Happy(?) Anniversary Auto-Feedback
Summary: gurlcat reflects on the one-year anniversary of automated feedback for sales, describing how it represents a full gauge of buyer satisfaction. They explain how to calculate manual feedback percentages without automated scores. tsme35 appreciates the system for providing additional positive feedback, while nyr134 points out complications with calculations involving multi-item orders. sixballcycles expresses skepticism, suggesting auto-feedback covers up discrepancies and raises concerns about eBay's fees and practices, which gurlcat dismisses as conspiracy theories. bashort praises the automation as a correction of past issues, though gurlcat notes potential drawbacks with large sellers. 12345jamesstamps shares experiences using tracking to ensure feedback for multiple-item purchases and comments on feedback habits, especially from international buyers.
Today marks one year since the rollout of automated feedback for sales. What makes that notable is, from today onward, each seller's percent positive is a full representation of buyer satisfaction. I know that's a controversial statement. I know you may be one of the people whose fingers are firing up as you read this, to write about how some less-than-fully-satisfied buyers may sometimes opt to leave no feedback, rather than give a neutral or negative. That point has been made many times in posts like this: https://community.ebay.com/forum/selling-57920/topic/automated-feedback-starts-tomorrow-but-what-does-that-actually-mean-151466/
and : https://community.ebay.com/forum/selling-57920/topic/autofeedback-ruined-my-life-154202/ and many, many more.
If you feel the merits of auto-feedback still warrant debating, you are free to do so, but what THIS post is about is the non-debatable fact that every seller can now look at their numbers and see what their full 12-month score would be if they hadn't received auto's. I will share mine to illustrate how to calculate. 
First, decide if you want to count positives that came from sellers, for purchases you made. You can change the sorting from 'All' to 'Received as buyer' and filter the results by 'Past 12 months' to see the number. Although these do contribute to your % pos no matter what, I will subtract them for the purpose of this primer, for this reason: there is no auto-feedback for buyers, so my '33' are only from sellers who opted to give them to me. They're the 'oranges' to the 'apple' ratio comparison of auto versus manual feedback.. Also, if you rarely or never buy on eBay, it's an irrelevant factor.
So, 213 - 33 = 180 sales. Of those, 111 were automated, so subtract those like it's pre-September 2025. -That leaves only 69 manual positives, and 1 negative.
Now take the #negative and divide it by the #manual positive. -Ignore neutrals because eBay's math ignores them.
1/69 = 0.014
Move the decimal 2 spaces to the right, to get the % neg. = 1.4
Subtract that from 100 = 98.6.
Had it not been for my auto-feedbacks, I would have a 98.6% positive, as opposed to my 99.5% with them.
*Yes auto's are delayed by several days after delivery, so the 12-month number on your feedback page won't perfectly match the number of sales you've had in the 365 days before today. But auto-feedbacks DID start appearing on Sept. 3, 2025, so we do have a full year's worth of data to work with, as far as impact goes.
12345jamesstamps
·1 month agoI usually don't do tracking...but had an order for 44 items last week and I put tracking on each item to get those 44 feedbacks from one buyer.
Today I have an order for 24 items...so the auto tracking helps on multiple items from one buyer to me.
Buyers are not leaving feedbacks as much these days on multiple lots.
Which is why I offer items for 2 bucks and usually get a positive feedback in return.
I blocked Japan because buyers were buying a $2.00 item for a seller feedback.
Then I unblocked Japan because they actually leave a positive feedback usually always. They're not buying my stamps because they collect them...😄
That one negative feedback can't get buried if you don't have a lot of feedbacks...
Haven't got one yet but it's always possible...
bashort
·1 month agoebay automating feedback is one of the best things ebay has ever done, it righted a longtime wrong, I wish they would of done it 25 years ago.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoHere's what amazes me about it: they not only righted a wrong, they did it in a way that is more clever and perfect than anything I (or maybe anyone here) would have come up with. Just think of all the times they appeared to try to change some policy or feature for the better, but they only changed the 'wrong' from this kind to that kind.
I will say it can produce one pitfall, and that involves very large sellers. The one I had recently who changed shipping carriers after I paid for instance, their high positive feedback percent was based on thousands in the past 12 months, but they actually had maybe 100 neutrals and negatives, and the VAST majority of their positives were auto's. In other words, if it weren't for those auto's, they would have a wayyyy lower score.
So you could say that auto's "disguised" their bad practices, but only if a buyer trusts that % score alone, which is what I foolishly did! -Had I gone to their feedback page, saw the large amount of neg/neut's and read some of those, I wouldn't have bought from them. So that was MY bad for not doing do.
sixballcycles
·1 month agoThis is what eBay posted for me. They control your feedback they control who sees what. They want AI to help you write your messages and AI wrote this when I posted. And these are not my words. In the how many Generic Feedbacks were nice to hear legitimate kind feedbacks. Like I said in the post below page 1 15 of 25 were Delivered on time with no issues BS
In the evolving world of online marketplaces, eBay has recently implemented changes to its feedback system that are sparking concern and confusion among its users. Automated feedback for buyers who don't leave feedback intentionally, along with the conflation of feedback and reviews, is leaving both sellers and buyers puzzled. Sellers are noticing a disconnect between happy buyers and the absence of expected feedback, while buyers may feel they've expressed their satisfaction adequately, not realizing they haven't. This situation is compounded by the visibility limitations of automated feedbacks.
