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

a_c_green · ‎11-14-2023

@a_c_green wrote:
@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.

@seller_news_team : Hi again. We still have heard nothing further from you despite repeated requests. If you are not permitted to answer questions, perhaps you could at least tell us that much, or refer this to someone who has permission to post here and is able to answer our questions.

Here is a summary of the questions that have been asked of you so far. (My apologies to anyone I left out, or whose reply I edited too much when quoting them below.) The Reply numbers below are hotlinks back to the original replies, in case you want to view the question(s) in their original context. I know some are more concise than others, but please try to address each one individually if you can:

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Reply #2: (@ittybitnot)

How is the "default" sort determined? Is this the "short version" of feedback that one must click through to get to the usual feedback page that also shows the DSR's? Will that page have a "default" order as well? Can a user select to use "most recent"?

Do you ever plan to allow "See All Feedback" to view that information for a user that has none?

Reply #3: (@toomuchstuffagain35)

How about enhancing the FB 'experience' for sellers?

Like maybe change the Leave FB page back to being in chronological order.

Or maybe give us a button to say 'don't show this again' on buyer cancelled transactions?

Oh and where's the explanation of the rationale for "most relevant"?

Reply #6: (@byrd69er)

What's the purpose of having an image in feedback? ....and, what is richer text?

Reply #25: (Me)

Some details of an individual feedback comment drop off after a month, six months, or a year, such as a link to the listing, or the title identifying what the item was. Will photos also drop off after some predetermined period of time?

Reply #28: (@ittybitnot)

Can you please explain how a mixed order, and unviewable feedback adds creditability and increases buyer confidence?

How exactly are one's feedback scores "elevated'?

How exactly does this 'enhancement' increase buyer confidence, with a jumbled sort order and missing information?

Reply #30: (@b86fiero)

So what will the feedback of mega sellers who received hundreds of neutral and negative feedback each month look like?

Reply #31: (@b86fiero)

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?

Reply #33: (@b86fiero)

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

Reply #36: (@steve_stuff)

Which of the two feedback pages are you/they talking 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?

Reply #42: (@siamjane8)

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

Reply #57: (@sditr1)

Is there a plan to update buyer feedback as well in the future? Maybe make it so it actually matters, and gives sellers a true diagnosis of a buyer, and if they do anything wrong.

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Please keep in mind that, as @valueaddedresource mentioned in Reply #22, you originally posted it as an Announcement, but then relocated it to this discussion group here, so here it is being discussed. Your participation would be very helpful. Thanks!

ittybitnot · ‎11-14-2023

@a_c_green

Thanks for taking another shot at this issue. As we all know, however, OP's are not required to return to their posts and participate. Though we would certainly expect better of eBay staff, I truly don't think it is going to happen. I think we have a name for such posters, but perhaps it is just in the south: Seagulls......i.e. drop their load and leave.

a_c_green · ‎11-14-2023

@ittybitnot wrote:
Thanks for taking another shot at this issue. As we all know, however, OP's are not required to return to their posts and participate. Though we would certainly expect better of eBay staff, I truly don't think it is going to happen.

We do expect better of eBay staff. Internal and external communication within eBay is atrocious: it's not only one of their worst problems, but in turn leads to other problems, such as no one knowing what's going on, what's coming up, what's being worked on, what isn't, etc. The Community contacts here are responsive, but the rest of the company is letting them down when it comes to actually operating as a cohesive whole.

dhbookds · ‎11-14-2023

Internal and external communication within eBay is atrocious:

yep, but in every "group" meeting, they tout how much they want to interact with sellers.....how much they "learn"......how wonderful we are...... Hypocrisy, anyone?

smart_home_buyer · ‎11-15-2023

This has been the single greatest improvement made on eBay in recent memory, probably in years! Good work!!!

meme6253 · ‎11-15-2023

This looks more like a tool for a disgruntled buyer to destroy a sellers reputation!

toomuchstuffagain35 · ‎11-15-2023

Well they listened about the sending invoices thing.

Maybe there's hope they'll roll this back as well.

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

b86fiero · ‎11-16-2023

Here's a thought that might "add credibility and drive sales by instilling additional confidence for interested buyers" ..........

eBay should automatically give a seller a Positive Feedback with the eBay logo instead of a photo stating "this item arrived on time" or "arrived within the estimated delivery time" for all items that qualify where the buyer did not leave feedback.

Buyers want to know how dependable the seller is and that feedback posted by eBay would go a long way towards instilling additional confidence in buyers!

seller_news_team · ‎11-16-2023

Hello all,

Please see the FAQ's posted below for further details on relevance ranking:

What factors are you using to define the “relevance” of feedback comments?

