Friday, May 16th, 2008
Feedback on Feedback to Feedback
All,
Thanks again for your kind words and emails. Sorry for the delay in getting this to you. As promised, I managed to spend time with Brian Burke this week and he tackled a lot of the follow-up questions that came through from the “Accountability” post written last week.
The following follow-up questions and answers are shown in no particular order. The questions, and the prior comments by Brian they refer to, are indented and shaded below. The new answers follow each shaded box.
I realize there were more questions asked but I wanted to get at least some addressed sooner rather than later. Thanks to Brian for taking the time to sit down with me again to discuss questions raised here on Ink.
Cheers,
RBH
Please re-round the circle squared by eBay President Lorrie Norrington on the eBay Announcement Board on March 20, 2008 titled “Update For Sellers”.
Norrington seems to be attempting to address the concerns of sellers who fear a neg from a non paying bidder. She attempts to mitigate the new “neg sellers only” policy by writing:
“What we have determined is that if the buyer does not specifically call out poor seller performance, item condition or transaction problems during the UPI process, eBay will remove the seller’s negative or neutral feedback — retroactively.”
This makes no sense. Sellers do not send items won in auctions before receiving payment. How can a buyer who leaves a neg be justified by claiming a problem with “item condition” for an item never sent, received nor seen? Again, sellers DO NOT send items without first receiving payment.
While Norrington’s “solution” may be boss pleasing “disruptive innovation”, it flat out makes no sense in the real world of selling on eBay.
This policy is designed to address a specific issue raised at the eCommerce Forum in January. Specifically, sellers complained that the current protections for sellers with the UPI process - the buyer must fail to respond completely - was inadequate, since all a buyer had to do was enter a single character or comment that they had no intention of paying, and any negative or neutral FB left by the buyer would remain.
Sellers shouldn’t send items prior to receiving payment. But if a buyer is complaining about the product condition in the UPI process, it’s a good indication that the buyer did pay.
Buyers who respond and respond in a manner that clearly indicates the seller was not at fault, such as “I found another one” or “my spouse is in the hospital so I can’t pay” shouldn’t be negatively impacted by a buyer’s negative Feedback.
However, if the buyer states, “I refuse to pay via Western Union” or “I just sent payment” or “I paid” (NOTE, some sellers file false claims, those caught are suspended) or “I did a charge back because you refused to send me a refund for the damaged product” would result in negative or neutral Feedback remaining.
A buyer who is referencing product condition, not receiving the product, etc. is a very good indicator that the buyer sent money.
We will continue to evaluate this policy.
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.
With millions and millions of transactions happening we have to study behavior over time in order to identify trends and to determine whether or not a specific trend needs addressing. The fact is that 4 years ago, sellers would leave a negative after a buyer had left a negative twice as frequently than a buyer would and today it is eight times as frequently. That is a significant change in behavior and one that needed to be addressed. Again, we examined a lot of alternatives before coming to the conclusion that the feedback system needed to change. We learned 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.
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.
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.
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Why does the cooling off period, given it is so short a timeframe, only apply to PS? Why not to those who have been on the site for years? Why not to everyone?
Right now only PowerSellers get the 7-day protection. This has replaced the 3-day block rule introduced back in January. Suspension types and frequencies of suspensions were analyzed and it was determined that PowerSellers were the safest population of users to single out for this protection. If safety issues arise we could restrict this beyond the 12-month, PowerSeller distinction and, conversely, if we see positive results and gain confidence in the 7-day protection model, we could expand to other sellers. I don’t see this happening in the next 6 months though.
Richard, while you’re at it, can you please get an explanation as to how a waiting period adversely affects buyers anyway? Sellers have to give buyers 7 days to pay before they can file a UID. Why not give ALL sellers the same 7 day “benefit of the doubt?”
Essentially, we’re trying to balance marketplace safety with seller satisfaction. We want buyers to know immediately about a potentially bad or fraudulent buyer experience to better avoid repeat occurrences.
