers reputation when they have been praised for their part in a transaction that was ruined by the post office afterwards? ”
If I understand the concept correctly as explained above (and please correct me if I am wrong), let’s say that the “Brilliant Packing..” neutral is given to an Ebayer who has built up 1055 feedback over 10 years on Ebay but only sells a little currently. If it is one of twenty feedbacks for the last 12 months, and every other feedback they have ever received is positive, does that mean on their auction page that their feedback will read:
Seller: faux-selling-ID( 1055)
Feedback: 95% Positive
Member: since May-22-98
If so, if the seller now wishes to list some good quality items will many buyers be deterred, on the surface believing that 5 transactions per hundred are resulting in negative feedback for this seller?
Will buyers be led to believe that this seller does not qualify for PayPal buyer protection? The current term in the user agreement states that “At least 98% of the sellers eBay feedback is positive” to qualify for Buyer Protection, but that appears to be ALL feedback so this seller should qualify under the current user agreement, unless the user agreement is changed to the last 12 months of feedback (and if it is should such a seller be punished in such a way? ).
Will this seller be punished in the best match search for “brilliant packing…” being a neutral feedback?
Are there other implications for having a 95% positive feedback over the last year?
I realise that I am asking about a very hypothetical and specific set of circumstances, but neutrals, which are not actually critical of the seller, stand to have a serious impact on the small seller if I am reading this correctly.
Regards, Kevin
MechelleOn 05.07.2008 at 11:25 am Said:
Now that is a top notch analysis of what constitutes retaliatory feedback. Please disclose the name of the higher education institution you attended so I can be sure to not waste my money sending my kids to that scab on the higher education system.
um- gee you think there is a slight possibility that the seller went last not out of retaliation, but rather they had not done so first when they most likely would have if they didn’t FEAR their reputation being discredited by a retaliatory negative by the buyer? Newsflash - it is the seller who has more on the line - The seller is at a higher risk in the transaction - not the buyer. Maybe in the general tangible marketplace it is the opposite, however the vendor is also not subject to having defaming accusations labeled in a medium that is forever permanent plastered above their business door.
It is clear that eBay views all of us as intellectually challenged - continuously asserting that we are too daft to recognize that customer service is the foundation of success. However, I again will point out that eBay seems to have the ability to conceptualize the philosophy, but they clearly lack the ability to achieve customer satisfaction for themselves. Every (other than eBay) business understands that if you want to succeed you must gain happy regular customers. Given this reality is it at all reasonable to assume that a seller is more likely to tell their customer to kiss off if a problem arises? The only sellers that would are the sellers who have chosen to implement eBay’s business strategy- not those that are successful and want to continue their success into the longterm future.
The only rational, intelligent, educated perspective would be to acknowledge that it is the buyer 9 times out of 10 who has given a negative feedback as retaliation for an extortive demand the seller did not succumb to. That is the reality- that is why I received a negative from a [edited: see comment policy] buyer- so eBay is saying that if a buyer first leaves me a negative because I wasn’t willing to commit a felony and I leave my feedback last- I am the retaliating party in the transaction? are serious? The only reason - ONLY reason a seller isn’t first to document the transaction as a negative experience is because they will have a damaged reputation due to eBay’s PUBLIC FEEDBACK SYSTEM.
The buyer has nothing to lose- a seller may be able to block a bidder in an auction, but once the purchase is committed and paid by the customer the seller has no choice at all on whether or not to follow through on the transaction- to again AVOID A NEGATIVE FEEDBACK AND/OR A NON-PERFORMING SELLER STRIKE. So a [edited: see comment policy] buyer can run rampant through the marketplace leaving unjustified negative feedback left and right without anything to prevent them from doing so. This is again an example of the difference of the tangible or simply non-eBay transaction and eBay- no shoes! no shirt! no service! Sellers do not have the ability to communicate with a buyer prior to their purchasing- they simply have to wait and see what king of customer they acquired.
Maybe eBay doesn’t mind deviant buyers purchasing from me, but I do, and I have no interest in retaining their repeat business. So, eBay can acquire as many deviant customers as they want to service, but they should not have the right to under-mind my business by allowing the continued presence of deviant members in the marketplace, forcing both a financial and credible loss to my business.
