eBay

seller_news_team · ‎01-25-2024

Over the past few months, we’ve been working to improve the feedback experience for both sellers and buyers on eBay by improving relevancy and displaying images. These feedback enhancements give potential buyers better insights into your products, and can add credibility and drive sales by instilling additional confidence while shopping. We’ve now made an additional update based on what the seller community says is a top request for how we display feedback.

Starting this week, sellers’ replies and buyers’ follow-ups to feedback will be shown on all places feedback is viewable. This update includes showing replies on desktop and mobile web pages, the view item page of eBay’s mobile apps, and the storefront feedback profile page.

Buyers will be able to see your customer service interactions on all positive, negative, and neutral feedback. You can reply to buyer feedback on your feedback profile page via a desktop computer.

Responding to buyer feedback is a great way to showcase your knowledge about your products, provide context for the feedback provided by buyers, and demonstrate your commitment to a great buyer experience.

We encourage sellers to work towards a solution with buyers who had unsatisfactory experience and attempt to rectify the situation. Responding to buyer feedback with additional context about how you followed up can be a key part of this process.

As always, thank you for selling on eBay.

The eBay Team

profitweb · ‎02-10-2024

@fern*wood It was the first time I did. I was inspired by another seller. I will never again.

Still, why does eBay allow Buyers to leave negative feedback for something that was not offered in original listing (like returns)?

Kim

esg-enterprises · ‎02-10-2024

@seller_news_team I guess this is important to someone, and it likely gave a few employees meaning in their work. But frankly, with all the issues facing the platform in 2024, it seems odd to me that anyone would spend months working on feedback, which is down the list of importance like 75 spots.

esg-enterprises · ‎02-10-2024

@uniwarehousewares I was recently scammed out of 1500 dollars by a buyer who opened a return, immedialty approved, never returned the item, then initiated a CB 3 months later. This same buyer currently has items listed for sale on ebay. I was told by 3 CSRs his account will not be impacted by a single CB, they to see a pattern of CB's before they will even consider action against him. A total joke!

esg-enterprises · ‎02-10-2024

@profitweb My son was recently left a negative by a buyer who canceled the order before it was ever shipped because ebay told him the expected delivery was longer than he liked. I told him to call about it and he was like dad, no way I am wasting my time calling, I could care less.

kitschy*loot · ‎02-10-2024

Feedback is voluntary and many opt to not volunteer. I don't have to leave a seller any feedback if I don't want to, but normally I enjoy leaving excellent feedback to those who deserve it.

Seller's don't automatically deserve positive feedback because the buyer didn't leave any. Sometimes I don't leave any feedback for a seller because it would be less than favorable and I only leave negatives for the worst sellers I interact with and neutrals for those who haven't done bad enough to deserve a negative but are far from positive.

If a system was put in place where I knew sellers would get auto positives I would then start volunteering to give them the feedback they deserve even if it was negative or neutral... seller's who would more than likely only get positives would probably love a system like you suggest, but if they were going to get a negative or neutral to prevent auto positives I'll bet they wouldn't.

kitschy*loot · ‎02-10-2024

I've never heard of a return being instantly approved. Was this some sort of remorse return where the buyer is responsible for return shipping? It sounds like maybe they opened a case and then didn't want to pay the shipping, so they decided to go for a chargeback later on. I guess it's possible they decided to just keep the item and then later on didn't want it anymore and went to their bank which stinks because they could have just returned for a refund, but no site/app is going to remove a customer for one chargeback.

siamjane8 · ‎02-13-2024

I don't fault the "feedback" team for doing their job. At least they are doing something.... Problem is all the updates are generally meaningless and do nothing to inspire more sales which is 100% the point of selling on eBay. Instead the constant programming changes break what actual does work and frustrate all users... Buyers and sellers. Again I applaud them for doing something but as pretty much everyone else has pointed out- EBAY has real issues that should be addressed and while search and irrelevant promoted listings still remains the biggest deterant to sales conversion... It seemingly goes unnoticed while focus to feedback is given priority. It's like polishing the Titanic's railings as she sinks... It makes no business sense what so ever..... FIX what you're customers want fixed. eBay is made up of millions of sellers that know what they are doing and yet eBay refuses to listen to them. It's so bizarre.

a_c_green · ‎02-13-2024

@kitschy*loot wrote:
I've never heard of a return being instantly approved.