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?
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What enhancements to which tools?
Sellers will not have direct access to info on whether UPI reports have been made against buyers. However, there is a buyer requirement tool that will allow sellers to block buyers with a UPI track record of 2 or more items. We’ve also introduced a seller reporting hub.
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?”
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Will the process of reporting a buyer be reviewed by an actual person or a bot? Will we receive canned answers?
Customer support representatives will be reviewing all reports. There will be canned answers associated with general issues raised for the hundreds and hundreds of cases reported. Reports will be handled on a case by case basis and will be deemed arbitrary if there is no mention of dissatisfaction with the seller or an unwillingness to complete the transaction with the seller.
Does this new PowerSeller policy constitute a barrier to entry? And what about seasonal sellers who cannot enjoy PS benefits because they sell for a few months each year (but most definitely qualify PS, they just are not onsite long enough each year to qualify)? And what about new sellers? Do they become targets with no protection? Do you guys not want new sellers?
————
Do you see a place for the small time seller on eBay in the future? I would love to stay but I am being pushed away with every calculated change and it seems many others are also. Is this what eBay is counting on?
These changes don’t have anything to do with the size of the seller. They are focused on the buying experience. With regard to DSRs and feedback, smaller sellers are actually the folks in a position to take an advantage of the new changes because they already provide a more personalized, attentive service to the individual buyer… helping ensure positive feedback after a transaction is completed.
We want all sellers to feel welcome on eBay and the new PowerSeller policy should not be seen as a barrier to entry, rather it should be seen as another incentive to sell more on eBay.
Will anything be done to ensure the 12-month period does not backfire on anyone?
There will inevitably be a small group of folks that are negatively effected by the 12-month window but again, we think that recent performance and activity is a much better indicator of what a buyer can expect to experience than a performance rating from 7-8 years ago.
A couple of months ago I received an email saying that a positive feedback had been removed because a buyer had been NARU’d after a relatively short time on Ebay.
On the Australian site my feedback now reads 99.9% for the last 12 months in spite of the fact that I have not received a neutral or neg for about 8 years, and I have been on a full 100% for about 6 or 7 years. I have never entered into mutually withdrawn feedback.
Please ask Mr Burke whether feedback that has been completely removed by Ebay is being counted as “non positive” feedback. If not, can you please ask him to review my feedback and clarify why it is calculated at 99.9% for the last 12 months on the Australian site. I am not asking for any adjustment to my feedback, only a clarification (you know, accountability) - I can supply a friends user ID with no neutrals or neg’s in the last 12 months and 4.9 dsr’s that currently rates at 99.5% if he would like to review that as well.
This is likely a data anomaly - with over 7 billion Feedback we occasionally have these come up. But since the seller is in US, I would ask that they wait until we update the US site next week. If it is still inaccurate, I can have a database engineer look into it - but I bet it’s accurate next week.
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?
Sellers reports of buyers will be reviewed thoroughly. Extortion is very difficult to prove so the more proof a seller can provide, the better off we’ll all be. It will be easier to take action against buyers that have a pattern of behavior rather than a single instance of reported extortion - again because it is very difficult to prove a single instance of extortion.
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?
The window of time in which a buyer could resort to extortion has been shortened. For example, in the past a buyer could wait until 85 days after a transaction to practice extortion. The longer the time period; the longer the opportunity. We’ve reduced that window of opportunity considerably.
If the buyer did not pay, shouldn’t the “burden of proof” be on the buyer to report the reason why he / she did not pay?
Better yet, why not allow “private” reporting by the buyer to let eBay know that there was a good reason that they didn’t pay the seller?
What percentage of buyers actually have a valid reason for nonpayment? How about some eBay “statistics” to give us a better understanding of eBay’s desire to protect this group of eBay buyers who NEED the ability to leave negative feedback for a seller that never received payment.
We need any information regarding potential fraud to be public, and to be public fast. With regard to statistical information, Brian indicated that he would get UPI stats for me to share on the blog.
