eBay

aubreyclay56 · ‎10-23-2015

why are there so many buyers that dont leave fb, i hve had buyers with hundreds of feed bck from sellers but never give fb to the sellers strange indeed

mr.elmwood · ‎10-23-2015

eBay no longer considers feedback to be relevant.

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zee-chan · ‎10-23-2015

I think feedbacks are still somewhat relevant since neutrals / negatives would give you defects...

Positive feedbacks on the other hand, are not mandatory but "nice to have".

I also have repeat buyers who messaged me to thank me for the purchase and never leave feedbacks. Well I'm happy to have repeat buyers and I don't really care much about my feedback scores now that it's past the 200 mark, and that it's still 100%

38e_avenue · ‎10-23-2015

@zee-chan wrote:
I think feedbacks are still somewhat relevant since neutrals / negatives would give you defects...

Since Feb 20, 2016, not anymore.

femmefan1946 · ‎10-24-2015

2016? Have I been asleep?

38e_avenue · ‎10-24-2015

@femmefan1946 wrote:
2016? Have I been asleep?

Definitely. It's time to wake up: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/fallupdate2015/seller-standards.html

rose-dee · ‎10-24-2015

@femmefan1946 wrote:
2016? Have I been asleep?

Maybe so. As the poster above mentioned, the Fall Seller Update heralded in the new era of "concern about eBay's core of traditional sellers" by, among other things (starting February 20, 2016), doing away with defects for negative or neutral FB (after having allowed us to stress out over it for the past few years).

Yes, soon FB won't matter at all in terms of seller evaluation. The only thing that will matter is getting the item to the buyer on time and avoiding any unresolved cases (by refunding). Otherwise, open up the floodgates again, here come the shoddy sellers.

To get back to the OP's point, I don't think any of the responses here actually addressed the question of why buyers aren't bothering (in droves) to leave FB. We all know that FB has become more or less irrelevant (although I do believe that many buyers still look at a seller's FB score -- perhaps not all the comments -- and judge whether they'll be dealing with an experienced, reliable seller). However, that does nothing to suggest an explanation for why buyers don't bother to return the favour.

I think mobile buying may have a lot to do with it, along with the general Attention Deficit Disorder these days. Maybe people just get distracted by the next thing happening on their device, can't be bothered, completely forget, or have become so disengaged with eBay that they feel no connection whatsoever with the friendly seller who has just provided them with exactly what they were looking for at the right price.

Certainly eBay hasn't helped to foster that buyer-seller connection by virtually eliminating the need for any direct communication between the two. And perhaps eBay itself simply isn't as exciting to most people as it used to be -- after all, there are so many other online buying experiences to be had these days.

Maybe eBay has made leaving FB too complicated or lengthy for the modern distracted mind. Consider this: now a buyer is shown 4 areas of questions when leaving FB -- the radio button (for positive/neutral/negative), the written comment, the answer to the on-time delivery question, and still the 5 DSRs. Even Statistics Canada "dumbed down" their census (well, that's another matter which I don't agree with, but it does reflect today's tendency to truncate almost everything that's written to the point of irrelevancy).

What I find difficult to understand is when I spend a lot of time communicating with a buyer, trying to accommodate a particular request in whatever way I can, and then the buyer vanishes once they have their item. I can't help thinking there is a certain lack of old-fashioned courtesy involved in such instances too. This, despite the fact that eBay does remind buyers about FB a few days after a sale.

As for answers to the issue: I don't think there are any. Chasing FB is extremely unwise. In essence, most of us have become stuck at more or less whatever level we reached by about 2013, so our best hope is that eBay eventually eliminates their existing FB system entirely.

mr.elmwood · ‎10-24-2015

Rose said: "What I find difficult to understand is when I spend a lot of time communicating with a buyer, trying to accommodate a particular request in whatever way I can, and then the buyer vanishes once they have their item."

Well, how many of us go a store, grocery, hardware, gas bar, bank, post office, doctor's office, get what we want and leave? How many of us phone back to compliment the service? How many go online to the corporate site to leave glowing comments.

Yeah, it is the same.

This isn't your grandfather's eBay anymore. 155 million active buyers, 25 million active sellers, millions of guest buyers, 800 million listings? The one on one transaction has lost any and all meaning.

I still stand by my prediction that feedback will convert to a running total of all buying and selling. It will just be a count. Feedback for buyers stopped being relevant years ago. Sellers are now catching up.

It was several years back that they changed the way seller FD was counted and Pierre's jumped dramatically. So, the history for this sort of change is there.

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rose-dee · ‎10-24-2015

Yes, I've been saying for a long time that a simple transaction count, perhaps along with a completely separate (and voluntary) review system, would be a better arrangement for the "new" eBay.

The type of transaction I was referring to above is one where I have really bent over backwards, usually on a more valuable item, and usually with a lot of communication back and forth. The thing is, often such buyers will send me a note of thanks via eBay messages, but not leave feedback!

This says to me that not only is the concept of FB on eBay not working, but the whole arrangement of it on the site may be the problem these days.

For example, on another site on which I sell, the "review" section is right up front, easily and quickly accessible and visible to buyers. They don't have to go looking for it, 2 or 3 rungs down the virtual ladder.