It depends on what your return settings are. Mine are 30-day free returns, so on the (mercifully) few occasions when one of my buyers wanted to return something, the first I'd learn about it would be when eBay sent me a notification that a label had been issued and the item would be on its way back. Excerpting from the original notification here:

"Hi [my first name],

The buyer [ID here] is returning the item. Per eBay's policy, this return has been automatically approved and we've asked the buyer to send the item back.

After the buyer ships the item, we'll share the tracking information with you.

Please inspect the item before issuing a refund. View the return details to issue a refund now, if you like. You must issue a refund within 2 days of item being delivered."

a_c_green · ‎02-13-2024

@siamjane8 wrote:
I don't fault the "feedback" team for doing their job. At least they are doing something.... Problem is all the updates are generally meaningless and do nothing to inspire more sales which is 100% the point of selling on eBay.

They're also incomplete. One of their consistent failures is not fully testing their new releases to prevent unpleasant surprises when the new code goes into Production use, followed by a lot of foot-dragging while they try to find someone who can fix whatever has gone wrong.

For example, it took literally months to simply repair the pulldown menus for scheduling listing Start Times in the listing form after someone botched the existing code for the menu column widths, rendering them illegibly narrow and forcing users to count down the rows to find the desired Hour and Minute selection.

Another issue is failing to code the new settings so that they will carry forward from one session to the next, such as the Sort Order setting on the mobile app, which keeps reverting to "Best Match" after the user has chosen a different option, or the Sort By setting on the feedback page, which keeps reverting to "Most Relevant" after the user has chosen "Most Recent" instead.

I find it generally not obvious what makes the ordering of "Best Match" or "Most Relevant" supposedly better. No doubt whoever thought up the idea was really pleased with it, but when it's not obvious to the user and goes largely unexplained (similar to how the Search results order of "Price + Shipping: Lowest First" drops anywhere from 50% to 75% of the user's valid query results with no explanation, something the other ordering options do not do), it's hard to say how that benefits anyone, and is not a setting that you want to have coming back again and again.

simba6 · ‎02-13-2024

Feedback served a purpose back when no protection was given to buyers. Today it's no longer needed and many buyers don't even know how to use it. They rate the shipping service, packages left in the rain and the item's quality. With the buyer protection in place today, it's no longer needed.

chasearooauctions · ‎02-13-2024

How do you rectify a buyer who uses a freight forwarder in the U.S. that claims damage, but won't/can't send the product back and leaves negative feedback? TR sellers are covered for U.S. buyers and buyers using eBay international shipping but not scammers using U.S. freight forward companies.

jwdcreation · ‎02-14-2024

Dear eBay Community,

Thank you for the informative message from the "seller_news_team" regarding shipping delays due to severe weather conditions in California and the West Coast. While I appreciate eBay's efforts to prioritize community safety and provide protection for sellers impacted by these events, I must bring to your attention that these measures have unfortunately not resolved the ongoing restriction on my eBay account.

Despite experiencing delays and challenges in shipping items to carriers, my account remains unjustly restricted, hindering my ability to conduct business on the platform. Despite having a Top Rated status and a history of positive feedback, the restrictions persist without clear resolution.

I have been diligently following local guidance on travel and safety precautions and have made every effort to ensure the safety and timely delivery of items to buyers. However, despite these efforts, the account restriction remains unchanged.

I kindly request further assistance and clarification from eBay's support team regarding the status of my account and any additional steps that can be taken to address this issue. It is crucial that my account restriction be resolved promptly to allow me to resume normal selling activities on eBay.

Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I look forward to your prompt response and assistance in resolving this issue.

Sincerely, Jwdcreation.

profitweb · ‎02-14-2024

It would be great if an automatic Positive feedback would occur at the end of 30 days, if no claims, disputes, or feedback had been left... maybe. It would be an experiment.

Kim

ittybitnot · ‎02-14-2024

I find it generally not obvious what makes the ordering of "Best Match" or "Most Relevant" supposedly better. No doubt whoever thought up the idea was really pleased with it, but.....

@a_c_green

I have found those two terms to generally mean MOST INTENTIONALLY MANIPULATED. In the terms of the new "relevancy" related to feedback, exactly how this "improve(s) the feedback experience for both sellers and buyers" much less improves sales has not been addressed.