Tagged: brian+burke, buyers, detailed+seller+rationgs, dsr, ebay, ebay.com, ecommerce, feedback, Marketplace, online+marketplace, sellers
oldginnyOn 05.22.2008 at 7:09 pm Said:
I think Ebay is kissing the buyers backsides, in order to stimulate more “action” on Ebay………..so Ebay earns MORE FEES, and they really don’t give a hoot what us sellers think!
I ALWAYS leave immediate f/b for buyers who pay. I DO NOT withhold f/b until they give it to me. ( i personally think that is a rotten practice and indicates to me the seller is a shiester)
but, now…….the buyer can SLAM us sellers all they want and there’s not a dang thing we can do?
well, Ebay? yahoo wants my commissions, so ADIOS!!
Patricia1On 05.22.2008 at 7:32 pm Said:
tony - what if you don’t have negatives, neutrals, etc. I have 100 percent feedback. My DSR’s are 5.0 across - yet ebay has rated me 4.9 down to 4.6. I can’t see how. Sorry, but I see this as stacking the cards and just plain manipulation. I can’t afford to try to sell on their site at this rate. Not many of us can - so I guess they win - small sellers will be forced to leave and so I continue picking up other places to sell on - just today I began listing on yet another new site.
VeraOn 05.22.2008 at 8:42 pm Said:
Somehow I have missed the policy that stated the reasons why a buyer can not be left a neutral or negative feedback any more. I can not find any information on it so can someone please explain?
AmberOn 05.22.2008 at 8:47 pm Said:
“Could you please point us to exactly where you mentionned this previously? And if it was mentionned prior to May 2007″
Brews, it was in the original announcements in January.
I’m too lazy to go look it up, but it was stealthily disguised. I believe it was in the description of the new Positive Feedback % Ie. Your feedback percentage will be the number of positive feedback received in the last 12 months divided by the total feedback (positive, neutral,and negative). If you did the math, it was clear how things would work.
I told everyone I could that neutrals would equal negatives as soon as I read it. Most people in my groups were aware it was coming. And the fact that it was retroactive was no suprise either. Anything within the 12 month window was fair game as far as Ebay is concerned.
AmberOn 05.22.2008 at 8:53 pm Said:
Correction:
It was on a page which was linked to the announcements 
How will eBay calculate the Positive Feedback percentage?
The Positive Feedback percentage will be calculated by dividing all positive Feedback earned in the past year by all positive, neutral and negative Feedback.
exhackOn 05.22.2008 at 9:33 pm Said:
I like the way eBay hiked the total average fees (cutting a little for listings, hiked them higher for FVFs), then after essentially lying to me, plowed the profits into designing a feedback system designed to shaft me, the small seller.
Right now I’ve got a non-paying bidder whose deadbeat behavior is winding its way through the 8-day dispute resolution clock. When that’s over, I can’t leave a negative feedback for the deadbeat. HOWEVER, he can leave one for ME. Plus, I’m still on the hook for all of the auction listing fees.
You guys keep proving you care about two groups exclusively: PowerSellers and all buyers, no matter if they were customers any retailer would ban in a heartbeat from their brick-and-mortar store if they had the chance. It’d be easier to take if you just admitted it up-front, instead of feeding us your truckloads of syrupy BS.
spinach.chinOn 05.22.2008 at 10:40 pm Said:
It’s amazing to me that, in his example, Brian Burke thinks it’s perfectly fair that a seller who had 99% a couple of days ago now has 97%.
In the current buyer-think on eBay, the difference between 99% and 97% feedback is basically the difference between a great seller, and a terrible seller.
Brian Burke is asking buyers to ignore long ingrained feelings about what makes a good seller “good”. Up until now, feedback was the main method of determining how worthy a seller was. That formerly 99% seller has seen his reputation and sales destroyed, literally overnight.