And I have to add that I do follow up with management of a B&M store, either by phone, email or even in person by way of a chat with the manager, when I feel I've been given outstanding, exemplary service. Maybe I'm just old school from an era where courtesy was important, but it seems the right thing to do.

However, we eBay sellers are management insofar as our own stores are concerned, and the only follow-up we have that may be meaningful to the next buyer is the FB left by previous buyers. As a buyer, I always check sellers' FB, and I suspect a lot of other buyers do the same. So in my view it isn't completely useless, but the eBay FB system itself really needs to be re-designed or replaced with something simpler.

mr.elmwood · ‎10-24-2015

@rose-dee wrote:
Yes, I've been saying for a long time that a simple transaction count, perhaps along with a completely separate (and voluntary) review system, would be a better arrangement for the "new" eBay.

The type of transaction I was referring to above is one where I have really bent over backwards, usually on a more valuable item, and usually with a lot of communication back and forth. The thing is, often such buyers will send me a note of thanks via eBay messages, but not leave feedback!

This says to me that not only is the concept of FB on eBay not working, but the whole arrangement of it on the site may be the problem these days.

For example, on another site on which I sell, the "review" section is right up front, easily and quickly accessible and visible to buyers. They don't have to go looking for it, 2 or 3 rungs down the virtual ladder.

And I have to add that I do follow up with management of a B&M store, either by phone, email or even in person by way of a chat with the manager, when I feel I've been given outstanding, exemplary service. Maybe I'm just old school from an era where courtesy was important, but it seems the right thing to do.

However, we eBay sellers are management insofar as our own stores are concerned, and the only follow-up we have that may be meaningful to the next buyer is the FB left by previous buyers. As a buyer, I always check sellers' FB, and I suspect a lot of other buyers do the same. So in my view it isn't completely useless, but the eBay FB system itself really needs to be re-designed or replaced with something simpler.

As eBay grew, rapidly, feedback diminished, rapidly. I went from about 66% to now, maybe 25%. 25% of transactions have reporting? That takes it to non-relevant status. eBay has better metrics to gauge us by. With the high volume of guest buyers I am getting, feedback is not relevant to them either.

Change it to a simple count of sales. That is the only way I will get my next star.

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femmefan1946 · ‎10-24-2015

Since Feb 20, 2016, not anymore.

Ahh-- I thought I was caught in a time warp.

2016 is still in the future.

As of Feb 20, 2016, not anymore.

38e_avenue · ‎10-24-2015

@femmefan1946 wrote:
Since Feb 20, 2016, not anymore.

Ahh-- I thought I was caught in a time warp.
2016 is still in the future.

As of Feb 20, 2016, not anymore.

well .... all smart people understood, what I wanted to say 😉

femmefan - as you probably know (google it!), Canada has TWO (2) official languages - so NOT ALL people here master English perfectly.

J'ai dit ce que j'avais à dire...

mr.elmwood · ‎10-25-2015

@femmefan1946 wrote:
Since Feb 20, 2016, not anymore.

Ahh-- I thought I was caught in a time warp.
2016 is still in the future.

As of Feb 20, 2016, not anymore.

Well, there is a time theory called "the egg unbreaks". It is based of Boltzmann's theories from the 1890's. Basically, it can not be proven that time only runs in one direction. Theories exist that time can run in reverse. These cannot be disproven.

Thus, everything that is going to happen, has already happened. Feb 2016 has already happened, and is in the past. So, "since", is the correct phraseology.

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rose-dee · ‎10-25-2015

Most people who are bilingual will recognize that use of "since" (= depuis) by francophones speaking in English (to refer to future events) -- it's a very common slip. Alors, moi j'ai bien compris ce que vous avez dit.

In her defence, if I recall, I thought 'femmefan' said she was bilingual. Maybe she didn't realize she was responding to a francophone. She (and I) can sometimes be hard on English speakers who don't use their language properly. It's an old habit of linguists, hard to break. Heck, I do it it all the time to my husband, and it drives him crazy too.

At any rate, things are going to change radically (yet again!) around here after February 20th. It remains to be seen whether removing most defects will create a problem on the other side -- of allowing a lot of bad behaviour by sellers again. With the new system and very little meaningful feedback anymore, it will be harder for buyers to judge a seller by his/her reputation before making a purchase.

In response to 'Mr. Elmwood', I agree that a transaction counter would be a good thing (to show prospective buyers how experienced a seller is) rather than using FB for that purpose. However, I think some kind of completely voluntary but simple review system would still be useful.

Not, mind you, for the purpose of eBay's evaluation and punishment of sellers, but to give other buyers an overview of the kind of products and service they can expect. A simple 5-star rating, with an optional line for comments would be enough. Let the outright complaints and real problems go into a separate stream.

rose-dee · ‎10-25-2015

@mr.elmwood wrote:
@femmefan1946 wrote:
Since Feb 20, 2016, not anymore.

Ahh-- I thought I was caught in a time warp.
2016 is still in the future.

As of Feb 20, 2016, not anymore.
Well, there is a time theory called "the egg unbreaks". It is based of Boltzmann's theories from the 1890's. Basically, it can not be proven that time only runs in one direction. Theories exist that time can run in reverse. These cannot be disproven.

Thus, everything that is going to happen, has already happened. Feb 2016 has already happened, and is in the past. So, "since", is the correct phraseology.