Rate This Item in Feedback

[austinltc78749]

Making the new "rate this item" a compulsory part of feedback is a mistake.  On many purchases I would have been happy to provide positive feedback on the seller, but did not want to rate the item.  Please make "rate this item" optional.  I hope someone from ebay is reading this blog.

[triptow]

I recently purchased five blu-rays from an eBay seller. I'd love to give the seller positive feedback -- they were great. But I'm not about to drop everything to watch and rate five movies in order to give feedback.

[kasc-4092]

I really dislike this new feature also! -- Especially that it is compulsory. There are many times when I haven't "loved" an item I've purchased, but, for various reasons, have kept it and given positive feedback, because the service was good even if the item was not what I expected, and I didn't want to offend the seller by saying so. 

I also dislike starred ratings because they are "sticky" and affect algorithms which then what you see and offers you are given. So for example, that awkward thing you bought for your auntie for Christmas becomes permanently stuck to your profile and you get recommendations related to it thereafter.

For the person who is collecting examples: I purchased two new t-shirts and was required to rate them before I could leave feedback for the seller who really went out of their way to assist. Thanks!

[jagsearch]

I have stopped giving feedback because of this "feature". I am happy to rate a seller's performance but will not be forced to rate a product. Since rating the product is now "mandatory" I have stopped issuing feedback. Sellers will therefore lose the opportunity of gaining positive feedbacks. 

[gear2th]

Me too!  I just gave my seller positive feedback and noted "arrived quickly in excellent condition" but added that my rating of the item was random and meaningless; it's too soon to rate the item itself.

[offtrackthoroughbred]

What an intrusive gimmick to coerce more user data.  No thanks.  No feedback.

[dreambiglovelife]

Just a FYI that the work-around isn't working well any longer. I currently have 5 out of 6 purchases that are requiring me to Rate The Item. At first I thought it was only those items that list multiple copies in the same listing, since I had 2 listings like that, and they were the only 2 that were requiring me to Rate The Item. However, today I went to give Feedback on a listing that did NOT list multiple copies, and there was the dreaded Rate This Item. 😞 Then I checked all outstanding Feedback which is how I noticed that 5 out of 6 are now like that, and only 2 of those were listings with multiple copies. 

Note that I've given this Feedback to ebay multiple times now, hoping they'll get enough complaints and change things back. What a harebrained idea in the first place!

*sigh*

[knightstac]

I concur with OP, entirely.

I'm coerced to provide a product rating for some purchases I make in order to leave any Seller feedback at all. Problem is, it's asinine that I provide feedback for products I might not have actually used yet or for products in which feedback is absolutely irrelevant. Or, maybe I just don't want to leave product feedback because I simply don't want to - why is product feedback required for me to leave the more important Seller feedback?

The 'required' nature of this product feedback makes me think they are wanting to compel positive  product

feedback for purposes that benefit them, because the result of compelling irrelevant or coerced feedback is people are naturally going to always give five stars to be able to leave Seller feedback. The issue for real eBay shoppers is the "Product Feedback Ratings" are going to be complete **bleep** because their feedback gathering is compelled and designed to provide skewed results.

Apparently, eBay wants their product ratings to be as unreliable as Amazon's have become. Goal achieved.

[blacklint]

A really silly example: I bought an item listed as "For parts or not working" in order to repurpose. It was, indeed, broken. The transaction was great, but how am I supposed to rate the item?