Automated Feedback - How It's Going, Some Analysis

[jonathanbrightlight]

So we've not had as much discussion about the automated feedback in the last week or two, which is fine, people are getting used to it and/or just don't have as much to say anymore, but I thought I'd share our company's experience with it.  I'm not including the company's eBay username or link here because I don't want this to appear like advertising, but it's not like it's a secret either.

I have been copying our feedback into a spreadsheet so I could do some analysis on it for a bit, mostly so I could see if any of the automated feedback appeared to have been replaced with customer feedback (other sellers have reported seeing this, but we get enough feedback there's no way I could keep track manually).  It's not perfect, but it gave me at least a rough idea.

So, since the first automated feedback was left for our account, we've had feedback left for a total of 715 orders.  Of those, 591 are eBay Automated Feedback, and 283 were left by the buyers directly.  It appears about 40 of those manually left ones were originally automated and then changed by the buyers.

The interesting thing about that to me is that the number of manually left feedback appears to have actually increased over our usual monthly total. That first automated feedback showed up almost exactly 30 days ago now if not exactly, and in any given 30 day period I've usually see us get between 230-250 feedbacks from customers before the automated feedback began.  So while it's not a big increase necessarily, in the manually left ones, it is still an increase.

With the automated feedback, we'll end up getting over 9,000 feedback per year at this rate, since almost every order will receive feedback of some type.  We're on track for around 9,500 orders this year if the pace stays consistent, but the holiday season will likely bring more orders per month, so 10,000 isn't impossible at all.  If an order has an INAD or INR case opened it won't get automated positive feedback, or I think my understanding is that if the order is delivered late it won't either, but even so, that's a lot of feedback. We have just over 17,000 lifetime feedback over the past 14 years, so that's a massive increase in the numbers, though to be fair we've greatly increased the size of our operation over that timeframe too.  We could easily have double that in the next two years, though, which is crazy.

Open to questions if anyone's curious about any of this!

[12345jamesstamps]

I don't have much tracking so I get 0 automated feedbacks.

However, buyers are now leaving more feedback for me which is cool.

And they are so realistic compared to artificial intelligence feedbacks which are so boring and dull.

I would think buyers would prefer to read how a seller handles selling compared to just 'item got mailed'.

[mam98031]

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@broto_64 wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@broto_64 wrote:

Now all that's left to do is educate every dropshipper that they can stop sending feedback begging messages.

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That is by no means just a seller that dropships their stuff they sell.  

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Dropshippers are not selling their stuff, but we're getting way off topic here.

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I just responded to your post.  You brought up drop shippers, I didn't.  I know what a drop shipper is.  I stand by my comment.  It is not only sellers that drop ship that send messages to buyers asking for feedback.  We see it from time to time on the threads.  Now sellers don't need to be concerned with it with this change.

[gurlcat]

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@ittybitnot wrote:

I would think it would be more beneficial for your feedback percentage if you're a smaller seller.

@jonathanbrightlight 

Once I saw a few examples, I was not particularly pleased with those sellers who are perpetrators of the "FAKE TRACKING SCAM"  racking up those auto-positives and thus an inflated % score.  It doesn't take much to determine that most of those ""Order completed successfully-tracked and on time" comments are NOT from shipping a full size zero turn lawn  mower to the US with free shipping and no import fees using Speedpak.  

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If I understand correctly, you're talking about scam sellers who use a bunch of fake accounts to generate positive feedbacks for fake sales, to "cushion the blow" of honest negative feedbacks (written by real buyers who got ripped off) - is that right?   I would say that's an excellent point, except automated feedback doesn't enable the scammers to use that practice any more than they were already.  They have always done it by having the fake buyer accounts manually give green donuts and whatever comments like "GREAT A++++++++" or whatever. 

All automatic feedbacks do is allow them to be so lazy they don't even have to do that (extremely quick and simple) part of it.  

And really they would be stupid to just let the automation do their positives, because remember when a buyer looks at a seller's feedback, the default view is sorted by 'Relevant' and auto feedbacks are the least relevant of all.  So even if auto-positives improve a scammer's % score (same as hand-written fake positives), every buyer who actually goes to read their feedbacks will see the hand-written feedbacks on the top of page 1, whether positive, negative or neutral.  So being lazy and relying on this new automation will only make them look WORSE.  

Meanwhile, honest sellers who are relatively low-volume but bust their hineys to please buyers ... including buyers who don't bother with feedback no matter how pleased they are .... they really will be the biggest beneficiaries of this feature, which is why I love it.  

[adamcartwright]

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@pickapaper wrote:

...I'm not fond of the idea of eBay giving that buyer or seller automated feedback.   But I can live with it. 

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eBay is giving auto buyer FB now, also?

