Some of you (kumar.m, jaipur_fashions, coolbrasco & emailswarup) have questions related to the global changes related to the feedback system.
Here's some context on the same. As you are aware, the original intent of eBay’s public feedback system was to provide an honest, accurate record of member experiences. However as the global eBay business has evolved, the original system was not working as per the designed intent in the current business context.
We realize that feedback has been a two-way street, but our data shows a disturbing trend, which is that, globally sellers leave retaliatory feedback eight times more frequently than buyers do and this figure is up dramatically in the last few years. This prevented buyers from leaving a genuine feedback in more cases than one. Even more disturbing data trend we have is Buyers who were subject to an unfair / retaliatory feedback stopped transacting on the site and not come back for more. I am sure you all agree that losing a good customer is one of the biggest loss in any business and the same applies to our sellers and us.
We all realise this is a huge change and that it’s important we put appropriate seller protections into place so that buyers don’t abuse the system.
Let me call out a few Seller Protections that will be put in place to help sellers avoid negative feedback. viz.
• We will remove, not just de-score, negative and neutral feedback when a buyer doesn’t respond to the Unpaid Item process. The implication for the seller community is that now non paying buyers who do not participate in the UPI process will no longer be able to leave sellers feedback and which has been a long standing community need.
• We will remove all negative and neutral Feedback comments left by a buyer or seller, when the buyer (or seller) is suspended. We’re going to do this retroactively too. So all negative and neutral Feedback left by suspended members historically will also be removed.
• To promote communication, buyers will be prevented from leaving a public negative or neutral Feedback within 3 days after a listing ends for sellers with an established track record;
• We are reducing the number of days a member can leave Feedback from 90 to 60 days;
• We are increasing a seller’s Block Bidder List capacity from 1,000 to 5,000 user IDs;
• We will increase our monitoring, and take action based on seller reports of buyers behaving very badly.
While I have commented on the safeguards that we have put in place to ensure sellers don’t get unjust negative feedback, let me take this opportunity to highlight some extremely positive and welcoming feedback changes for sellers viz.
• 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.
• Another change being introduced in February 2008 is 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. Going forward, any negative Feedback left for you more than 12 months ago will no longer affect your positive percentage.
I’d like to reiterate that we realise these are major changes, and we will be watching carefully for any unintended consequences.
Further to this we know that our members will have interesting questions around this change and hence we have scheduled an online workshop with our colleague from Trust & Safety to address them. Please join Vidmay's workshop on 11th Feb at 5pm for more details.
