@sylviebee wrote:
If eBay stopped allowing members to view FB left for others we’d
1). See a lot more NFB with honest assessments of the service.
2.) Sales for good sellers would increase for two reasons. First they'd stop banning buyers who leave NFB. It gives some sellers the allusion on control but it's not real. Second, honest FB would steer buyers towards better sellers (like you) because buyers would have the opportunity to see what’s really gong on behind the scenes.
In general, the practice of leaving FB is barbaric. eBay was the first to ritualize Public Shaming with the FB process. I don’t think anyone was prepared for the power of that kind of public shaming, but now that we know it’s high time to put a stop to that abusive practice.
Buyers who are inclined to leave negative feedback are going to do so regardless if their ID is visible or not. The percentage of buyers who don't leave negative feedback out of fear for their "public image" and possible seller blocks linked to that is going to be a small subset of buyers. The percentage of people who actually care or are bothered enough to leave feedback in general is low. It is the same with product reviews.
Having worked in ecommerce as a buyer there are plenty of times where I have come across a substandard product with known issues. The percentage of negative reviews left by customers was regularly a small number relative to the number of sales and returns, even in cases where a flaw was prevalent or serious enough for a product to eventually get pulled from sale. These would be classified as a highly considered purchase due to the nature of the product, so the customers have a level of time and emotional investment. Now granted that is an evaluation of a product versus a service, but it is still illustrative that even in cases where a customer Is inconvenienced, disappointed, and invested they don't necessarily leave feedback. To give another example, there are various popular external retailer review sites that focus solely on the service end. Looking up the lifetime history of reviews for a particular retailer I am familiar with, they have several thousand lifetime reviews. Said retailer does that main transactions in a span of 2-3 days on average. They maintain a 9.5/10 rating despite committing just about every retail sin possible and there being other good alternative sources to buy from.
Unless one is a hyper paranoid seller the only time a seller should even be looking at a buyer's feedback left for others is when there is a significant problem. At that point a seller is likely already going to be predisposed to blocking the buyer because of whatever issue they may be perceiving or experiencing. A "good" or experienced seller is not going to block a buyer who leaves reasonable
negative feedback so it won't effect their sales. There are times when you need to fire a customer and a good seller is going to know when that time is.
Negative ratings are a reality of ecommerce, they aren't going away. For a marketplace it is their liability coverage. From what you wrote it seems like your primary concern is that the sales of good actor sellers are being limited because not enough negative feedback is being left for bad actor sellers. If you eliminate negative feedback what is left to distinguish a good actor from a bad actor? For better or worse buyers are more motivated by price and availability than the qualitative assessment of a seller.
I sympathize with your point generally that good actors don't necessarily receive feedback that reflects the better level of service they provide and that it is difficult for that level of service to translate into buyers choosing the good actor over the bad actor. Buyers can't always get a good picture of what goes on behind the scenes to make one a good actor versus a bad actor, aside from repeated purchases from both types of sellers.