The neg, neut, pos is another prime example of brilliance- do you think that it might be better to do away with the malignant neutral rather than deceive the buyer’s perception of what a neutral is to eBay or at the very least disclose eBay’s bastardization of the term? I cannot view this as anything other than malicious intent by eBay to cause damage to my business and to my person itself.
Richard I am interested in a more in depth disclosure of the reasoning you used to evaluate the credibility of eBay’s new feedback system.
JJHOn 05.07.2008 at 11:28 am Said:
In January we mentioned that we’d block buyers from leaving negative or neutral Feedback for 3 days for sellers “with a track record.” Since January, we’ve made the decision to increase the wait period to 7 days and define “track record” as active PowerSellers who have been on eBay for at least 12 months.
For CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!! Powersellers AGAIN.
What about NON-Powersellers? Does this mean the buyer could leave us a negative IMMEDIATELY? Or does it mean they can do it within 3 days, and only PS get the 7 day protection? This needs immediate clarification. Richard, PLEASE get a clarification on this.
My opinion of this interview is it created MORE questions than it answered. Such as this:
Question: How can I truly block an eBay bidder given that anyone can create a new disposable eBay ID?
Answer: In the case of a bidder circumventing a seller’s blocked bidder list with a new ID, that is against the rules and there has been no change in policy here at all. If that buyer is identified, he/she is suspended from the site.
Non-Committal answer. Sorry. Does anyone see the hole here big enough to fly a 747 through? This is NO assurance. Saying “it’s against the rules” doesn’t stop anyone. It’s like gun control. Criminals will have guns anyway. Get real.
And I’m really getting sick to my stomach about this class distinction of PS vs. non-PS. EVERY user should get these protections.
TheBrewsNewsOn 05.07.2008 at 11:34 am Said:
First, let me say THANK YOU to Richard for attempting to get some questions answered.
Unfortunately I feel even worse after reading Brian’s responses and even more anxious about the future direction of eBay.
Before making comments about Brian’s responses,
I wanted to give some statistics about my 3 eBay seller accounts:
As of May 7, 2008 noontime: 12-Month Statistics
Total positives received (12 mo) - 8,302
Total negatives received (12 mo)- 3
All 3 negatives were received on one of the selling IDs only and they were from:
1 Negative from a NARU eBayer (no longer a registered user)
1 Negative from an eBayer who did not pay
1 Negative from a competitor who sells the exact same product
I didn’t leave negative feedback for the dozens of eBay buyers that I really wanted to (you know.. those buyers that chargeback and keep the product among other things). Why not? It is because it is the eBay seller who is the one who is the target of retaliatory negative feedback. We are the ones whose reputation is damaged by the negative feedback. I assure you that if I had left negative feedback for those unscrupulous buyers that they would have undoubtedly left negative feedback for me. So, the ratio of “retaliatory” negative feedback from buyers to sellers cannot be accurately measured because sellers have a disincentive to leave negative feedback first. Of course sellers leave their TRUE rating of the transaction (negative) for an unscrupulous buyer who leaves negative feedback first. That is not retaliatory negative feedback from a seller but rather the seller now has nothing to “lose” by giving an honest rating of the transaction.
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QUOTE: “First, what is good for the [eBay] buyers is ultimately going to be good for the sellers in our Marketplace …”
I must respectfully disagree. It is good for the eBay buyer to receive FREE merchandise from the eBay seller as a result of chargebacks where the buyer keeps the product. Yep, good for the buyer. How about the eBay seller? Not so much.
In 2006, I lost $4300+ as a result of fraudulent eBay transactions. Lots of happy eBay buyers… not so happy eBay seller.
I will agree that what is ultimately good for the buyers in MOST marketplaces (like Amazon) is ultimately going to be good for the seller. However, on eBay where there is an “open” system and the buyers are not policed then what is good for the buyer is not necessarily good for the seller.
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QUOTE: “Why is my blocked bidder list no longer alphabetized and why are some seller’s blocked bidder lists disappearing all together? How can I truly block an eBay bidder given that anyone can create a new disposable eBay ID?
[Brian's Response]: We haven’t made any changes to the blocked bidder list system so I’m not sure why someone would be experiencing that. I’ll have to look into that further. I haven’t heard about blocked bidder lists disappearing all together so if you could get me an example I will get that to the product team to find out why that is happening. In the case of a bidder circumventing a seller’s blocked bidder list with a new ID, that is against the rules and there has been no change in policy here at all. If that buyer is identified, he/she is suspended from the site.”
