eBay

seller_news_team · ‎11-08-2023

All,

Over the past few months, we’ve been working to improve the feedback experience for buyers on eBay. We are making these changes in order to give potential buyers better insight into your products.

We recently updated the default sort to highlight the most relevant feedback for your potential buyers.
We have also started rolling out images on feedback to select sellers who have listings with multiple quantities.

Starting this month, sellers will be able to preview feedback images on their own sold items. At this time, other eBay buyers and sellers will not be able to view images in your feedback. Existing policies related to feedback and feedback removal will also apply to images. Once this rollout is complete, we’ll be expanding image feedback visibility to buyers.

With these updates, your potential buyers will see your most engaged buyers’ feedback and be more confident about their purchasing decisions. Richer text and images in feedback may add credibility and drive sales by instilling additional confidence for interested buyers as they shop. To date, we've already collected almost a million images and the vast majority are associated with positive feedback and showcase the great products and positive experiences buyers have with our eBay sellers.

These updates will serve to add credibility to reviews and increase buyer confidence, while also elevating your feedback scores and helping to drive conversion.

As always, thank you for selling on eBay.

The eBay Team

b86fiero · ‎11-09-2023

And, how will feedback for Private listings be displayed? Or charity listings with many negatives?

Also, exactly where are these feedback photos coming from? eBay stock photos or photos scraped from listings? Seller's original listing? (some of those photos are not the best). Photos uploaded by buyers?

cstpos · ‎11-09-2023

@ltldpr I thought the same thing! I kept looking at the floor of the car to see if you could see the shoes. Does the ebay employee who approved that get a 'ding' on their permanent record?🤣

b86fiero · ‎11-09-2023

For neutral or negative feedback, will feedback replies to them from sellers also be shown?

a_c_green · ‎11-09-2023

@cstpos wrote:
@ltldpr I thought the same thing! I kept looking at the floor of the car to see if you could see the shoes. Does the ebay employee who approved that get a 'ding' on their permanent record?🤣

I'm pretty sure that's a dummied-up test or sample page. If you notice, the disguised buyer ID is the same for every comment.

monster-deals · ‎11-09-2023

@slippinjimmy wrote:

Hate to use 21 century jabbering but the point is "buyer engagement".

I wonder how many of us sellers demanded this.

To be perfectly honest I would prefer much, much less buyer engagement.

steve_stuff · ‎11-09-2023

Which of the two feedback pages are you/they taking about, the 'new' one that shows six things or the real one that shows all?

As far as we can tell the feedback on our 'real page' for all IDs is set up/showing the same as always.

As to the 'list of six' one it doesn't tell me what the item was or the number - which it did before? - so I'm guessing that is the page everybody is typing about, right?

gloryglorygifts · ‎11-09-2023

I never liked that to begin with. Yes, in theory it is a great idea. However, when someone who is lazy just basically copies your title and description and then uses a picture that looks nothing like what you are selling, it gets dicey. You get descriptions that are corresponding with photos and those that aren't and feedback for both at the bottom. To me, that's a flawed system.

gloryglorygifts · ‎11-09-2023

Personally, I think it's an unfair rating system if you are going to jumble it all up like it is now. The customers are rating us on many factors and not just product reviews. This isn't like a large retailer where you leave product reviews. This is a marketplace where the customer is working hand-in-hand with an individual seller. FB is a reflection of the ENTIRE transaction. I, for one, work very hard to make my customers feel appreciated and provide them with the utmost in care and quality products. I'm afraid that your "new" metrics will take that unique experience away and that is not what attracted me to sell on eBay in the first place.

The fact that sellers cannot leave bad feedback for buyers, regardless of the transaction, is bad enough. Not all transactions are smooth. You don't remove unfair feedback left by buyers, unless they are against your policy, which is getting rarer btw. The fact that someone can leave a negative without first contacting the seller so that they can rectify it. These all show that feedback is already skewed toward the buyer.

I don't want eBay to decide what feedback is the "most relevant." I want my customers to see the most recent feedback from the most recent purchasers.

ittybitnot · ‎11-09-2023

I don't want eBay to decide what feedback is the "most relevant." I want my customers to see the most recent feedback from the most recent purchasers.

@gloryglorygifts

Exactly this ^^^^^^^^! However, ebay says this: "These updates will serve to add credibility to reviews and increase buyer confidence, while also elevating your feedback scores and helping to drive conversion."

