Dawn / May 19th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

I’m really looking forward to seeing the expanded dashboard. I hope it gives enough detailed information so I’ll be able to use it to improve my performance. My main area of interest is regarding our S&H charge star. I add a small handing charge to small packages that are relatively inexpensive to ship. I also sell very large products that cost a lot to ship, and I add no handling charge to the shipping for these things. I’d love to be able to see what’s causing a less-than-five rating – the handling fee or the expensive shipping on the oversize stuff.

I’ve been encouraged, since joining the company in January, that the concept of transparency is being so widely embraced. It’s definitely something everyone is trying to get better at doing

As long as there is no buyer transparency (because buyers can only receive positive feedback), it’s going to be hard for most people to swallow statements like this.

Chris @ TameBay / May 19th, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Hey Richard – any news from the US on when these changes will go International?

With the new Site Visibility about to kick in tomorrow, sellers listing on the US could violate UK policy and vice versa, until the changes are worldwide.

implog / May 19th, 2008 at 4:09 pm

I would have appreciated a link to the legendary “Sellers Hub”.

Lurch / May 19th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

implog – yeah, I just mentioned the sellers hub under the feedback on feedback entry.

JJH / May 19th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

This entry floats around form topic to topic. Sorry. Deal with it. :)

So where is the “Seller Dashboard anyway?

The good? Sellers with 4.7 and above (on all DSRs) should start to see an additional boost in their search standing in Best Match

As in ALL SELLERS? Even the lowly non-Powersellers like myself? Yes, my performance is way above 4.7, I’d like some benefits please ["Sir, can I have some more?"], and to stop being made to feel like a 2nd class citizen. But then, since I don’t sell items where there would more than 1 page worth of “them” anyway it makes “ranking” on that page kind of a moot point. Now if I were selling socks, this would be a big deal.

Just one other point. I’m starting to dislike the use of, and throwing around of the word “Transparency”. Can’t really explain why, just don’t think it means what it’s supposed to mean.

When is the Dashboard supposed to make it’s appearance?

@Pat:

“its the one weird buyer with an axe to grind who may take it out on me without even notifying me – that’s my BIG worry. Being an “untrustworthy small seller” I’d be dead in the water – with my record that should be illegal! This is insane!!! Why can’t ebay SEE what they’re doing?”

Pat has a point, and as of today I see CLEARLY why. Take my feedback. It “was” 3020 100% positive. That could absorb a few negative feedbacks with no trouble, assuming I was stupid enough to give a buyer reason to give any.

But as of today, my feedback is 92 100% positive. One negative OR neutral, and I’m at 99%, two and I’m 98%, and so on. With the “NO FEAR” policy [You gotta love that pop-up window - Buyers, NEG YOUR SELLER WITH IMPLUNITY!] any of us SMALL SELLERS could get knocked out FAST – REAL FAST.

I have to agree. It is insane. I didn’t see the ramifications before. Now I do.

JJH / May 19th, 2008 at 5:20 pm

Pat, and soon you won’t be able to drive that traffic to your web site because of the links policy. eBay is really becoming a closed society. Like a scared rabbit. It’s like watching the Berlin Wall go up again.

Me, I’ll keep selling as long as I get sales. I have no other choice at the moment. Believe me, I don’t. There are no other viable sites for what I offer for sale. There really are no other places for “uniques” and “oddities”. Yet…

Lurch / May 19th, 2008 at 5:33 pm

But what about the Sellers Reporting Hub? Where is this? Since the feedback changes went into effect today, it should be available – but I don’t know where it is? I mean, if it is available to us unsafe types…

Also, *if* those “search manipulation” and links policies are coming soon, I really, really need the answers to the questions posted above.

Sandi / May 19th, 2008 at 5:49 pm

Ok, one shining moment of today:

the buyer who tried to rip me off with the fradulent reversal (and I had to get police involved) ugly negative feedback is gone finally! She ripped off several of us but did not get booted until she had been registered 104 days so all of us she negged had to live with those negs for 14 months – until today!

For that small favor, thank you ebay – although she should have been booted week 3 if you had really been following your own policies given she was nothing but a thief. That neg should have been removed a long time ago.

My feedback went up quite a bit, as I had about a 50% return rate. My dsrs are 4.9, 4.9, 4.9, 5.0.