>>>Please do “look into it further” since you have to rely on us sellers to keep you informed about your own systems since nobody in eBay management has ever sold on eBay and thus would not know when anything changes. For others besides myself who are experiencing the problem, check your OWN message boards (see Seller Central board, Feedback board, and Powerseller board for other sellers who are also experiencing the same issue). Not only are the lists not alphabetized now but eBay IDs are disappearing a few at a time.
>>>From my own personal experience, blocked bidder lists most often “disappear” completely if you use the back arrow button. Sometimes an eBay user receives an “error message” when attempting to enter a new ID and so they attempt to use the back arrow key to fix the problem. When entering a new blocked bidder do NOT ever under any circumstance use the back arrow key to go back to the blocked bidder list because the result is almost always that the blocked bidder list disappears. There may be other scenarios where the list disappears.
>>”… that is against the rules…. If that buyer is identified, he/she is suspended from the site.”
Please tell me you meant that as a joke. I can provide SPECIFIC examples where the buyer was not suspended. I do not know of even one eBay seller who believes for a minute that reports of violation are even read by eBay much less acted upon.
*************************************
“In order to cut down on potential extortion situations we’re reducing the number of days someone can leave feedback from 90 to 60 days.”
>>That is the BEST you can do to reduce potential extortion?
“…to make sure that both buyers AND sellers are held accountable for their actions in the marketplace. We’re going to hold sellers accountable through a public reputation system, leveraging our buyers. The way we’re going to hold buyers accountable is through private reporting from sellers; through enhancing the tools that we’ve given sellers to help protect them from buyers. We’re going to rely on sellers to let us know when a buyer has violated policy.”
>>Please tell me more about this “private” reporting system. I have heard no details and it is May already. When is this new “private” reporting system going to be put in place? And given that the current “self-reporting” system eBay employs is a total failure I am not sure how the new “private” reporting system will actually work. But as an eBay seller, I am “awaiting further instruction”. In the meantime, I’m sure you won’t mind if I am not holding my breath in anticipation.
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The definition and measurement (if you could call it that) of retaliatory negative feedback by eBay management is so completely outrageous from an eBay seller’s perspective.
QUOTE: “We used a really simple definition when determining exactly what constituted retaliatory negative feedback. It was strictly a user who received a negative feedback and subsequently left a negative feedback.”
I have a simple equation to match your simple definition:
Garbage in = Garbage out
Patricia1On 05.07.2008 at 11:45 am Said:
“- Buyers must wait seven days before leaving negative or neutral Feedback for active PowerSellers who have been registered for at least 12 months.”
I just hope all this powerseller coddling falls flat on its face! I was on the site actively selling before there WAS such a thing as a powerseller. Ebay shows its disdain for small sellers more and more each day. All I can say is don’t ever expect them to trust you again. They’ll all leave at the drop of a hat when something viable turns up (and I see one contender that just recently launched) and those small sellers will never look back.
LurchOn 05.07.2008 at 12:08 pm Said:
“We’re going to prevent negatives and neutrals being left for PowerSellers that have been on the site for more than 12 months (within 7 days of the transaction end). we feel that PowerSellers who have been on the site for 12-months are pretty safe.”
Right. And I’m not. Thanks. I’ve been on the site for **13 years.** I’m not as safe as someone who’s been on the site 12 months — because I’m not a PS. Got the message. Loud and clear.
“As for neutrals, they’re not counted as negatives but they’re going to not count as positives either.”
Yes, but aren’t they partly counted as negatives in determining seller performance? Or will this change, since previously, the assumption was that buyers were leaving neutrals when they really wanted to leave a neg, but feared retaliation.
“The way we’re going to hold buyers accountable is through private reporting from sellers; through enhancing the tools that we’ve given sellers to help protect them from buyers.”
What enhancements? Here’s the thing — the only thing that I’ve ever found helpful on feedback left for buyers is utilizing their feedback received when someone is slow in paying (ie, I’m not sure if they will follow through). If they have negs for non-payment, I’ll file a UPI a bit faster. If they don’t, I give them a lot more time/leeway. Will sellers have access to info on whether UPI reports have been made against buyers?
