Another site I list on implemented this a couple years ago. They give the buyer 45 days to leave feedback. If the customer doesn't leave feedback a positive autofeedback is applied with a generic result that says something like automatic feedback provided.
When it came out the buyers bemoaned it, yet it still persists.
It does dilute the manually provided feedback.
From my perspective it doesn't stop me from doing what I want here, which is to see what the seller does if they get neutral or negative feedback - the way the seller responds usually quite easily separates those providing customer service from those that don't.
The other site doesn't let you look at categories (ie negatives only) like you can here, nor can sellers respond to feedback like we can here, so negatives etc goes off the radar fairly quickly. If they implement the same here, the way I use feedback will be defeated unless the seller is still able to respond to feedback and has recently had negatives or neutrals.
As a note, even with 45 days, I have had occasion where the item had not yet arrived when the automagic feedback was left. This is especially true for folks in South America, and that is a valid complaint from buyers, the time before automagics are left should be sufficient to ensure enough time elapsed so the buyer has the first opportunity to leave feedback.
Buyers have at least 60 days to leave feedback, if Auto-feedback has already been left and it's not to the buyers liking they can leave their own and eBay will replace the auto with the buyers feedback.
There is a long thread on the US boards about this.
It's about an even split between sellers who think this is great and sellers who think it will mean the end of eBay or at least make Seller feedback even more pointless than ever.
Seller feedback is already pointless, unless you sell in a category where there is a high rate of counterfeit items and you can point buyers to your feedback to show messages and images of previous sales. For most categories, feedback doesn't tell you much about a seller unless that seller is in something like the bottom 0.01 percent of bad sellers and their profile is littered with comments about bad experiences.
I shouldn't say that it is pointless, but it doesn't seem to exist for the reason most people think it does. Most people think that it exists to challenge sellers, but I think it is the opposite. It exists as a marketing tool to make customers feel comfortable with sellers, and eBay makes it so that even the most unremarkable sellers look good on their feedback page.
Look at it this way, they introduced the "5 star" rating system.A really bad seller who delivers bad experiences on a regular basis might have 4.6-4.8. Even the most terrible and negligent sellers will have 4.5+ stars. By negligent seller, think of the worst experience you've had as a buyer, and imagine a seller doing that multiple times. That kind of seller will have 95+ percent positive feedback and 4.5 stars.
If you have never heard of eBay before and you see that a seller is a 95 percent/4.5 star seller, your reaction is that you have nothing to worry about. Automatic feedback is a continuation of this marketing.
(Of course, there are exceptions to the rule where a great seller who sells a low volume of items deals with an unreasonable buyer and ends up with a low feedback ratio despite being an attentive seller. That isn't the type of seller I am using as an example. The point is that a seller with a reasonable sample of bad transactions looks great on paper because of the feedback system. Automatic feedback is a continuation of this.)
Feedback is marketing. That is all. eBay doesn't evaluate accounts based on feedback. With their current feedback system, if the purpose that I perceive it having is correct, this is the right move.
They could switch to a more objective feedback system that simply displays metrics for both buyers and sellers. Such as showing the amount of returns a buyer opens or that a seller attracts, the amount of INRs, the amount of successful transactions without problems. I think that would be a huge mistake because I don't think your average buyer or seller is able to contextualize that information, and some sellers are already paranoid because of the power of the buyer protection policy. Being vigilant about returns has it's place. For example, I might think twice about listing something that costs a lot of money to ship because of the cost of a return. But there are sellers who look at every buyer profile for a $20 item, and then if the buyer is new "the account is new, they must be a scammer", or if the buyer is an eBay veteran "they have high feedback, they must know all the loopholes to scam me!". I think that sort of mentality is prevalent enough that a more objective and transparent feedback system would cause more issues than it would solve.
Lastly, I think eBay might have a mandate to attract new buyers and sellers to the platform. While it's a small thing, buyers and sellers are more likely to stick around and identify as a user of the website if they build up feedback, even if it is automated. How many threads are posted here throughout the years from newer sellers, frustrated that their feedback rating isn't going up despite completing a transaction without an issue?
ricarmic
·1 year agoAnother site I list on implemented this a couple years ago. They give the buyer 45 days to leave feedback. If the customer doesn't leave feedback a positive autofeedback is applied with a generic result that says something like automatic feedback provided.