That was a little weird to see, I did lose a couple since I know I had a few no longer members ones, but repeats made up for them.

Sandi / May 19th, 2008 at 5:59 pm

Mine come back again and again. I even get christmas gifts and birthday cards from them. I wonder what they would say if they knew I was considered “untrustworthy”?

Ditto, art buyers are some of the nicest people. Mine followed me as well. I recently remarried my ex-husband and got a few wedding gifts from some of buyers (I moved to a new state so some asked why, I explained is how they knew), When my mom passed away, one of my buyers sent flowers, which is really nice and unexpected.

But you know, I was just a small seller, with no track record.

implog / May 19th, 2008 at 6:30 pm

Richard

Please explain to us eBay’s definition of “transparency”.

Thanks!

Patricia1 / May 19th, 2008 at 8:16 pm

” I mean if that isn’t sticking a knife in sellers backs, I don’t know what is. ”

I have to believe its all out of desperation. They need traffic and they feel this is the problem. A lot of sellers think ebay is dead wrong but they’ll have to force us thru all the misery before ebay realizes that.

I did have one maniacal buyer years ago. She was so bad and so threatening that I finally had to turn her in to her own ISP and they blocked her or took away her account or whatever due to harrassment. It was all over feedback – she wanted it the instant she paid – not even waiting to see if she got her package and liked it. I remember coming home from work and finding a dozen emails from her -one after another! Normally, if a buyer asks, I give the feedback immediately but this woman was so over the top that she frightened me. I think that one horrible experience burned me badly and left me in fear of what a really mentally unbalanced person can do. The scaryest part was this buyer only lived 20 minutes from me. Ebay has left us wide open to this kind of abuse in their desperation to get their business back to where it once was. They don’t even realize the extent of what they’re doing. :-(

Davey / May 19th, 2008 at 9:19 pm

Richard, I’ll have to add my voice to those who are asking for a clarification of, or disagree with the common English usage of the term “transparency” here.

I’m seeing a one-way mirror. I get to watch managements’ lips move, but they only see their own reflection. They don’t see me or those like me at all.

I don’t fault your work. You’ve actually gotten more followup than I’ve seen elsewhere in the organization.

The concept of “transparency” is voided by pieces like Ms. Norrington harping about how small sellers are eBay’s “Competitive Advantage”, while other things her organization is doing either display gross mistrust of small sellers, or outright stab us in the back. Or, am I confusing “transparency” with “authenticity” and “truthfulness?”

Don / May 19th, 2008 at 10:32 pm

Hi Richard,

I can’t say that I’m overly enthusiastic about the new and unimproved Feedback / DSR system. My feedback dropped from 99.7 to 98.3 overnight due to the new method of calculating feedback. I received one neg back in September, 5 neutrals and 387 positive over the last 12 months and somehow that works out to
98.3% ?

The DSR’s could be a very valuable tool for improving the quality of my service. Unfortunately they do not provide enough information for me to base decisions on. A detailed breakdown within each category would be helpful.

The drop-down explaining that buyers can leave negative feedback without any concerns is a little over the top. It seems that eBay is encouraging them to leave negative feedback.

Incidentally I appreciate your efforts to keep us up to speed on the various changes. Hiring you was one of eBay’s wiser moves.

Best Regards,

Don

Henrietta / May 19th, 2008 at 11:23 pm

On the subject of Town Hall & eBay radio.

It would be wonderful if there were some kind of transcripts for the hearing impaired.

TheBrewsNews / May 20th, 2008 at 5:23 am

@Chris

I think a “Lite” version of the dashboard was rolled to Powersellers so that the Powerseller discounts could be calculated. My understanding is that a complete Dashboard will roll out to everyone, both Powersellers and non-Powersellers, very soon.

TheBrewsNews / May 20th, 2008 at 9:42 am

QUOTE: “And there is some great news here. For instance, the Choice Policy (good name for a policy that actually limited choice), is being eliminated so that sellers can now list items in different sizes, color, etc. in a single listing. This helps buyers with a more convenient shopping experience and provides sellers with relief on insertion fees.”
**************

First, sellers have ALWAYS been able to offer a choice if they simply understood the policy. For example:

(Previously) Choice Policy violation: List one shirt in 3 colors – red, blue, or green

(Previously) Acceptable Choice Policy Listing: Two shirts in 3 colors – red, blue, or green

(Currently) Acceptable Choice Policy Listing – any number (including one) shirt in 3 colors

So, the change in Choice listing policy is not really much of a change at all. The only difference is that you can now list a quantity of 1 and not be in violation of the Choice Listing Policy.

