One of the most comically bad things from eBay Open so far ...
Anybody that frequents this forum knows how much sellers have been frustrated with eBay's push for buyers to include product reviews in feedback. An eBay seller brought up this point very directly, and the response was seemingly to a non-existent question.
Seller: A pet peeve are buyers who receive brand new items but claim flaws that did not exist when we listed and shipped the item. I dislike feeling like I am being blackmailed and I can’t stand up for my business without worrying about getting negative feedback.
I know some sellers have the impression that you need to keep 100% feedback and that’s not my point of view. There are times that we make mistakes in our business, and we own that.
But what aggravates me is when there is nothing wrong with my service or the accuracy of my listing, but the buyer just didn’t like the product.
I’d love to see more of a separation between feedback about the level of service I provided, which I can control, vs the buyer's opinion of the product, which I cannot control.
And, I’m not saying that reviews of the item are not valuable. But I don’t think it should reflect negatively on me as a seller and the service we provide when the buyer gets exactly what they ordered but are experiencing buyers remorse.
eBay's response - has nothing at all to do with product reviews! :
Once again Laurie, you are raising great points. First off, I want to be clear to all sellers that any evidence of a buyer using the threat of negative feedback to get something in return is against our policy. In addition, we will absolutely take down negative or neutral feedback that was left because the buyer asked you to cancel, and you were unable to or chose not to. Or, if a buyer asked for money off of the item and you refused. T hat’s entirely your right and we will protect you from negative feedback.
In fact, as follow up to the last Seller Check-in, I want to let everyone know that we’ve made it much easier to understand all our policies around feedback removal. Our community relies on honest, transparent feedback. And, over the last year, we began work to create a more streamlined and consistent process for sellers to ask for feedback removals.
However, as these new changes were put into action they exposed gaps in our underlying policies. We realized that we did not have every valid use case covered for our sellers and, as a result, some feedback removal requests were rejected in situations where you deserved to be protected.
Since this spring, we’ve been working to update our policies and processes and you can find more details on our new Feedback policy page. Just scan the QR code on the slide or go to our Help pages and search for “feedback policy.”
By the way I loved your comments about how mistakes happen as well as your comfort with your 99.7% positive feedback score. It’s worth remembering that buyers do not expect to see 100% positive feedback. In fact, buyers have told us that they find a seller responding professionally to negative feedback resonates positively and powerfully. I love that this is something you do Laurie.
That said, whenever a seller thinks feedback is unjustified and covered by our feedback removal policies, we are more than happy to evaluate it. You can send a request for review via Seller Help on our website.