RICHARD, can you not at all see the heartlessness of all of this? Brian Burke, to demonstrate how the changes are a good thing, uses an example of a seller’s business reputation being effectively destroyed.
urbankatOn 05.23.2008 at 1:27 am Said:
Horse and hen,
u r so funny, u thrive on trouble u r so worried as sellers but everywhere u go u r causing PROBLEMS 4 others.
I was doing some reading on u 2 I would b careful with links, do u suppose that u NEED 2 tell others here to look and my FB r they so stupid that u must direct them with a link?
I am sure they looked and yet some chose NOT 2 respond and others were very respectful and gave their respective opinions in a professional manner.
Maybe I should say thank u that I am so important in your lives that u felt the need to stop screaming and whining 2 direct traffic 2 me; really it is good because it proves my point as u both have by your PERSONAL attack on me.
Reagrds
ChrisOn 05.23.2008 at 3:25 am Said:
Brews News, are you in UK or US? I’m beginning to suspect that the main announcements are made on the US board, and then we get a much later watered down version in the UK, with the sort of cryptic wording you quote in your post. What is the point of having a seperate UK announcement board if it is not giving us full information?
TheBrewsNewsOn 05.23.2008 at 7:07 am Said:
@Chris
I am located in the U.S.
@Amber
The information on Jan 29th gave no details but rather stated the following:
“Feedback percentage will be based on the last 12 months, although the total count remains lifetime. This means that any negative or neutral feedback left for you more than 12 months ago will no longer affect your percent positive.”
Now, since the author said “will NO LONGER’ affect….. that to me meant that the current method of calculating would change so that anything older than 12 months WOULD NO LONGER affect the percent. Given that neutrals have been counting for the SNP then one would believe the author was saying that nothing (neither neutrals or negatives) older than 12 months would be given any weight.
On May 5th Brian did make an announcement with the details about how the new feedback policy would be implemented and his announcement did have a clickable link that took you to a subsequent page which gave further details. I admit that on May 5th I did not click on that link and study the information as I was up to my neck in revising auctions in preparation of the postal increase on May 12th. I thought that on May 12th I would then go back and review the information. However, on May 12th I realized that I could go to the Australian website, where the changes had already occurred and I could see my new feedback score calculation. At that time I then posted to Seller Central and emailed Ina about what I discovered.
So, yes, I take responsibility for not clicking on Brian’s link on May 5th. Maybe eBay would give some consideration in the future about the timing of such important announcements. Making such major changes to sellers’ accounts might be better done either before or after the postal rate changes, not right in the middle of.
It reminds me of the seller who listed in their title a flat screen T.V. and had a picture of the actual T.V. and had 12 paragraphs of description. In the 3rd sentence of the 7th paragraph there is a note that says what you are bidding on is a picture of the T.V. not the T.V. itself. $600 for the picture of the TV? Buyer is upset and seller says “It was right there in the description”. So, yes, the information about recalculating was there two pages back on May 5th and I didn’t see it. My bad. Yes, I admit that one week prior to the changes eBay did have information on their site about the neutral recalculation but if MOST sellers were caught off guard then the fault lies squarely on eBay’s shoulders.
I have much more to say about this specific Neutral=Negative issue and about all the changes overall. In all 3 of my accounts I receive raised standing (Seller Dashboard) and on one of my accounts I clearly benefited from the recalculation (13,000+ positives with 100% feedback now). One would think I would be extremely pleased with the changes. I am going to take some time to explain specifically why I am upset and where I believe eBay has failed the mission. I am angry and I am frustrated and when I have more time I will fully explain why. In the meantime, I invite you over to my blog where I sometimes rant but mostly I am trying to provide what I consider to be helpful information for the eBay seller. Some of my eBay Tip articles are:
How can a Small eBay seller survive the new DSR rating?
Keeping an Eye on the (International) Competition?
Is the eBay International Visibility Upgrade Right for You?
You Pay, You Play… what to do to Prevent the Nonpaying Bidder?