“The one thing we learned was that when a buyer gets a negative feedback in the eBay marketplace, they discontinue participating in the marketplace and it’s not healthy for anyone.”
One thing *I* noticed yesterday is that many buyers who have left a neg for buy.com *seem* to not be participating in the marketplace since leaving that neg for buy.com. Some will purchase the item they were trying to get from buy.com from a different seller, since buy.com wouldn’t ship it, but other than that, many seem to leave after dealing with buy.com. That’s your new partner. The shining example of a better buyer experience.
Here are a couple of examples of neg feedback I’ve left - and I haven’t left much over all of this time:
1 contact, but no payment from this bidder. First feedback is a neg. (buyer did not return, which was a good thing);
No contact and no payment. Don’t know what happened… (buyer did not return, which was a good thing).
I can tell you there was one instance where I didn’t leave a neg out of fear of buyer retaliation, but only one occasion of that.
SandiOn 05.07.2008 at 12:20 pm Said:
Ok, so the answers to my questions regarding the actual specifics to what EBAY IS GOING TO DO to protect sellers is basically, business as usual - nothing.
Sorry Richard, but you did not tell us anything new, more of the same. You even confirmed all the flaws in ebay’s thinking for us.
So much for ebay adopting the transparency theme for real. Sorry, but even this blog is nothing but a public relations tool to push the company theme.
JJHOn 05.07.2008 at 12:54 pm Said:
I have to agree with TheBrewsNews 100%. I have NEVER left a negative comment. In my 10 years of selling I could have left DOZENS on the buyers who never paid me, took 8 weeks to pay, were unreasonable to deal with, and so on.
Why did I not leave a negative? The answer is obvious, because I’d get a retaliatory negative RIGHT BACK AT ME by the buyer. Then whose reputation is damaged? Mine AS A SELLER of course. So I let it go. I looked the other way. OK, maybe that was wrong, I was a coward, but I wasn’t about to have my hard work damaged by an idiot.
So how could I leave a true feedback on an individual if I knew my reputation was going to be unfairly damaged? I couldn’t.
So don’t tell me the feedback system is “broken” now or is “unbalanced”, because it NEVER worked the way it was supposed to at all.
MechelleOn 05.07.2008 at 1:18 pm Said:
I just came back to comment on the 7 days no neg period for Powersellers, but I see that BS has already been called out.
I am a powerseller, but nothing big, but I know that eBay seems to be throwing us all the good stuff, but I am just as much outraged by these decisions as those who are not “powersellers”. Anyone paying fees on this site should be both subject to the same penalties and benefits. There is not tiered pricing on eBay, to charge the same fees yet provide a lesser service is both unethical and as far as I’m concerned theft. You are capitalizing on a failure to provide services for every equally paying eBay member, and that is BS-
This inequitable service for fees paid is also an issue with “best match”- the best match algorithm is clearly designed for eBay market manipulation and has no regard for the buyer experience. There are sellers with 6 feedback days ahead of long time sellers who have demonstrated credibility- clearly one is much more reliable than the other yet you charge the same but force a lesser service for the reliable seller. You have massive counts of KNOWN fraudulent product listings days ahead of trusted community sellers whose listings will end in hours- yet are 16, 20, 25 pages deep in the search results. Due to the low selling price yet higher sell through rate of these counterfeit products eBay has clearly decided to put the buyer experience on the back burner to make their numbers look better, and to make more money.
The freaking directly competing ads- we pay for the space on the auction floor- and it is a substantial cost- now with best match our listings may never see the light of day, and to add to the assault you are loading the auction pages with directly competing ads from shopping.com that have a presence on every freaking page. Again an example of eBay’s deplorable business and character ethics.
IT IS WRONG TO TAKE MONEY FOR SERVICES AND NOT HOLD UP YOUR END OF THE CONTRACT BOTH ETHICALLY AND LEGALLY- EITHER PROVIDE EQUAL SERVICE ON THE NEW “BENEFITS THAT ONLY “POWERSELLERS” ARE DEEMED WORTHY OR DON’T DO IT AT ALL.
[Comment edited: see comment policy]. IS THAT YOUR PLAN GET THE “NON-POWERSELLERS” TO RESENT THE “POWERSELLERS” SO YOU CAN BREAK ANY UNITY THAT GOES AGAINST YOU?
