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?

[18704d]

"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. "

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What do you called "resolved"?

If I order an item, a more expensive .. Model A .. of something,

and the seller purposefully sends me a Model B .. or anything else ...

And when I contact him, he Issues me a Refund.

According to your rules, Can I leave a Negative?

I find it a Negative experience for a seller to send me something inferior than what I ordered..  or states it's Mint Perfect when he knows there was obvious damage.

?

Lynn

[7606dennis]

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

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

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Frankly, I'm not convinced that that is true.  Since feedback consists of opinion based on a subjective viewpoint of the buyer rather than something more objective, I wonder how useful the information is in informing the buyers.  

[femmefan1946]

I tend to agree that FB is less useful than it appears.

It seems that a majority of buyers don't leave any feedback.

When a buyer is unhappy, and doesn't understand how to use the Resolution Centre, she can find the FB page.

A buyer whose problem is Resolved in the seller's favour can't leave FB and  a buyer who is content with the resolution of her problem is less likely to leave feedback.

So to my mind, there is probably more negative feedback left for sellers than there are unhappy buyers for that seller.

And even then Buyers Don't Read-- most think 95% is a dandy FB score and  many don't understand why a seller with hundreds of negs might still have 100% positive FB (hint: ratios. That sellers has hundreds of thousands of happy customers).

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

I’ve spent over half a million on eBay. Feedback is very helpful.

youre right in one way. I think buyers are much nicer to sellers than they could be. I’ve left one negative but based on bad stuff I would have been justified leaving many more.

of course this is lake woebegone where all sellers are above average

[chasearooauctions]

It would be up to the buyer... How would you like to resolve this? Money back, keep item? Money back, sellers pay for return? Seller pays for return and sends correct item?

[little.font.lord.leroy]

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@chasearooauctions wrote:

... and cut down on calls from sellers regarding negative feedback,

....

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

.....

Second outcome

Have you contacted the seller? Yes/No

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

---

There are sellers who no sane buyer would want to contact. Maybe the buyer didn't read their feed back until after they had a problem and could see by the follow ups that the seller is a blankity blank to deal with. So, the buyer would just as soon leave the negative and be done with it, because the buyer has no hope of an amicable conclusion and doesn't want to waste his time.

As to your first assumption, that eBay would like to decrease the number of calls from sellers wanting to remove a negative. They could easily remedy that. When a seller calls, there is a prompt "Are you a calling about negative feedback you received" if you press "I" for "yes" the message is, "we are no longer handling calls on this subject, good bye" and they hang up. If the seller lies and presses "2", then the Rep is directed to inform the seller that they have lost the privileged to call eBay and all communication will be thru email only. Of course, this solution isn't as drastic as yours, but it would certainly be the best way to decrease the number of calls that eBay receives from sellers trying to remove negative feed back, if that is what eBay wanted to do.

IF I were a seller, I don't think I would put that bug in eBay's ear. "You know eBay, you could work harder to decrease the number of calls you get about removing negative feedback if you really wanted to." Because I'm sure that they would find a very satisfactory solution, like always, aren't you?