I am new to blogging… I took it up to help with my “Anger Management” since I am so very angry with eBay. Ten years of eBay abuse has me angry and something finally snapped. To help keep me in a more positive frame of mind I started blogging to share what I hope is helpful information. I will try to keep the clickable links to a minimum on my blog (joke).
To get to my blog just click on my red name in this blog here or add a .com to my THEBREWSNEWS name.
Thank you Richard for allowing me to plug my own blog. You can send me the bill for this therapy session as well as the advertising fee to plug my blog and I’ll be sure to pay it from the FVF fee credit I am going to be receiving soon for offering my eBay buyers free shipping (joke).
DaveyOn 05.23.2008 at 7:35 am Said:
“In the current buyer-think on eBay, the difference between 99% and 97% feedback is basically the difference between a great seller, and a terrible seller.”
Brian can be flippant about the example he uses as likely he like much of the staff never sells much if anything on eBay, so he does not have a handle on the actual impact of the policies. While it is never going to happen, if eBay’s board required that each employee had to be a Powerseller with DSRs above the minimum standard in order to receive any incentive bonuses, I don’t think we’d hear the foolishness we put up with now.
BrandeOn 05.23.2008 at 7:44 am Said:
I am a new seller, very inthused about starting this new home buisness to help my family. However since the new change, Mon. in fact I was dinged nuetral because a gal thought the color was off in my pics. She never contacted me once, If she had she would have gotten a full refund, no problem. I have since tried to work it out with her, and at one point she agreed to remove her f.b, except ebay now doesnt allow it ! since monday alone this gal has left 2 nuetrals and one negative to other sellers, tell me who is taking advantage of the new system now? It doesnt help that ebay flashes the reminder add to all buyers before leaving feedback to essentially ” dont worry , they cant do anything to you, go ahead and ding them !”, this is just so upsetting to me as a new seller, in just one instant my percentage went from 100% to 91.7%, and I have no way of changing this for a whole year. I can see myself foregoing ebay and sticking to craigs soon, I am sure others are leaving as well. by the way I have contacted ebay twice and no response. They most likely are too busy helping the gal who dinged me !
Elda ZuninOn 05.23.2008 at 8:59 am Said:
I don’t know if this is the place to complaint of the awful effects this recent desitions regarding feedback have on us (international sellers ) - We sell one of most exclusive and refined antique tiles in the net and we are planning to leave ebay seaking for a better marketplace. We have concluded in the past sellings for $10000.00 with a complete buyer satisfaction and that counts less than a nut that bought a tile for $9.00 and decided to left a neutral feedback… also as buyers can only recieve positive feedback…… feedbacks sent by sellers had no relevance so you may just eliminate them ! or give buyers just the opition… (do you want to leave a negative ?)
terrible ! very very amateur - RDS too as have no distinction between international sellers etc… sorry to bother if this is not of interest just I am telling someone to pay attention to us seller !
Patricia1On 05.23.2008 at 9:23 am Said:
@ Davey - right on! If the aim is to sicken all of us on OUR ebay experience then they’ve succeeded. When you maintain 100 percent for 10 years and have reached 5.0 across the board and STILL are placed as “standard” in search - then give up because you just won’t win. In a highly competitive category like arts - its senseless for me to even try to put up my larger works. They just won’t be seen! I have one up now that’s received 7 views in 2 1/2 days - this type of service should be FREE! My own website beats that by a country mile. As more and more sellers catch on, I’m hoping they go elsewhere too so that the other sites will survive and succeed. Its about the only hope many of us have left. Good work ebay….!!!
Patricia1On 05.23.2008 at 9:27 am Said:
Incidentally - it should be outright illegal to put best match on the arts categories….since a good portion of the artists are paying far beyond the normal fees in order to be seen already. Most use feature plus - at least the 9.95 version on all of their listings. We shouldn’t be paying 9.95 to 19.95 more on top of our regular applicable fees and be hidden in ANY way for ANY reason! Ebay…you really need to be ashamed of this type of service. You certainly aren’t applying the proper logic to our category.
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