New feedback system hits eBay
eBay unveiled its new feedback system, which is less forgiving for sellers but buyers seem to like it.Skip McGrath has a good rundown here:
Most buyers think it is great, but many eBay sellers are less than enthusiastic. The main concern lies in Detailed Seller Ratings, an anonymous rating based on each of four criteria: shipping and handling, communication, item as described and shipping time as described. The problem is the seller has no recourse on this. Any buyer can leave any rating they want and there is no dispute process for the seller as there is for feedback. This, of course, is one of the reasons buyers love it. They can be honest without the fear of negative feedback in return.Well, sometimes "honesty" is in the eye of the beholder.
I guess eBay's system is getting to be more like Amazon's -- with the increased danger of being zapped by some buyer who hasn't read the description, can't wait a week for Media Mail, or some other grievance.
posted by Steve Weber at 5/09/2007
7 Comments:
I can definetely see the "shipping and handling charge, communication, and item description" seller ratings. However "shipping time" is totally out of line. A seller should not be held responsible for slow shipping on the part of the shipping company. Soon Ebay will be at the level of Amazon where buyers who do not read item descriptions will be leaving negative feedback for no apparent reason.
I wonder whether they tested usability enough. Will buyers bother with gazillion ratings after the purchase? Probably only the ones that are aggrieved. Thus, I'd say seller ratings will take dive.
It's fair as long as everyone is subject to it.
Frankly, Ebay feedback scores are inflated compared to Amazon, not allowing the high-quality seller to extract the premiums he can extract for his good rating on other venues... there are TERRIBLE sellers with 98% ratings on Ebay. Not so on Amazon...
I'm on the fence about the shipping stuff. If I as a buyer buy something with outrageous shipping and handling charges, I have no business complaining about it. I can't possibly need something so badly that I'll pay high S&H fees for it.
Also the shipping time: hmmm, if that means from time I got the money to the time I put it in the postal system then I have no problem with it. However, if it's how long the Post Office takes then that's a bad idea for a rating (2 years ago my brother mailed me a media mail package in mid July and I received it at the end of November - no lie). Of course eBay could explain to the buyers what the ratings refer to but we know that people just don't read things carefully and even when they do, they can always ignore them.
There is no perfect feedback system so as a buyer, when in doubt about a sellers ratings, I contact the seller to get the real scoop. I also carefully read bad feedback to see why it was left and the type of language the buyer uses -nasty, honest, helpful, etc.
eBay's main reason for implementing the new feedback system is to push for lower, preferably free, shipping charges. It's not that they care that much what the buyer pays for shipping, it's just that they want a piece of it. They call it fee circumvention. They have been struggling for years trying to address this issue, and now that they've pretty much hit the wall on selling fees (maybe), they think they've found a partial solution. They've wrapped the rating for shipping costs up with some other things less close to their heart and placed it at the bottom of the list - further up and it would be too obvious. Good longtime but unappreciated and exploited sellers now are faced with anonymous and arbitrary ratings primarily designed to further this end. This all seems to be part of a new more arrogant attitude on the part of eBay towards its sellers - perhaps they're getting tips from PayPal - but they may live to regret it.
I agree with the other poster. I think it is eBay's way of controlling the shipping charges. Shipping is the only fee that they cannot cut into and they want it all (except of course their sister company, Paypal gets a cut if the buyer pays via this method). With the last listing fee increase, sellers on the ebay message boards were commenting that they would have to raise their shipping fees to cover the listing rate increase. Shame, between this, their fee increases, the constant low-ball sellers and the USPS, the online book business is taking a bit of a nosedive.
i sell on ebay and i charge acutal shipping charges. period. and sometimes i take a hit for it and have to pay out of my own pocket and still, my little star chips away as to shipping fees. i don't like this new system. at all.
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