mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
Join the Community team here at 1 PM PT on March 4th for our Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. We don't have a specific topic this week, so please bring any general questions you may have about buying or selling.
The chat will be open for questions from 1-2 pm PT, at which point we'll close thread from additional responses. After this time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that might still be unanswered.
If you're new to the chat, welcome! Simply Reply to this post with your question from 1-2 PM Pacific Time and we'll be happy to look into it for you.
*Please note that we're not able to address account-specific queries. Questions regarding your account should be directed to eBay Customer Service.
@thebarnonvalleyview wrote:
Hello. My apologies if this topic has been addressed already, but I am new to the Community Chat Forum.
Has eBay ever considered amending the Feedback policy to require buyers to contact sellers first before leaving negative feedback?
It does not seem right that a buyer can just randomly leave negative feedback before giving a seller a chance to address or fix the issue first. And not sure how realistic eBay’s policy is to contact the disgruntled buyer to alter the feedback. The fact a buyer would just go straight to leaving negative feedback without contacting the seller first shows that this buyer is not willing to communicate with the seller. If a buyer won’t do that, why would he or she suddenly remove negative feedback just because the seller asked? Even after trying to fix the situation.
I realize that one or two negative feedback comments probably do not matter. Most reasonable buyers overlook that. And I most certainly understand that the negative feedback can help alert other eBay buyers when a seller is not reputable.
But it just does not promote a good environment for us reputable sellers when buyers are able to pop off bad feedback – for no reason without prior contact. And it can be frustrating. Especially when we contact eBay, and the representative chooses not to help. In these instances, we do not have an advocate in eBay. And that is not good.
Any thoughts or suggestions? Thank you.
Hi @thebarnonvalleyview - welcome to the Community Chat!
With so few members participating (buyers or sellers), feedback is a small and incomplete measure of the work that you go to for your customers. That's why we no longer consider it as part of your seller performance metrics.
We definitely ask buyers to contact you when going to leave negative, and in the case of PowerSellers we require buyers wait 7 days prior to leaving a neutral or negative in the hopes that they choose to work with you directly regarding their transaction.
Ultimately, however, we don't require that a member speak with anyone else prior to sharing their experience.
You're right that one or two negatives won't be the end of the world. Personally, I think a professional reply to a negative feedback does more good for you than a 100% positive rating does - it shows how you respond to a situation that didn't go quite right, and assures me as your customer how you would treat me if something similar happened.
In any case, I don't disagree that it is frustrating - whether it's out of the blue or after a few back and forths. Especially when you work hard (or would have if you'd known) to make things right.
@gwzcomps wrote:
Sorry to bug you again Trinton, but I didn't know if you had any more info regarding the problems with searching for "Marx Donkey Cart". Wondering why the system would replace a valid keyword like Marx with Marked without showing it.
Hi @gwzcomps, no new information to share at this time, though I did just run this search to double check and saw that there is a notice that no results were found for Marx (so similar keywords would be used to display potential matches:
This aside, I do see at least one result in the first 50 results that has the term Marx in the title, so I'm unsure of why 0 results would be found to display. I'll keep working on this with our tech teams and update the related thread where we've been discussing search issues when I have more information.
Curiosity Question.
Why would a buyer have a payment option available to them that is actually not available to them?
Good afternoon Community team!!! Hello from warm South Florida ( muhahaha)
anyway... I have a question.... do you know when is the estimated time to fix the credit card issue that some sellers are having when paying their fees... with this , I mean... I am not allowed to enter any credit card as my chosen method of payment for my eBay fees. I am only given the choice of direct withdraw from PayPal balance or from checking account balance... it has been several months that this started to happen and the credit card I had set for my fees expired and when I went to entered the new information BAM!!! I was no longer able to enter a credit card and now.... I cannot take advantage of my travel points , waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
TIA for all you guys do for us sellers!!!
@nuclearomen wrote:
brian@ebay
..one more thing (cause I forgot), curious also (even though this i believe has been brought up before), with feedback, I get a lot of new user accounts who purchase from me, which results in a lot of buyers never leaving feedback. I sell on another platform aside from ebay and they have something I like that I would like to see ebay do maybe, which is if buyer doesn't leave feedback to seller and the transaction reaches over 30 days if ebay adopt an auto feedback system where positive feedback is provided by ebay at 5 start rate if buyer doesn't leave it?
