GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

[amitadhiya]

Dear Sir,

I'm a first time community board user on the eBay India site, but was one of the most frequent user on the Baazee site. I can claim to have given the most number of healthy suggestions on which the team had worked upon and implemented most of them.

Honestly, I had reduced my exposure towards the site on the grounds of inadaptability after the site transition because I found the eBay layout quite confusing.

After allowing the first couple of teething months I decided to resurrect my activities. I have come across some features where you need to improve (i might be wrong and you are free to show me how). I start off with the simplest of suggestions.

[1] Where is the bulleting - numbering - tab - font colour selector buttons in the posting form?

[2] I feel the fonts used in the community board are way too big. We can do with a smaller size and possibly any other font like Times.

[3] In the Want It Now posts,
(a) Instead of having a link "Ask a question" we should be seeing "Communicate" or "Contact" or "Respond" - regarding this post - because at most of the times users are answering to the post rather inquiring. Even if they are inquisitive, these suggested terms can serve both purposes.
(b) Why can't users know who has contacted them on their posts? Why do they read Anonymous User each time someone responds? I recently got replies from 3 users to my post and after I replied them asking for the rates and features, all responded to me. Imagine the mess in my inbox and how I was trying to figure out which answer was from whom and to which of my replies...
(c) We also don't have a "Reply" button to the response we receive to our post. A "reply to" option in the open string would help us easily communicate with the responder on further info that we may require, keeping the string (like on this board) alive. If this is not possible, atleast display the user name of the parties communicating for others to see. This would help others with similar items or interests to approach one of these parties.
(d) In My Messages (and email as well) when we are intimated for a response to our post, we are in the dark as to which of our post has fetched a response unless we click and read it. Why can't you display the post title in the intimation when you can display the whole message body in the email?

[4] Why can't we have a system in place that after a certain period of a successful transaction (say 30-45 days) if either party has not rated his trading partner, the system would automatically rate him positive. Many users are lazy enough to not comply even to frequent reminders. We lose opportunities to build a reputation base owing to these users.

I believe I've tried to contribute positively towards making this site more user friendly. I don't know how my post is going to be treated. But I'll be awaiting a favourable action soon.

I'm open to inputs from other users. Friends keep them flowing.....

Regards
Amit Adhiya

[amitadhiya]

[3] (b) Clicking on this link will show you my frustration on one of my Want It Now post:
http://wantitnow.ebay.in/Leather-Cover-for-Nokia-9300-Communicator_W0QQadidZ6479386448

Also when I clicked preview to my original post, I could only see all text together - in one whole paragraph. I could only see the formatting (bold/underline) and not the points that I separated. Baazee had a nice preview display with a pale yellow background and the actual layout would be shown to users - how his post will look like. I hope the webmaster can work on this.

A couple of colour choices for the fonts would be welcome too. Of course the smileys are something which the old site did not have.... appreciated 🙂

Amit Adhiya

[shivarthecom]

Hi AmitaDhiya

Your all suggestions are good. But many time we don't want to leave negative/neutral feedback while seller/buyer deserve it.

Regards
Siddharth
Shivarth e-com

[amitadhiya]

But what when buyers / sellers do not rate even though they are satisfied with the transaction?

I was recently invited to one of the seminars held in my town to address the potential new members as a seller. The convenor of the programme while chatting revealed to me that an average 1 out of 3 successful transaction ends in an mutual exchange of feedback. Isn't this situation pathetic?

Another suggestion for the usage of board is that the replies to any responses here should string under that particular response AND replies to the original post should display stringing down right from top - THIS IS THE GENERAL PRACTICE FOLLOWED ON BULLETIN BOARDS WORLDWIDE. For this, we need to have a "Reply" button besides each message starting from the original post which is not there at present.

See what eBay can do about this. Still not a single response to my post from the team... Is anybody listening?

Amit Adhiya (and not Amita Dhiya) 😉

[srjsms]

hi Amit.. good suggestions....
4] Why can't we have a system in place that after a certain period of a successful transaction (say 30-45 days) if either party has not rated his trading partner, the system would automatically rate him positive. Many users are lazy enough to not comply even to frequent reminders. We lose opportunities to build a reputation base owing to these users. right said..am still stuck with 5 feedback inspite of having completed 10 trasnactions..some are just too lazy!

[snrama]

Dear Amit Adhiya,

All your suggestions are good.

[2] I feel the fonts used in the community board are way too big. We can do with a smaller size and possibly any other font like Times.

I like Arial Font than Times. But it will be good to have small fonts as the speed will increase.

[4] Why can't we have a system in place that after a certain period of a successful transaction (say 30-45 days) if either party has not rated his trading partner, the system would automatically rate him positive. Many users are lazy enough to not comply even to frequent reminders. We lose opportunities to build a reputation base owing to these users.

There is a good tool for sellers called Selling Manager in which the system will automatically leave positive feedback once we get the payments or once we get the positive feedback. ---------------
With Regards,
Navaneeth (snrama) 😉

[snrama]

Hi srjsms,

..am still stuck with 5 feedback inspite of having completed 10 trasnactions..some are just too lazy!

Some doesn't leave the feedbacks at all. I haven't recieved more than 100 positives.

This is not because of lazyness of buyers, This is because they are not educated on feedback system. ---------------
With Regards,
Navaneeth (snrama) 😉

[amitadhiya]

Also, the replies at the moment are displayed as "latest reply shown first".

Try and figure this: Most replies are to the last threads. Even I'm replying to the user snrama and srjsms but my posts will get displayed first and what they told me initially would list afterwards. So one should start reading from bottom to up to understand the whole communication correct???

Ideally, even if you don't want to provide a reply option to each post, the present layout should display "first reply shown first". By the Way, don't we have an option in the "My eBay" page to customise the view as per our choice??? You see what I mean...

Thanks friends for the input and thanks for the help on selling manager - I'll see if this helps.

Even I like Arial fonts as they are simple (without any curvatures) but you won't see them too often on web pages (especially bulletin boards). Tahoma and Trebuchant and Times New Roman are preferred over Arial.

And (eBay) guys, where is the option to select colour for our writings? Bullets / Tabs? Where's the subtle background that was so demanded on Baazee? And I really think you should have a string display for relevance of the posts. Even the preview is lousy.:_| It yucks.

Emoticons, url, spell-ceck are of course something you should be acknowledged for. Hope to hear positive action soon.

Regards
Amit Adhiya