The new default relevance sort uses a combination of relevance (defined using a machine learning model that scores comments based on the variety of attributes included and the depth of explanation) and how recent the comment was posted. This combination ensures that comments that sort at the top are both rich and not so old that they are no longer relevant to prospective buyers.

Will all types of feedback (positive, negative and neutral) be sorted based on relevance?

Yes, all three ratings will be sorted based on relevance. The relevance sort will not be aiming to bring any particular rating to the top over another rating type and the goal will be to provide buyers with an accurate depiction of the experience a buyer is likely to have with a seller.

What is the oldest feedback that will be surfaced when sorting by relevance?

Feedback comments sorted by relevance can be up to 5 years old, however, the recency of the comment is factored into the sorting logic so more recently posted comments will be more likely to show more highly. If you have a significant volume of recent feedback it should be rare for very old feedback to show at the top of the page.

How will relevance be determined if a seller sells mainly “one off” items?

Much of the feedback our buyers provide for sellers is on the entire experience of buying from a seller including the speed of shipping, the packaging of the item, communication, etc. The relevance model will be taking these attributes into account along with others and we believe the sorted feedback will have value to buyers even if it may describe an experience with a different item than the item a particular buyer is looking to purchase.

Will I be able to save my preference for sorting?

Currently you will not be able to save your preference for a particular sort, but you will have the option to change the sort on your feedback profile page on any platform

Will buyers be able to sort feedback by most recent?

Yes, when viewing a seller’s feedback profile page, buyers will be able to choose whether they would like to view feedback comments sorted by relevance (the default option) or recency. On the View Item, Storefront and user profile pages feedback will only be ordered by the default relevance sort

When will I see the new default sort?

We’re currently testing the sorting enhancement and so these changes may be rolled out at different times to our buyers and sellers. Unfortunately we can’t provide a date for when you may see these changes within your experience.

Will this new default sort to relevance hurt sales?

We are always trying to find new ways to help our sellers that offer great experiences to their buyers drive increased sales. While testing our new relevance sorting we have seen no indication that this change will negatively impact sales. In fact, we’ve found that buyers were more likely to engage with sellers driving increased buying activity!

siamjane8 · ‎11-17-2023

Thanks for the update and explanation ebay team.

Unfortunately this project looks to have been busy-work. I cannot imagine how on any level this will do anything to help sales conversion (dredging up 5 year old negs and neuts will have the opposite effect and have ZERO bearing on the current quality of the seller...)..... we just wish ebay would focus on core issues that DO negatively effect sales - like the search engine relevancy and the buyer friction and confusion of all the listing page promoted listings trying to pull the buyer away from a sale.

The AI on this platform has proven time and time again to be severely lacking at best- why cant ebay just keep it simple and make it quick and easy and not distracting to buy here?

Sometimes you just have to power through- if they would cut the budget on projects like these and put that into advertising and sales/promotions/site discounts/etc- ebay would start to attract new buyers again

sextons-sweet-deals · ‎11-17-2023

A lot going on here!

Until eBay revises the 12-month feedback chart to show all without digging, I will always take the time to review all buyer and seller feedback history. Yes, it takes a little time, but it is worth avoiding a headache down the road.

I recently commented on another post about a potential buyer. Current feedback chart looked okay, but after reviewing feedback for sellers, the buyer had left something like 19 negatives in their last 25 feedbacks left for sellers.

siamjane8 · ‎11-17-2023

@sextons-sweet-deals I agree with you for sure. If a buyer reaches out looking for a deal or makes an offer- the first thing i check is their "feedback left for others" If they are a problematic buyer that is never satisfied and leaves allot of neg- i dont need their business.

meme6253 · ‎11-18-2023

I have an off subject question for the team, Was there any positive results from the item specific experiment?, Is it fixed?, Has it improved?, Or is it the same issues?

az93 · ‎11-18-2023

Feedback is worse, not better. There is no logical order. At least one of my visible feedbacks is so old it says not available removed.

a_c_green · ‎11-18-2023

@seller_news_team wrote:
5. Will I be able to save my preference for sorting?
Currently you will not be able to save your preference for a particular sort, but you will have the option to change the sort on your feedback profile page on any platform

@seller_news_team : I'm curious as to why you can't save a sort preference. Aren't you just using cookies to save preferences?

This has been a similar headache in the Search field as well. In the desktop view, your choice of Sort By preference for your results (e.g. Newly Listed) will carry forward and apply to future Search results as well, unless or until you choose a different sort, which is fine. But in the Mobile app, it keeps reverting to "Best Match" every time, regardless of what sort preference you chose last time. There's no way to lock it in.

Is it not possible to consistently save the user preferences for operations where the user has a choice that he might want to carry forward, such as how he wants to view Feedback results?