Simply-the-best-for-you Volunteer Community Mentor
mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
Noticed today that on the View Item page in the Feedback module for some sellers eBay is showing an average message response rate.
It's not showing for all sellers and I'm not sure what the criteria is - I don't think it's only for sellers that are particularly fast because I'm seeing anywhere from 1 hr to 24 hrs.
devon@ebay kyle@ebay - any insights on this you can share?
@valueaddedresource wrote:
@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:BTW, just got routed to 1st Dibs to look at an item & immediately a window opens up for me to ask the seller with prefilled text of me asking the seller if they have something similar & right in that box it tells me that seller usually responds in an 1 hour.
@simply-the-best-for-you That's interesting - current VP Seller Experience Xiaodi Zhang was Chief Product Officer at 1st Dibs before rejoining eBay last year. 🤔@valueaddedresource
@valueaddedresource It's not a site I visit often, so I didn't know, I just happened to run into it. That is interesting, but it's not like other bigger sites haven't been doing this. I shop a lot on Etsy & they've had it for years & virtually everyone I buy from there is: "This seller usually responds within a few hours."
c/p'd directly from Etsy.
@valueaddedresource wrote:
devon@ebay kyle@ebay - if you could please check with the team on this one and find out for us:
A.) Over what time frame is the average calculated?
B.) Do messages that are not responded to count against a seller for this stat and if so, what is the proper way to mark when a message does not require a response to avoid having it counted?
C.) If a seller has working days/hours set for the purposes of shipping cut offs, will those settings also apply to messages for this stat (ie. only counting "business hours" for response time).
Thanks!
Hey @valueaddedresource! The product team was able to share some insight and here is what they said:
"Hi all,
Firstly, thank you for providing your feedback on this topic. I am a product manager on the buyer experience team, and am happy to address any questions you may have on this topic.
We are testing this feature because we heard from buyers that they value knowing if they can expect timely responses from a seller, and that it would encourage them to engage more on eBay. Currently, this signal shows up on the View Item page and is being tested with a subset of buyers to help us understand if it helps with increasing sales for our sellers and trust on the platform.
Please see our responses below regarding some of the specific questions raised in this thread:
[Question 1] – What signals can show up on my listing to indicate my response time?
- Your listings could display one of the following 7 signals:
- “Responds within 1 hour” OR
- “Responds within 3 hours” OR
- “Responds within 6 hours” OR
- “Responds within 12 hours” OR
- “Responds within 24 hours” OR
- “Responds within 48 hours” OR
- No signal will show up on your listings
[Question 2] – How is this signal calculated?
- The signal is calculated based on data over the last 12 months for sellers. We only look at the response from the seller for the first question. More details below:
- Seller has received at least 1 question and answered 60%+ questions over the last 12M
- Only the first question and response in each conversation are included. So not responding to a follow up question or a “thank you very much” response from the buyer would not be factored into this calculation.
- The result is rounded up to the nearest bucket from the list of 7 signals mentioned above
- The signal is not shown if the calculation shows a seller responds in more than 48 hours.
- The signal is also not displayed when a seller has received no questions over the last 12 months or when a seller’s response rate was lower than 60%.
[Question 3] – Will this new response time signal impact my seller rating?
- No, this response time signal will not impact your seller's rating in any way, and there are no plans to add this as a criterion to qualify as a Top Rated Seller.
[Question 4] – If a seller has working days/hours set for the purposes of shipping cut offs, will those settings be considered in the calculation of this signal?
- At this time, we do not factor this into the calculation. We will explore the possibility of incorporating the working days/hours set by sellers in the future.
[Question 5] – As a seller, I am concerned that I will be penalized if I fall sick for a few days, take a weekend off or am temporarily not able to respond with the speed with which I usually do.
- As mentioned in the answer to Question 2 above, the response time is calculated based on your performance over the previous 12 months. Therefore, occasional fluctuations in response time would not considerably impact your overall performance evaluation.
I hope this information helps clarify the purpose of this feature. If you have any additional feedback, please let us know. We will keep the community informed on the learnings and if we decide to launch the experience more broadly.
Thank you."
Devon,
@valueaddedresource wrote:
Thank you devon@ebay ! And I agree with @dhbookds and @my-cottage-books-and-antiques - please pass on a big thank you to that team for such a thorough and helpful response!
@valueaddedresource I will be sure to share yours, @dhbookds. @my-cottage-books-and-antiques and others appreciation for their response!
Devon,
Just a couple things.
The team also agreed to add the word USUALLY in from of the word Responds. As it sits now it more of an absolute which is not good for any of us.
If a question from a buyer is simply marked READ but the seller never actually response to it, does it count in the response time calculation using when the seller marked it READ?
@the-hook-and-the-loop wrote:So they are working on increasing sales.
That is something both Ebay and sellers should always be working on. It isn't just one or the other.
@gloryglorygifts wrote:I believe "communication" is for email responses only during the transaction, isn't it? I see the response time somewhere else.
No it isn't. But it does require a transaction to happen before a buyer can rate our communication when leaving feedback [DSRs].
@gloryglorygifts wrote:Ha! You are so lucky! That is fantastic. I'm a little jealous. LOL
Believe me I know. I am thankful daily about my kids. They are both productive human beings and easy to be around no matter your age.
Wowza devon@ebay so impressed with the thoroughness of that answer & the willingness to share the basics with us. If you are compiling follow-up questions, can you please ask if our time response rating plays any part in search standings for our items? Thanks for your consideration & I completely concur, best answer I've ever seen since the beginning of the boards, please let the team know we appreciate th transparency!
