A bright idea for buyers and sellers to enjoy selling and buying on eBay

[chasearooauctions]

... and cut down on calls from sellers regarding negative feedback, they would change the wording and process for leaving negative feedback. Currently, if a buyer clicks the "Negative" icon in Feedback, they

are provided with the following statement: Have you contacted the seller? Consider sharing your concerns before you leave feedback.

Instead, make it mandatory that buyers contact sellers, prior to leaving negative feedback. 

First outcome...

Have you contacted the seller? Yes/No

If yes was selected, the next option would be, Was your issue resolved?

If yes was selected again, then no option to leave negative. 

If no was selected for "was your issue resolved?", then the buyer has every right to leave a negative mark. 

Second outcome

Have you contacted the seller? Yes/No

If no, was selected, then no option to leave negative UNTIL the seller is contacted.

In the first outcome, if the buyer "fibs" and says yes to the first question, but no to the second and leaves a negative, as a seller, it would be easy to inspect and call and to let them know Uh, the buyer did not contact me through eBay messaging. 

If the seller "fibs" and tells CS that the buyer did not contact him/her, again CS can, in fact, see that the buyer did and the outcome is whatever the buyer decided. 

It seems easy enough to implement. Why not?

[this*old*attic]

Um, no.

Because... People have a right to their opinions.

[wastingtime101]

---

@chasearooauctions wrote:

It seems easy enough to implement. Why not?

---

Because it's a waste of money and resources to implement these changes. The site has some major problems that need to be fixed and, in my opinion, this feedback change would be trivial and unimportant in comparison. I know some people live and die by feedback and that's fine. My opinion is different.

[chasearooauctions]

But I don't have a right to help change your opinion?

[thehonorabletrader]

Here are my thoughts...

I've had a similar idea and I don't have any issues with it except for the fact that some sellers deserve negative feedback without having to be contacted first. Feedback isn't even counted against you on eBay anymore as a buyer or a seller. Sure buyers can look at seller feedback, but I think feedback is a waste of time and should just be removed from eBay in place of product reviews. Or more importantly I would prefer to remove the "comment" portion and just have the detailed seller ratings. 

I would also like to see detailed buyer ratings on speed of payment for example. 

Now I know there are benefits and drawbacks to all of these ideas and there is no perfect solution. But I do agree there is bigger fish to fry than fixing feedback right now. 

Oh, and if you are an eBay Top Rated Seller, buyers can not leave feedback for 7 days after the transaction. This forces them to contact you or be patient. I would be fine with this approach across the board as well. I don't sell enough to be Top Rated, so I don't have access to this benefit. 

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

Um there was a thread on here the other day where posters said the reason buyers contact the seller first is to bypass their MBG count and history. Exactly how are buyers supposed to have fun here when sellers like these here are convinced buyers are scammers no matter what they do?

The board wisdom used to be that buyers should contact sellers first. The wisdom now is if they contact sellers first they’re likely scammers who have overused the MBG.

[chasearooauctions]

What about a drop-down menu of pre-worded factual sentences for both positive and negative? Unlike a negative mark with just the letter "h" that eBay won't remove because that was the buyers feeling about the transaction.

[femmefan1946]

How about dropping feedback entirely-- or hiding it so that it is harder to find than the complete fee schedule?

EBay doesn't use FB (or DSRs) as a measure of member accounts. It is almost irrelevant.

Instead, how about showing the number of completed transactions and the number of successful transactions? 

If there have been no Disputes (resolved or not) the numbers would match. If there were any Disputes (no matter who starts it, no matter who wins it) the numbers will not.

And this would show whether the member is a buyer , a seller, or both.

So if a buyer has 100 transactions but has opened 24 Not As Described disputes her account would show as 100/76..

A seller who has 100 transactions and won 3 Unpaid Item Disputes would show as 100/97.

A mega-seller who has 300,957 transctions but has lost 947 and won 36 would show as 300,957/299,974.

The point being that every single transaction shows.

In my own case I have had about 5847 transactions on this account, but only 3968 have left feedback.  With my method I would show as 5847/5818-- reflecting 9 negs and neutrals received and 18 left mostly for non-payment.

[7606dennis]

---

@chasearooauctions wrote:
What about a drop-down menu of pre-worded factual sentences for both positive and negative? Unlike a negative mark with just the letter "h" that eBay won't remove because that was the buyers feeling about the transaction.

---

Are you suggesting buyers being forced to select from canned feedback comments?  Might as well discontinue leaving any type of comment at all.  Maybe just have a button for Satisfied and Unsatisfied.

Of course, there could also be buttons for sellers to mark.  How about: Paid and Did Not Pay for example?

[thehonorabletrader]

This is a fantastic way to keep buyers from buying on eBay. Buyers are the ones who decide to spend money, not the sellers. If you do anything that can make the buyer feel uncomfortable they can choose not to buy. 

If eBay did impliment a change like this and there was an overall sales drop on eBay, would sellers be okay for the trade off? I mean you can't assume that only honest people will buy and that dishonest buyers will leave. I have never had a return on eBay, but if they started showing my "metrics" to sellers, I would stop buying. 

I don't shop at Best Buy because they use a company that publishes information and shares with others about how often you return. Despite the fact I have never returned anything to Best Buy, this to me is a bad approach. If Best BUy wants to internally track this so they know when they can and should or should not deny a return request that is fine, but publishing it to others makes no sense. 

You as a seller are fine to track your buyers return history and block them, but just because YOU had a bad experience with a buyer doesn't mean everyone else will. 

Also, a 76/100 doesn't tell us anything. What if 26 items legitimately arrived broken or got lost in the mail at no fault of the buyer? Also, would you expect eBay to allow you to cancel a transaction if you don't like the buyers score? Because that was not part of any suggestion. 

[luckythewinner]

---

---

It seems easy enough to implement.

Just because something is easy enough to implement does not mean that it should be implemented.

Why not?

Because eBay chose not to.

I find that delivering quality items at low prices with good service is enough to avoid negative feedback.

[femmefan1946]

@7606dennis 

Are you suggesting buyers being forced to select from canned feedback comments? 

EBay already does this, although it is an option and not "forced".

Maybe just have a button for Satisfied and Unsatisfied.

Or no feedback at all, although FB is useful to allow unhappy buyers to blow off steam.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

Feedback is also useful so that buyers can make informed buying decisions

[this*old*attic]

I wish simple returns didn’t hit the metrics, though. I sell clothing, and honest buyers do non-accusatory returns.

Come on, people take 5-10 things into a store dressing room all the time and they come out with 1 or no items to purchase. No harm, no foul.

[noodlevette]

I would rather see ebay implement some sort of rating system for buyers- not visible, behind the scenes.  Example- A buyer who purchases 50 items and leaves 25 red dots probably should not be buying online.   The buyer that purchases 50 items and returns 25.. same thing applies.