How wonderful for us! Oh wait a minute…. not so wonderful because…..

how does the buyer communicate their “choice” to you?

We have always asked the buyer to let us know in the Paypal notes section of their payment which particular choice they want.

How wonderful! Oh wait a minute… not so wonderful because….

the Paypal “notes” section has been broken for months. Buyers include a note specifying their choice but the note does not appear in the paypal payment notification or the paypal details page. Instead, that note (sometimes) appears on the ORDER DETAILS page.

Despite repeated reports for MONTHS, the paypal notes problem is broken. We have been told that there are other higher priorities. Okay, got it.

So, for me, the good news about the Choice Policy would not be that I can now use the Choice Listings with a quantity of 1 but rather that eBay would provide a working system whereby the buyer can communicate their choice to me.

One of the biggest problems I have always had with eBay is that those folks making the decisions and the folks implementing the changes have no true understanding of the system.

Mechelle / May 20th, 2008 at 10:25 am

@Richard

I understand that the blog does provide the opportunity for eBay to more “open, honest, and available”, but I have yet to read anything from them demonstrating they are using what could be a very effective tool to have dialogue with its “constituencies”. Their comments and “answers” are clearly disingenuous and superficial. My perception is they have evaded the topics that concern those posting on this blog the most.

Also, their lack of communication both yesterday and today are very demonstrative of the weak leadership skills within eBay. A leader would take the storm head on and not hide behind the corporate door. A leader would refrain from superficial consolations that only results in more malcontent among its “constituencies”. A leader would sympathize and demonstrate compassion to those of us who have or will be unjustly damaged by these thoughtless policy changes. A leader of a company would understand what customer service is and recognize that alienating your customer base is the quickest way to the employment office.

So, I don’t see any evidence of their being “open, honest, and available.

Amber / May 20th, 2008 at 10:48 am

@ Brews and Richard,

The changes in the choice listing policy were clearly designed to pump up stagnating listing numbers and cater to eBay’s recent partner, Buy. As pointed out when they first dumped those 400,000+ listings into core, many of their listings were in direct violation of that particular policy. Rather than force them to revise their flagrantly violating listings, eBay decided to dump the policy.

The average seller WILL NOT BENEFIT from these changes. This is (again) aimed at letting those mega-sellers flood the site in their effort to go retail.
The average seller will be buried under the flood of duplicate listings. I have no faith that search will in any way limit the exposure those multiple listings get, just as I have no faith that buy will be held accountable in DSRs or the seller non-performance policy.

I have no faith that ebay will tell me the truth. No faith that they even understand what they’re doing to smaller sellers on the site, let alone care. The Town Hall made that perfectly clear. “Don’t focus just on what these changes mean for you…Look at the bigger picture.” Well, pardon me, but most sellers can’t look at the bigger picture if their business has been ruined by demoted search, NPS restrictions, Paypal holds, loss of Powerseller status and discounts etc…many sellers won’t be able to “wait it out” while the “spread widens.” It’s extremely self-righteous of those people to even suggest such a thing.

And some of their comments made it quite clear that they don’t understand how Paypal has become an unsafe payment method for million of sellers. More and more buyers are using it to make fraudulent claims. It is much more easy to scam a seller through Paypal than directly through a credit card company. The protections for sellers are insufficient– online tracking/proof of delivery is unavailable for most international shipments, so even the Powersellers with their expanded protection are not really protected.

It is extremely unsafe, and as this last week or so has proved, extremely unreliable. Having sellers and websites across the country lose business due to technical difficulties on Paypal’s side proved that as nothing else could.

TheBrewsNews / May 20th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

Regarding Mutual Feedback Withdrawal:

*********************
Information that was unveiled yesterday (May 19)

Full details located at: pages.ebay.com/services/forum/new.html

Elimination of Mutual Feedback Withdrawal
There are a number of reasons for removing Mutual Feedback Withdrawal, including:

1. Leaving the possibility of Feedback withdrawal leaves buyers open to possible harassment and/or unwanted contacts by sellers attempting to have the buyer change the Feedback.

