eBay changing feedback system?

Sellers are reporting a survey that discusses a major overhaul to the eBay feedback system.

The biggest change (illustrated above) is feedback granularity.  Instead of the blunt "pos/neut/neg", now the buyer can rate the seller on:

• accuracy of description
• shipping time
• shipping and handling charges
• communication

A five star system is used for each of these "sub ratings".

What does everyone think?  Seems like it would be good for prospective buyers to see this level of detail, but will buyers take the time to essentially leave five feedback ratings?  Will this drive down the percentage of transactions that result in feedback?

Also there's the crazy buyers that want to neg you, they'll give you all zeros on all five categories, which could really hurt your averages.

Comments

[A PowerSeller]

Ok... This is the point...

eBay had the ranking of 3 or 4 on Alexa sometimes! With this economy, eBay ranking was dropped all the way to 23 !!!! Yes 23...

After the rebate checks from IRS and because of taxreturn season, it got boosted up to 15.

The current ranking is 18. And a very good news for Amazon.com and Pricegrabber.com. ebay is loosing its seller by loosing their trusts. We allready have scams and frauds on ebay and paypal! and Now with this SMART!!!! ( Trust based ) policy, they try to gain the market back and tend people to spend money!

Not knowing that a website like ebay is nothing without their sellers.

Seems whoever was in charge of this policy change , had some stock in Amazon or pricegrabber !:)

A Power Seller

[Alex]

Steve - right on. Now there are feedback farms (yes, thousands of 1 cent ebooks just for feedback), which totally dilutes the hard work of gaining feedback through actual transactions. How about next to each feedback item on a person's feedback page there's a simple $, or $$, or $$$ - just like the restaurant guides. So if a guy has a slew of $'s, and not $$$$, then no, you won't be buying that plasma TV from him. Or, just put the actual cost of the item next to each feedback comment.

Chris - sorry, but there are nasty buyers in the world as well, take this from an eBayer since '99. Receive item, say "Hey, it (doesn't work / doesn't work completely / wasn't as described), so give me (1/2 off, 1/4 off, my money back!). This for something that you know was fine. So, guess who's wielding the retaliatory feedback sledgehammer then?

Remember the good old days when you could just go around slapping up feedback without it being linked to a transaction? Ah... check this out:

http://tinyurl.com/ycpq2m

Yeah, I know this post is old and stale... but... hey.

[Chris]

All buyers should get an automatic feedback as soon as you pay for the item,make ebay give the feedback.Now you have eliminated the retaliatory feedback threat. Why should a buyer make the first step in giving a feedback to a seller.Once you have paid ,you have done your part of the contract.Sellers who wants buyers you to feedback first are protected by this fear of retaliation ,buyers won't give a negative for a bad transaction for whatever reason if the sellers retaliate. So you don't give a feedback and the bad seller gets away with one more victim.

[Red]

Oh god....here comes the crazies....why mess with a good thing!

[Bonnie]

eBay changing something again??? Oh god - here we go - you KNOW this can't be good

[Peter]

The system of granularity in itself is a good idea, but Ebay's execution of that idea is absurd.

How can most sellers control: shipping time and shipping charges? For both we are 99% dependent on third parties, the carriers, which control most of the market and offer mediocre services and charge high fees.

Example: USPS promises 2-3 business days estimated delivery for priority, but rarely meets that goal and more frequent than not takes weeks to deliver. Same with UPS and Fedex who are highly unreliable and charge sellers whatever the whim of their day is.

[RadioComputerSupply]

This will be interesting to see if the buyer can base his shipping grade answer on time shipped after payment. I strive to get my items shipped within 24 hrs of payment but the shipping companies take their time sometimes. I have had media mail delivered in 3 days across country and also in 20 days to same area. I have had items hung up in Canada for 20+ days because they can not contact customer (for what ever reason) yet customer does not understand and blaims seller for late shippment.

I would hope that this would be graded on "time to ship" not "shipment time" and wording should be changed to reflect that.

[A friend]

You may note that the feedback profile on eBay Express shows the item title related to the feedback comment. This makes it easy for buyers to see if another buyer has purchased something similar to the item they are looking at (ie, a plasma tv).

[Steve]

sounds nice to me. I would also like eBay to do something else:

Ebay feedback system is one of the most important features of the trading system. However, imagine someone sells many items priced below 3-5$. The feedback score looks good. Later, a seller puts a very expensive item for auction (e.g. plasma TV) without intention to deliver. This is very plausible scenario. To empower buyers to make more informed decisions, Ebay should display average amount per completed transaction next to feedback score - if a buyer wants to buy a very expensive item, he will give preference to a seller with higher average sales as compared to a seller with lower average sales - higher average sales mean seller is more trustworthy when selling expensive items.