[gurlcat]

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@pickapaper wrote:

I think a lot of us are small sellers and it really isn't going to make that much difference.  But it is interesting to read what you have written.

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 It's made a big difference for you already.  In the past month only 36% of your 36 feedback were manually given.  64% were automated. 



It may not feel like it matters right now because you have 100% positive feedback with or without the automated ones.  But pretend this had been going on for a full year, and continued the same ratio of auto to manual feedbacks, so that 64% of your 233 past-year positives were automated .... but then a buyer gives you a negative. 

With only 1 neg out of 234 feedbacks, your score would still be a respectable 99.6% positive.  
But if autos didn't exist and you had only 84 manual feedbacks .... 1 neg would drop you to 98.8%

Now pretend you're an even smaller seller, and sold only 50 items in the past year (and assuming the same 36/64 ratio):  
With automated feedback, 1 neg out of 50 would give you a 98% positive.  
Without automated feedback, 1 neg out of 18 manual would give you a 94.4% positive.  Ouch!

[tobaccocardyahoo]

I too have seen an increase in manual FB, some of which is replacing automated FB.

What I have also noted is fewer DSRs. The number of DSRs now is unsettlingly low compared to the FB. Since many buyers have little brain, I assume some of them will see something wrong because the DSRs are fewer, and since they have little attention span to be used reading the FB will focus on any low number.

Ebay giveth with one hand ...

[ittybitnot]

If I understand correctly, you're talking about scam sellers who use a bunch of fake accounts to generate positive feedbacks for fake sales, to "cushion the blow" of honest negative feedbacks

@gurlcat )

No.  I am referring to those 'sellers' who send the proverbial box of rubber bands to an address in your Zip Code to satisfy the eBay bots that the laptop (Iphone, camera, lawn mower, etc.)  was successfully delivered to the buyer.  

Buyer gets nothing, files INR because they got nothing and loses while eBay insists the item was delivered due to the phony tracking.  eBay denies the claim, yada yada..all which takes time as per usual.  Seller gets auto positives, and if the buyer left a neg AND filed INR it will be removed because the buyer lost.  

I provided a nice list of reading material on this subject the other day for someone else in case you are interested.  See message #7 here: 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Item-not-arrived-but-seller-refuses-to-refund-me-and-ebay-sides...

[adamcartwright]

@gurlcat 

Interesting... because I have the same 64%  of Auto/Total over the past month.

[gurlcat]

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@tobaccocardyahoo wrote:

I too have seen an increase in manual FB, some of which is replacing automated FB.

What I have also noted is fewer DSRs. The number of DSRs now is unsettlingly low compared to the FB. Since many buyers have little brain, I assume some of them will see something wrong because the DSRs are fewer, and since they have little attention span to be used reading the FB will focus on any low number.

Ebay giveth with one hand ...

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What are DSR's??

[gurlcat]

Yes I knew what you meant by the fake tracking scam.  But how would those scammers benefit from auto-feedback?  If the buyers' negs are removed because they lost their INR cases, eBay does not just replace those with auto-positives.  No transactions that had any kind of return or INR  (won or lost) can receive auto's.  

[gurlcat]

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@adamcartwright wrote:

@gurlcat 

Interesting... because I have the same 64%  of Auto/Total over the past month.

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Well lucky yall then; 68% of mine was auto.  And 1 of my manuals was 'as a buyer.'  😆

[gurlcat]

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@adamcartwright wrote:

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@pickapaper wrote:

...I'm not fond of the idea of eBay giving that buyer or seller automated feedback.   But I can live with it. 

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eBay is giving auto buyer FB now, also?

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They're not.  I might find that surprising except sellers already have nothing but "leave no feedback" as the closest thing to negging bad buyers.  So if eBay started giving them positives after we chose to leave them blank, well then I think sellers really would freak out and leave in droves.   I'd like to say it wouldn't bother me that much, but I don't know man if I think of the very worst buyers I've ever had (and read about here) .... if I had 3 or 4 of those in short succession and saw eBay claim there were "no issues" ........ oof. 

Then again, there are a lot of sellers who truly would not care whatsoever, and we know this because they give buyers postives right after they ship, with no way of knowing what the buyer might do after delivery.  

[mam98031]

Wow, that is a terrible way to talk about your buyers.  Especially since you don't even know them at all.

[adamcartwright]

@tobaccocardyahoo 

As a buyer, it's never occurred to me to look at the number of DSRs, but only at the star ratings -- 5.0 ,4.8, etc.

But maybe I'm just a little brain. 😜

[mam98031]

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@adamcartwright wrote:

@tobaccocardyahoo 

As a buyer, it's never occurred to me to look at the number of DSRs, but only at the star ratings -- 5.0 ,4.8, etc.

But maybe I'm just a little brain. 😜

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DSR = Detail Seller Rating  AKA star ratings.