sixballcycles
·1 month agoLets look at what I have just found out. This is important. I believe Auto fb is to cover up what is going on with Buyers leaving Feedback but actually leaving reviews. If you (a buyer) click on leave Feedback and you leave feedback there is a good possibility you left a review and not feedback and not all the time. But you believe you have left feedback. You did not select leave a review, you selected leave feedback. Now the seller is wondering why you haven't left feedback because they have messaged you about how absolutely happy about your product. I don't like to ask for feedback but recently asked a buyer to please leave feedback. We developed a short relationship because he needed other parts. He told me he left FB but all I had was Delivered on time and without issues. I had been questioning Auto feedback and really bent about leaving a review. I did not select review. And you can't get away from that. It shows up the next time if you didn't leave on the last time. It has to reset. Also You are the only one who can see your Auto FB I went to my wifes ID and there were no auto FB in my Feedback. When I look page 1 15 of 25 are Automatic Feedback. You may be happy with the numbers BUT EBAY IS DOING SOMETHING THEY ARE TRYING TO HIDE. Years ago I got a $1200 check in the mail from eBay and didn't know why. I almost threw it in the garbage. But it was real. Can you imagine what they did to send me that much money. You are happy with that FB Numbers but why are they trying to make you happy. And why would you be happy with Delivered on time and no issues. I've been on ebay 25 years and something is wrong with this. It was 4% fees and not shipping. Now they are taking 13.6% of the sale and Shipping and 13.6% of taxes collected. I can't believe that is even legal. They take 13.6% of taxes collected and then get the difference from you. Shipping also. So in the end That Total of fees is more like 20% of what you sold your item for. It's not wether you are for or against Automatic Feedback. I say why and hide that from everyone who looks at your feedback. I entered a post a couple days ago but can't seem to find it. The next one I put in for you is what was posted and it was nothing like what I posted.
gurlcat
OP1 month ago@sixballcycles Here is why you're confused. Feedback can be sorted in 2 different ways: Relevant and Recent. When you look at your own account, the default is Recent, but when anyone else looks at it, the default is Relevant.
Auto-feedbacks, which always say "Order delivered on time with no issues" -they are given the lowest score for "Relevant" so buyers don't see them unless they go however many pages it takes to start seeing them.
Look at the 2 screenshots below, from your feedback. The first is sorted by relevant, so note how there are no auto-feedbacks (on the whole page, though I screenshot'ed only the top portion). Then the next screenshot is sorted by Recent -so your most-recent feedback was an auto, and so was the 4th-most-recent.
I can also explain what factors determine relevance, and anything else you want to know about feedback, but I will not entertain any conspiracy theories about eBay using feedback as "coverup". Nor anything about seller fees -that is completely off-topic.
nyr134
·1 month agoI appreciate all the thought and effort that you put into this. By my counting , the number of automated feedbacks shown in the tabulation (your 111) consists of one per item sold - even if a single buyer bought, say, seven items at one time. If that buyer had left seven positive feedbacks, the percentage calculation would have treated that as just one positive feedback. I am unclear if the new percentage calculation is treating it as seven positives or just one - but certainly the number tally counts it as seven.
So maybe besides apples and oranges, there are bunches of grapes in here also.
I am recalling that you were a former teacher (?), so maybe you can ‘cypher’ this problem. It’s beyond my abilities.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoThank you, that is something I almost always forget about feedback because I don't get a lot of multi-item orders. Repeat single-item buyers, yes, but the vast majority of my orders are singles.
But if I recall right, a buyer leaving multiple negatives for a multi-item order also makes only one data point impact, yeah? If so, that might sort of 'nullify' this concern, since it works both ways. Oh but also I don't know if buyers receiving multi-positives for combined orders get all those +'s or not.
Anyway, definitely food for thought. Speaking of, did you ever try these? -Looked like ordinary apples, crunched like apples, but tasted exactly like ripe concord grapes. No, they weren't some GMO mad scientist product, just Fuji apples soaked in artificial grape flavoring, which was probably worse actually. I'm using the past tense because the went off the market in 2024 -not because of any health concerns, just sales that petered out after 20 years. It doesn't surprise me because they were very pricey, and I doubt a lot of people bought them more than once. My kid and I did enjoy the single quad-pack we had, but after that, we could just buy apples or grapes if either were what we craved, lol.
nyr134
·1 month ago · Edited@gurlcat - do you know that tonight is the first time I noticed that you replied to my comment a couple of days ago. I got notified that you ‘reacted’ but not ‘replied’. That’s the only time I observed that a notification failed (though who knows what else was missed?).
In any case, based on your experience, your revised stats would be very close if you adjusted for feedback that is grouped. I tend to get buyers who purchase multiples when my auctions end on Mondays, so my calculations would be more convoluted to arrive at.
tsme35
·1 month agoI like it, 1500 positives I wouldn't have gotten, haven't had one complaint from any buyers
gurlcat
OP1 month agoba-bump (man it's taking longer and longer for them to "approve" new posts so they're buried by the time they actually show up).