Online Workshop - Understanding Feedback changes

[indraneel@ebay.com]

Topic: Workshop on Understanding Feedback changes
Host: Vidmay Naini
Date: Monday, 11 February 2008
Time: 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. IST
Location: "Feedback to eBay India Team" dicussion board

Description: The eBay Feedback system was originally designed to provide a simple, honest, and accurate record of the buyer's and seller's online experience and to ensure safe and satisfactory trade. Over a period of time, we found that the current Feedback system was not performing to the desired objectives. Hence, we felt the need to modify the way the Feedback system works in the current business context.

We'll be making a few significant changes to eBay's Feedback system to continue to improve accuracy and accountability. Within the next six months, these changes should help to differentiate and reward sellers who provide a positive buying experience on eBay.

Please read about these changes.

Also, please join Vidmay Naini for an online workshop on the Feedback changes on this thread on February 11 2008 at 5 PM IST.


Cheers,

Indraneel
eBay

[nvid@ebay.com]

Hello assemblerz,

Thanks for being here!

We understand that besides changes being made to the feedback system you also have concerns around the New PaisaPay and SM/SM Pro tool. I would request you to read detailed responses from our Country Manager around these concerns on his Open House thread.

I am glad to address your concerns on the feedback changes.
To your question of why sellers are not allowed to rate buyers, I would say that sellers are allowed to rate buyers but by only giving a positive feedback and at the seller’s option.

To give you some background, the original intent of eBay’s public feedback system was to provide an honest, accurate record of member experiences. Over a period of time, we found that the transparency of the existing Feedback system makes some members reluctant to hold others accountable. For example, buyers fear retaliatory Feedback from sellers if they leave a negative. To make the Feedback system relevant to the buyers and motivating them to express themselves more freely by way of Feedback, we are making the below change.

However we do understand that there are some valuable suggestions provided by you on how we can automate the UPI process and we would surely consider them for feasibility.

Please feel free to write in more if you have further concerns. Regards,
Vidmay

[nvid@ebay.com]

Hello kumar.m,

Thank you for posting on this thread.

Firstly, I’d like to extend my special regards to you on maintaining such an amazing record of providing good buyer experience.

From your posts we understand that you have some concerns around the New PaisaPay. I’m sure you must have read through the discussion on Rajan’s Open house and would agree that we have absorbed our community’s suggestions and feedback and are working towards it.

We always feel great about our community and the one thing that distinguishes us from the rest of the organizations is the active engagement of our members in our policies and strategies on our very own discussion boards. We assure you that we would never want our discussion forums such as community boards loose importance as we can relate to the community concerns/suggestions through them which help us in a long way. In fact I feel privileged to be here as a member of one of the discussion forums this evening.
Please rest assured that no suggestion on the boards goes unnoticed and there is no day in the life of eBay when the boards are not monitored. Regards,
Vidmay

[nvid@ebay.com]

Hello mysalesoffer,

Thank you for actively participating in this workshop.

We understand that you have a valid concern around our sellers’ safety and I’m happy to address to your concerns.

We would take various steps to ensure that only genuine and good buyers transact with our sellers. Besides the initiatives I’ve put across in my responses above I’d like to highlight some of the other checks and balances we are putting in place to ensure that buyers also provide our sellers a good experience.

 Buyers will be held accountable via non-public seller reporting (e.g. UPI; dispute console) and if a buyer shows a pattern of behavior (multiple seller reports – like UPI), even without clear evidence, eBay will suspend the buyer.
 If a buyer asks for more than what was promised in the item description (e.g. wants overnight delivery but only paid for standard delivery) the seller should report the buyer to eBay and appropriate actions would be taken against the buyer. Sellers should only file these complaints when the buyer asks for more than what is promised in the listing
 If there is clear evidence of extortion we will take action on the first offense itself.
 Repeated violation will be penalized
 If we suspend the buyer, any negative or neutral Feedback they left for others will be removed permanently irrespective if they get reinstated on a later date.

I hope the above steps will give you even more confidence that we would do all to ensure that our community (both buyers and sellers) can trust each other through the new Feedback system. :-) Regards,
Vidmay

[nvid@ebay.com]

Hello cochinmall,

Thanks for joining in and let me also congratulate you for the success of your Air Guitar listing which also became News 

It gives us great pleasure to know that many of our sellers have welcome most of our Feedback changes. I’d like to stress and elaborate on some of these changes, which were also a part of the announcement post, in the interest of other members of the seller fraternity and I’m sure all our sellers would welcome them.