2. Since only buyers can leave negative Feedback, the Mutual Feedback Withdrawal process could be used as a tool for Extortion – buyer leaves negative first, then removes once satisfied.

**********************

Comment on reason #2 — So, now what will happen is that the buyer will leave a negative feedback and REMAIN unsatisfied. Hmmmm….. Isn’t the point to have a satisfied buyer? Sellers have absolutely no incentive to make a buyer happy once the buyer leaves a negative feedback and buyers will soon learn that. So, buyers learn that they must extort concessions BEFORE leaving feedback… just like they do now. Doesn’t seem like any improvement in fighting feedback extortion.

Now, while eBay would like to make us believe they care enough to protect us from feedback extortion by removing the Mutual Feedback Withdrawal process, the REAL reason is the #1 reason given yesterday:

“Leaving the possibility of Feedback withdrawal leaves buyers open to possible harassment and/or unwanted contacts by sellers attempting to have the buyer change the Feedback. ”

Here is a simple solution: Why not allow MFW and ask buyers to report sellers who are harrassing them about feedback?

The truth is that MFW was discontinued for the benefit of the buyer. It is insulting to try and “convince” us otherwise. I would much rather know “the truth” behind your actions (even though I may disagree) than to be told that changes are made because someone cares about me and wants to protect me when that clearly is untrue.

NOTE: It’s kinda hard to know where one stands… after being cut off at the knees.

Amber / May 20th, 2008 at 1:03 pm

@ Brews

“The truth is that MFW was discontinued for the benefit of the buyer. It is insulting to try and “convince” us otherwise. I would much rather know “the truth” behind your actions (even though I may disagree) than to be told that changes are made because someone cares about me and wants to protect me when that clearly is untrue. ”

Exactly! If you want to promote this blog as open, HONEST, and available–you NEED to be honest. So far, we haven’t seen much of that from certain execs. We can disagree on the rationale for decisions, but please don’t pretend something is for my benefit when it quite obviously isn’t.

Patricia1 / May 20th, 2008 at 1:15 pm

I see no reason for not allowing buyer/seller to have total control over the feedback they leave. Each should have the option to remove or change their feedback within a set amount of days. Why ebay insists on getting into feedback and controlling it the way they do causes nothing but more disruption between sellers and THIER customers. One wonders how much better things might be right now if buyer/seller were allowed and encouraged to interface and straighten out problems among themselves! Ebay should only be stepping in in extreme cases!

Sandi / May 20th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

Slightly off-topic – but not. Has anyone seen the DirectTV commercials with the cable executives sitting around the table trying to come up with ideas to “fix” their business?

One has them talking about how the customers do nothing but complain, one exe comes up with the plan “I know, let’s get rid of them and get new ones”

The one I saw today they came up with the plan “I know, we will raise their rates & tell them its for better service (or something). They won’t even notice we didn’t give them anything” Or something along those lines.

I stopped in my tracks and thought, wait, I know a company who does that!

JJH / May 20th, 2008 at 4:08 pm

“Slightly off-topic – but not. Has anyone seen the DirectTV commercials with the cable executives sitting around the table trying to come up with ideas to “fix” their business?”

Yes, I think of eBay when I see this commercial.

Lurch / May 20th, 2008 at 4:24 pm

Cam – really?!? We need our own little area – I’m always looking for folks like you – I came on to AW in the second week. When did you, if you remember?

I hear what you are saying. I’ve watched it gradually deteriorate over the years, and have seen how eBay has really facilitated this. Any attempts to point out issues about this have been completely ignored (or disregarded. Given the lack of responses, I assume ignored). It’s been headed in this direction for some time. This was compounded by the fact that over the years eBay has instituted things to make it less fun to use, particularly from the buyer side of it. That’s not to say there have not been certain changes over the years for the betterment of the site, because I’ve never made that claim. It’s just been funny over the years to watch prediction after prediction (of mine) play out somewhat, or at times, very close to they way I foresaw it.

Patricia1 / May 20th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

Funny – I don’t remember all this fighting between the factions before ebay went ballistic. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention – I was too busy attending to the needs of my buyers. Well…now it seems since ebay has “fixed” things, I have plenty of time to do whatever I please!!! Get it?