It's a small thing I realize, but under current system, only about 1-2 of every 10 leave feedback and just seems kinda ridiculous especially when I have 100% feedback, no claims etc... on my account.
Hi @nuclearomen, I definitely understand the reasoning behind this suggestion, however our current view on feedback is to leave it up the the buyer/seller to leave a rating and comment if they want to. With that said I am happy to pass along your suggestion for consideration!
tyler@ebay wrote:
@thebarnonvalleyview wrote:Hello. My apologies if this topic has been addressed already, but I am new to the Community Chat Forum.
Has eBay ever considered amending the Feedback policy to require buyers to contact sellers first before leaving negative feedback?
It does not seem right that a buyer can just randomly leave negative feedback before giving a seller a chance to address or fix the issue first. And not sure how realistic eBay’s policy is to contact the disgruntled buyer to alter the feedback. The fact a buyer would just go straight to leaving negative feedback without contacting the seller first shows that this buyer is not willing to communicate with the seller. If a buyer won’t do that, why would he or she suddenly remove negative feedback just because the seller asked? Even after trying to fix the situation.
I realize that one or two negative feedback comments probably do not matter. Most reasonable buyers overlook that. And I most certainly understand that the negative feedback can help alert other eBay buyers when a seller is not reputable.
But it just does not promote a good environment for us reputable sellers when buyers are able to pop off bad feedback – for no reason without prior contact. And it can be frustrating. Especially when we contact eBay, and the representative chooses not to help. In these instances, we do not have an advocate in eBay. And that is not good.
Any thoughts or suggestions? Thank you.
Hi @thebarnonvalleyview - welcome to the Community Chat!
With so few members participating (buyers or sellers), feedback is a small and incomplete measure of the work that you go to for your customers. That's why we no longer consider it as part of your seller performance metrics.
We definitely ask buyers to contact you when going to leave negative, and in the case of PowerSellers we require buyers wait 7 days prior to leaving a neutral or negative in the hopes that they choose to work with you directly regarding their transaction.
Ultimately, however, we don't require that a member speak with anyone else prior to sharing their experience.
You're right that one or two negatives won't be the end of the world. Personally, I think a professional reply to a negative feedback does more good for you than a 100% positive rating does - it shows how you respond to a situation that didn't go quite right, and assures me as your customer how you would treat me if something similar happened.
In any case, I don't disagree that it is frustrating - whether it's out of the blue or after a few back and forths. Especially when you work hard (or would have if you'd known) to make things right.
I wish Ebay would adopt the policy that so many [if not all] similar sites have. Do away with Buyer Feedback left by sellers. Just get rid of it. It serves no purpose. It isn't honest FB by definition of the policy Sellers have to adhere to. So it is meaningless to everyone except for the individual buyers. But they would get use to it as they have on other sites if it just went poof.
Why does the quote icon sometime appear as an option when making a post and sometimes it is just not there.
@vrykalak wrote:
I had 44 of my "free 50" left on 2/29, so I posted 44 items...and got charged 25¢ apiece for them! Two different CS agents said they would fix it, but neither one did, and those charges are on my invoice now. Furthermore, no "free 50" showed up for March.
Hi @vrykalak - because you have a store subscription you will not see the 'Free 50' for March, those were replaced with the insertion fee credits that come with your store package.
Likewise, you'd see the '50 free' promo prior to opening a store subscription, but after it's opened your insertion fee credits take precedence and you wouldn't see further credits on the '50 free' promo. That may be what happened.
It sounds like you've been working with CS on this though, and they may still be reviewing it. I'd encourage you to contact them again if you still see those charges on your All Account Activity page after they said they'd credit it.
Thanks!
@mam98031 wrote:
Curiosity Question.
Why would a buyer have a payment option available to them that is actually not available to them?
Hi @mam98031, it could be a site issue, but without more details or an example it's hard to say for sure. Is the buyer getting an error message when they try to pay, or the does the payment option disappear?