I agree Sandi- there is no real substance on this blog coming from anyone employed by eBay- just peddling the the BS
DagnyOn 05.07.2008 at 1:32 pm Said:
EBay is accepting the unverified opinion of buyers a fact, seller’s loose status based on the unverified feedback and DSR”s that buyers leave. Will eBay accept the reports of extortion and buyer bad behavior from sellers as fact without verifying those reports? Or will they only count against the buyer after being reviewed? A public system of accountability for sellers with no review of the facts and private backdoor accountability systems for buyers with a review of facts is not an equal and just system. So ask Brian if seller reports about buyers will be reviewed. Will sellers need to provide proof of extortion?
Brian indicates seller should report buyers, but sellers run the risk of negative feedback just for making those reports. Many sellers do not hold a buyer accountable for non payment as it is now for fear of negative feedback. So eBay thinks it’s OK for seller to fear retaliation from buyers for making reports? EBay tells us that DSR’s are anonymous and reports are anonymous but it does not take a rocket scientist for buyers and sellers to figure out who did what.
Brian did not answer the question about multiple ID’s. If eBay does not stop suspended members from creating new ID’s reporting and blocking is of little help to the community.
LurchOn 05.07.2008 at 1:40 pm Said:
I can’t speak for Patricia here, but in my case, the only thing that I previously missed was the 7 day cooling off period for PowerSellers - I had previously seen the 3 day period for those with a “track record.” Of course that ends up meaning PS. Frankly 7 days is far too short imo. And given that it is too short, so is only meant to avoid negs being left by people with an itchy trigger finger, why is there the necessity for even a proven track record of any kind? The only kind of situation I can think of where it would apply to leave a neg/neutral within that timeframe would be if the seller stated they wouldn’t be shipping the item right off the bat. I see that buy.com (ahem, a PS and partner of eBay’s) has a history of doing this, but I can’t think of any other reason why there shouldn’t be this minimal cooling off period for all. I’m open to hearing other examples of when a neg/neut might be left within 7 days of auction close, however. Anyone (Richard?) have any? Honestly, it’s highly likely I’m not thinking of some right now.
“This shooting the messenger stuff isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
Even you stated above: “NOTE: I’ve just checked out the AB post about the changes and in retrospect, I am definitely toeing the company line on this one.”
There’s also a number of items which could have used follow-up questions, which might have been part of the reasoning for the statement by Patricia. For instance:
a) Why does the cooling off period, given it is so short of a timeframe, only apply to PS? Why not to those who have been on the site for years? Why not to everyone?
b) “In order to encourage repeat transactions and reward good service, eBay will provide credit for similar repeat transactions going back to when the system was introduced in 1996.” What good does this do if only the last 12 months are factored?
c) Will anything be done to ensure the 12-month period does not backfire on anyone (see Kevin_T’s post - I was going to mention this, but he already did)?
d)”In order to cut down on potential extortion situations we’re reducing the number of days someone can leave feedback from 90 to 60 days.” *How* does this cut down on potential extortion situations?
e) “we’re going to take a look at what buyers are saying in the UPI console and remove it if it is arbitrary.” Who is going to be doing this? What will be the guidelines as to what is “arbitrary?”
f) “The way we’re going to hold buyers accountable is through private reporting from sellers; through enhancing the tools that we’ve given sellers to help protect them from buyers.” What enhancements to which tools?
g) “We used a really simple definition when determining exactly what constituted retaliatory negative feedback. It was strictly a user who received a negative feedback and subsequently left a negative feedback. That second negative feedback was counted as being retaliatory. There wasn’t anything that we did to go back and look to see if that negative was justified.”
Why was this not looked at more scientifically?
Additionally, there could have been questions relating to eBay’s recommendations when NPS suspensions began to do anything and everything to get a mutual withdrawl of past negs in order to improve the suspended seller’s feedback percentage. Which may well have led to a higher than normal retaliatory neg percentage. It may not. I don’t know. But it seems very possible. And that would have been at eBay’s urging. Was this in any way ever investigated?
The answers to these, and other clarifying follow-ups might have brought some new info here. For the most part, there’s not a whole lot covered here that is not in the announcement. And I’m second-guessing, but possibly the reason for Patricia’s statement.
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