When it came out the buyers bemoaned it, yet it still persists.
It does dilute the manually provided feedback.
From my perspective it doesn't stop me from doing what I want here, which is to see what the seller does if they get neutral or negative feedback - the way the seller responds usually quite easily separates those providing customer service from those that don't.
The other site doesn't let you look at categories (ie negatives only) like you can here, nor can sellers respond to feedback like we can here, so negatives etc goes off the radar fairly quickly. If they implement the same here, the way I use feedback will be defeated unless the seller is still able to respond to feedback and has recently had negatives or neutrals.
As a note, even with 45 days, I have had occasion where the item had not yet arrived when the automagic feedback was left. This is especially true for folks in South America, and that is a valid complaint from buyers, the time before automagics are left should be sufficient to ensure enough time elapsed so the buyer has the first opportunity to leave feedback.
recped
·1 year agoBuyers have at least 60 days to leave feedback, if Auto-feedback has already been left and it's not to the buyers liking they can leave their own and eBay will replace the auto with the buyers feedback.
recped
·1 year agoThere is a long thread on the US boards about this.
It's about an even split between sellers who think this is great and sellers who think it will mean the end of eBay or at least make Seller feedback even more pointless than ever.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Automated-Feedback-by-Ebay/td-p/35220126/jump-to/first-unread-message
ilikehockeyjerseys
·1 year agoSeller feedback is already pointless, unless you sell in a category where there is a high rate of counterfeit items and you can point buyers to your feedback to show messages and images of previous sales. For most categories, feedback doesn't tell you much about a seller unless that seller is in something like the bottom 0.01 percent of bad sellers and their profile is littered with comments about bad experiences.
I shouldn't say that it is pointless, but it doesn't seem to exist for the reason most people think it does. Most people think that it exists to challenge sellers, but I think it is the opposite. It exists as a marketing tool to make customers feel comfortable with sellers, and eBay makes it so that even the most unremarkable sellers look good on their feedback page.
Look at it this way, they introduced the "5 star" rating system.A really bad seller who delivers bad experiences on a regular basis might have 4.6-4.8. Even the most terrible and negligent sellers will have 4.5+ stars. By negligent seller, think of the worst experience you've had as a buyer, and imagine a seller doing that multiple times. That kind of seller will have 95+ percent positive feedback and 4.5 stars.
If you have never heard of eBay before and you see that a seller is a 95 percent/4.5 star seller, your reaction is that you have nothing to worry about. Automatic feedback is a continuation of this marketing.
(Of course, there are exceptions to the rule where a great seller who sells a low volume of items deals with an unreasonable buyer and ends up with a low feedback ratio despite being an attentive seller. That isn't the type of seller I am using as an example. The point is that a seller with a reasonable sample of bad transactions looks great on paper because of the feedback system. Automatic feedback is a continuation of this.)
Feedback is marketing. That is all. eBay doesn't evaluate accounts based on feedback. With their current feedback system, if the purpose that I perceive it having is correct, this is the right move.
They could switch to a more objective feedback system that simply displays metrics for both buyers and sellers. Such as showing the amount of returns a buyer opens or that a seller attracts, the amount of INRs, the amount of successful transactions without problems. I think that would be a huge mistake because I don't think your average buyer or seller is able to contextualize that information, and some sellers are already paranoid because of the power of the buyer protection policy. Being vigilant about returns has it's place. For example, I might think twice about listing something that costs a lot of money to ship because of the cost of a return. But there are sellers who look at every buyer profile for a $20 item, and then if the buyer is new "the account is new, they must be a scammer", or if the buyer is an eBay veteran "they have high feedback, they must know all the loopholes to scam me!". I think that sort of mentality is prevalent enough that a more objective and transparent feedback system would cause more issues than it would solve.
Lastly, I think eBay might have a mandate to attract new buyers and sellers to the platform. While it's a small thing, buyers and sellers are more likely to stick around and identify as a user of the website if they build up feedback, even if it is automated. How many threads are posted here throughout the years from newer sellers, frustrated that their feedback rating isn't going up despite completing a transaction without an issue?