Repeat Feedback Credit
Starting in February 2008, we’re going to give members credit for multiple Feedbacks from the same buyer or seller for listings that end in different calendar weeks (Monday to Sunday). We think this is a great change for our sellers (and buyers). If you are delivering great customer service – and it shows through repeat buyers – your Feedback score will reflect this.

Feedback Percentage based on Past 12 Months
Starting in February 2008, the Feedback percentage which calculates a member’s percentage of positive Feedback will be based on just the last 12 months (and not the member’s lifetime transactions, as it is today), although the total count remains lifetime.

We’re doing this because a member’s recent Feedback is the most relevant to their transaction partners. Over the years, many members have questioned why a single negative can affect their score for years. The Community has asked for this change, and we are happy to deliver. Going forward, any negative Feedback left for you more than 12 months ago will no longer affect your positive percentage.

To your question of how are we going to protect our sellers we have a number of initiatives to protect our sellers from the abuse of this change. I request you to please refer my post to jaipur_fashions.

I hope I’ve answered your concerns! Regards,
Vidmay

[indconcepts]

Hello Vidmay,

You have said that ....

We realize that feedback has been a two-way street, but our data shows a disturbing trend, which is that sellers leave retaliatory feedback eight times more frequently than buyers do and this figure is up dramatically from only a few years ago.

.... but am sure this is the trend outside India.

Here in India both Sellers and Buyers are in a learning mode.

With evary major change .... the sincere & genuine Sellers are affected the most.

It's good to hear that you are concerned about the protection of genuine Sellers ..... but when it comes to actually helping them out ..... things are different.

Till now I have received 2 Negatives. One from the Buyer who wanted to Blackmail and other one was suspended within 90 days of registration.

As per the rule Book both Negatives should have been withdrawn .... but who cares.

ebay is bent 90 degrees towards Buyers ..... just a 5 degree bend towards Sellers can do wonders to the site. .


best regards

Umang Midha

[jaipur_fashions]

Thanks Mr. Vidmay for getting back to me.

However, whatever you've mentioned only seems to be a COPY and PASTE thing, which any of us could do !

You have given us data for the sellers, I would like to ask you for the data of the Unpaid buyers who leave Negative feedbacks ?

[nvid@ebay.com]

Hi jaipur_fashions

Yes you are correct that I have prepared some of your answers well in advance.

To address your point on Unpaid buyers who leave Negative feedbacks?

From what I gather the primary concern for the seller is, buyers who don’t participate in the UPI process have no right to impact the reputation of the seller on site.

The data for India indicates that there are few cases where the buyer don’t participate in the UPI process and still leave a bad feedback for various reasons. Hence the next obvious question will be, what is eBay doing to protecting genuine seller’s reputation?

We’ve been de-scoring Feedback left by buyers who do not respond to the Unpaid Item process for a few years and now view it as unfair to sellers who willingly participate in the process to have their reputation include comments from members unwilling to participate in the Feedback process. We will remove the rating and the comment from buyers who do not respond to the UPI process

Having said that, I assure all sellers that we will be implementing various measures for eBay India sellers to ensure their interests are protected. Regards,
Vidmay

[nvid@ebay.com]

Hello indconcepts,

I’m glad to have you on this workshop. Thank you for going through my posts.

The trend that sellers leave retaliatory feedback more than the buyers is similar for India as well.


There are various tools that we provide to our sellers for resolving feedback issues which they feel are unjustified such as Mutual Feedback Withdrawal (MFW), Online Dispute Resolution (ODR India) & Reporting Unjust Feedback. I’m sure you that you would find the below link useful Security Resolution Centre.

In addition to this for the benefit of sellers, we have facilitated ODR Feedback Dispute Mediation for PaisaPay Transaction to be “Fee of Cost”.


Let me also point out that some important changes in the Feedback system, in the interest of protecting the Sellers Reputation. Earlier negative and neutral feedbacks of only permanently suspended buyers within 90 days were removed. However with this change all negative and neutral feedbacks of suspended will be removed.

Feedback removed due to suspension will be permanently removed and will not be reinstated upon reinstatement of the member account.

In addition to this beginning end of this month, Positive Feedback percentage will be based on the past 12 months of Feedback

As mentioned earlier also, we would surely do whatever it takes to protect our sellers from feedback abuse and cases of extortion from buyers Regards,
Vidmay

[nvid@ebay.com]

Thank you for taking time to attend this workshop and I will meet all of you more often to address your concerns and feedback for furture changes. Hope I've addressed to your concerns/questions. :-) Regards,
Vidmay