Feedback - How It Started.

[pierrelebel]

By Pierre Omidyar - founder of eBay:

"In February of 1996, about six months after I created eBay, I started receiving a spate of complaints. Everyone was complaining about each other. I felt very much like I was a parent who had to adjudicate the brothers beating each other up. It was like, "He started it!" "No, he started it." I realized this was going to be a big problem if it kept going this way. So I wrote the community a letter and posted it on the site. I said, "I'm giving you a tool, a feedback forum. If you have an honestly bad experience with someone, post it publicly. And if you can take the time to give positive praise when someone does something good, please do that."

"It was a real experiment, and I didn't know what to expect. But in the days and weeks that followed, I was enormously gratified to see that the vast majority of the comments coming in highlighted the good things people were doing that went above and beyond the transaction itself."

For the whole story: http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y14/m01/i22/s02

[i*m-still-here]

It's also really interesting to have watched the evolution of eBay's increasing involvement in transactions.

At first they practiced what was very much a hands off approach.  The atmosphere was clearly one of Buyer Beware.

The caveat emptor days are long gone and have evolved into eBay having their fingers into every transaction.

I would never have predicted it would come to this.  

The way they have come to police every transaction is really fascinating and it all started with FB.

[cumos55]

The good sellers and buyers "police" themselves  and do things in an ethical manner.

These are the sellers and buyers that have no trouble working within eBay's rules that have developed over the years.

Then there are those sellers... and buyers...  who do as they choose..  

They run into a brick wall..... Scream  at the top of their respective lungs......  and blame it all on eBay...

If eBay had not established rules..... there would be no eBay today......  the litigation  would have drowned eBay.....

eBay has its rules....  As sellers we find a way to work within those   rules/guidelines.

eBay is not a small little site... It is BIG, BIG, BIG... and must be policed

Feedback is only a part of the picture.....  Much has happened since that first Feedback was left..... 

Good... Bad.... or Indifferent