Yet when asked "how so?" they fail to come back here and qualify their assertion. i.e. how does one their feedback scores get "elevated"? Are they normally in a dungeon or something? LOL

Even though they were late to the party, I would surmise we are supposed to be grateful for some notification from @seller_news_team that the new "wonkiness" is an intended change.

a_c_green · ‎11-09-2023

@seller_news_team wrote:
These updates will serve to add credibility to reviews and increase buyer confidence, while also elevating your feedback scores and helping to drive conversion.

As always, thank you for selling on eBay.

The eBay Team

@seller_news_team : Can you please return to this thread to answer the several questions that have been asked of you?

This thread is pinned to the top of the Selling group to get attention, which it has, so it would be very helpful if you could please participate in the discussion that you started.

gloryglorygifts · ‎11-09-2023

This place isn't like Amazon, where you don't have to buy something to leave feedback. You have to be an actual registered member or guest of ebay and purchase the item you are leaving feedback for. That's not credible enough?? There IS no way to qualify their assertion that it will increase buyer confidence. Feedback on here cannot be manipulated like it can be on Amazon. Maybe THAT is what they should be advertising about it. Feedback is actual buying customers.

I just left a review for a product on Amazon that I never bought and submitted it without any difficulty btw.

siamjane8 · ‎11-09-2023

LOL- sales are in the toilet, the search is so manipulated to show what ebay wants you to buy instead of what the buyer typed in the search (because that is what they wanted to purchase btw), the platform has been glitchy and overall broken in many aspects, improvement rarely are, and the real issues and features that people have been asking for since years ago have gone unanswered............but-ebay has the resources to mess with the feedback as a priority?

If a seller sells in many categories- i can see the reasoning behind showing "relevant" feedback for an item that is in that category- so the AI bumps it to the top........ but the value of feedback on EBAY is in the feedback of the seller and the selling experience that they provide- NOT a product review. SO the seller has 100% and does an amazing job bringing in customers to ebay and then the AI shows the "relevant" feedback from 3 years ago that happens to be a neutral or negative??!! How is that helping buyer engagement or sales conversion?

The most recent feedback IS the most relevant feedback

wastingtime101 · ‎11-09-2023

@gloryglorygifts wrote:
This place isn't like Amazon, where you don't have to buy something to leave feedback. You have to be an actual registered member or guest of ebay and purchase the item you are leaving feedback for. That's not credible enough?? There IS no way to qualify their assertion that it will increase buyer confidence. Feedback on here cannot be manipulated like it can be on Amazon. Maybe THAT is what they should be advertising about it. Feedback is actual buying customers.

I just left a review for a product on Amazon that I never bought and submitted it without any difficulty btw.

Reviews for products on Amazon are not the same as feedback left for 3rd party sellers on Amazon. They are 2 totally different things. You have to make a purchase from a seller to leave FB for them on Amazon.

Reviews for products on eBay are a separate function from feedback left for sellers on eBay. On eBay you can leave a product review for an item you didn't purchase (at least you could last I checked).

Product reviews had such a low adoption rate on eBay and eBay's product catalog failed, so those are probably large factors in eBay shifting focus and (apparently) turning seller FB into a place to leave product reviews.

At eBay Open a big focus was increasing buyer engagement.

GLORIOUS!

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toomuchstuffagain35 · ‎11-09-2023

"buyer engagement" is no longer a 'thing' on ebay. (Much like the so called 'community'). They missed the boat on that one a long time ago. ebay is no longer a site to "hang out on" (except for some sellers).

The buyer today (for the most part) wants to log in, do a search and FIND what they're looking for, buy it and leave.

Gone are the days (partly due to the erasure of so MANY sub categories) when a buyer would happily browse ebay for hours. Most don't even bother with FB anymore.

"If a product doesn't sell, raise the price" - Reese Palley
"If it sold FAST, it was priced too low" - also Reese Palley

flukeman43 · ‎11-10-2023

It doesn't matter. Buyers do not leave feedback as often as they used to. As a seller I give more feedback than I receive. I get a reminder to leave feedback and I assume buyers do also but they rarely comply. It is a useless thing if a seller can't post negative comments about a bad buyer but a buyer can post negative about a seller.