Buyers on eBay are not leaving feedback for purchased items?

[wavesales]

Hi Everyone,

Earlier on I checked my sales and feedback and I cannot understand why buyers are not leaving feedback for my purchased items, I even have repeat buyers not leaving feedback as well, I have not had any buyers contacting me with any issues but still, buyers are not leaving feedback. What a strange phenomenon it is very bizarre indeed I've never seen this in 20 years. Even the products that I have sold for years are top quality items and still no feedback.

Is anyone else on here having the same or similar issues?

[papso22]

Fewer and fewer buyers, and sellers, leave feedback these days.  It's voluntary and you have plenty.

[pixiesen2012]

feedback is voluntary

no one has to leave feedback

ebay have recently changed the layout on the page so that the option to leave feedback isn't as prominent

[thesmokingrunner]

I used to leave feedback but with the recent changes to the site I am less and less inclined to do so and to be honest these days I am more likely to leave negative or neutral feedback - buyers don't necessarily want to know that everything was fine or whatever but they do want to know if a transaction was less than positive.

I have also started to only leave feedback after the seller has done likewise. Having diligently left feedback as a buyer or seller for years I've actually noticed an increase in sellers not leaving feedback too, or just leaving auto-feedback as soon as they receive any. It's not a case of who blinks first but after so many years I'm just fed up of leaving feedback and getting none in return so my policy now is that I'll only leave feedback after the seller's left some.

Add to the above the numerous reports of negs being removed because it either breaks some ridiculous rule or the seller complains and frankly there seems little point in leaving feedback these days

In some ways feedback is similar to chasing 'Likes' on The Book of Faces - it's a form of self-validation and you end up trying to increase the number rather than concentrating on providing a decent service to the buyer. If the buyer leaves feedback great but don't get hung up on it if they don't. And remember - it works both ways.

[237ben]

I find there are so many different attitudes to feedback which, together with the way it becomes manipulated, really mean the whole system is verging on meaningless. 

I agree with the last last paragraph in post 4. Too much concentration on feedback rather than service. In the 'real world' when an organisation receives a complaint, they start to think about what they could do better. On eBay, when a seller receives negative feedback, they blame the 'bad buyer' and try to get it removed.

[messier44000]

Sell my big ticket items through the website. 

Over there I leave, and get zero FB, as there is no option to do so.

Unless a buyer replies to the order confirmation email.

But I am selling the product not feed back

[kempseykate]

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@thesmokingrunner wrote:

I used to leave feedback but with the recent changes to the site I am less and less inclined to do so and to be honest these days I am more likely to leave negative or neutral feedback - buyers don't necessarily want to know that everything was fine or whatever but they do want to know if a transaction was less than positive.

The only trouble is that tends to make you look like a problematic buyer. If there are no/few positives to balance out the neutrals/negs it looks as if you have problems with every transaction.

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@thesmokingrunner wrote:

It's not a case of who blinks first but after so many years I'm just fed up of leaving feedback and getting none in return so my policy now is that I'll only leave feedback after the seller's left some.

I used to feel the same way about buyers - I would always leave feedback, but less and less buyers did, so now I leave feedback after the buyer has left some!

[thesmokingrunner]

Fair point @kempseykate  - I should perhaps have written "although I do leave feedback these days I am more likely to ..." - and I do take your point that it might make me look like a problematic buyer. I leave feedback when it is warranted and that includes positive feedback, but as buyer I am more likely to leave feedback if I receive some form of personal acknowledgement from a seller rather than just eBay's auto-generated messages. As a former seller I used to make a point of messaging a buyer with "Thanks for your purchase and payment. I have posted/will post the item (today/tomorrow), please let me know if there are any problems when you receive it". It was just a little personal touch which didn't take long but (to my mind) made the buyer feel they were more than just another purchaser. Personal contact just doesn't seem to happen much these days and I am less and less inclined to leave feedback for sellers who seem to regard me as just another buyer.

As for the current state of feedback, my own opinion is that eBay have messed about with it so much that it is seriously devalued as a tool by which sellers or buyers can evaluate each other. Sellers cannot leave neutral or negative feedback - although if a buyer is either a non-payer or attempts to scam a seller surely other sellers should be made aware? - and whilst buyers can leave any of three types of feedback negatives or neutrals are more likely to be removed, either automatically by eBay or by a seller requesting same, usually in order to preserve their feedback rating rather than addressing any issue which resulted in the non-positive comment in the first place. Funny, but you never hear of sellers asking for positive feedback to be removed...

Ok, so these days as a seller you only leave feedback after you've received some, and as a buyer I tend to only leave feedback after the seller has left some. Each to their own and all that, but if everybody waited until someone else left feedback first nobody would ever leave any. Doesn't that in itself devalue the whole point of having feedback?

[*knight-rider*]

i`m only guessing on this, but i think many buyers are so fed up of negatives being removed by Ebay, that alot of buyers have just stopped leaving it altogether. At one point, i was one of them and did`nt leave any for months, but i do now and the odd few negs i`ve had to leave have remained, which i honestly don`t leave lightly!

[candytan67]

It's been like that for years. I have always had 30%-40% of buyers not leaving me feedback.

No feedback is better than negative or neutral feedback.

[bennotbill]

I think a lot of this comes down to many simple tasks taking much longer to do, where before they took seconds. So anything extra/not really required the answer is probably lifes too short.

[kempseykate]

I think some of it may be down to 'review fatigue' as well! 

Just recently I seem to get messages for feedback for everything I do - not only stuff I buy or services I use but doctor and dentist as well. I'm waiting for M&S to get in touch to ask if we enjoyed the sandwiches we made with the bread and ham we bought from there this morning!

[candytan67]

Can't afford M&S anymore. Only use them for knickers, pants and socks at Christmas now.

We have converted to Lidl.   🙂

[plpmr]

When I see a post such as yours the first thing I do is look at the posters profile and usually I see a contradiction -

you have received 14,099 feedback but only left 13,728 feedback.

[candytan67]

That's quite a low percentage difference. Better than 30%-40%?   🤔

[kempseykate]

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@candytan67 wrote:

Can't afford M&S anymore. Only use them for knickers, pants and socks at Christmas now.

We have converted to Lidl.   🙂

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We use Aldi normally. This was a treat instead of lunch out!

[thesmokingrunner]

That got me wondering what my feedback left/feedback received figures are so I've just had a look and I must admit I was slightly surprised:

Received: 1045

Left: 1339

Kind of vindicates my current approach to the whole 'leaving feedback' issue, methinks...

[hill-walker]

In the past month, I've sold 20 items, left 20 FB, and received 6 FB... seems about par for the course 😞

[theelench]

As @pixiesen2012  said ebay has changed the layout, "Leave FB" is less prominent and it I think it's made a big difference.

For a Buyer it's now under the More Actions box in Purchase History, not at all obvious.

For a Seller it's under Orders, each of which has to be clicked on, then to be found by clicking a small grey envelope which is only part of the FB column.    The FB received icon is off the screen.

In common with many sellers I only leave FB for buyers if they leave any for me (have done so for years) and without the visible prompt that was plainly visible before, the first time I realise I should leave someone FB is when I notice my own FB score has increased by 1.  Then, rather than look at each individual sale, I look at my own FB to find out which recent sale left me FB.

I first noticed the rapid drop in buyers leaving FB when I was put on the Seller Hub.  I think the new layout is a major factor because I also sell on another site.  There, buyers leaving FB has always (for 9 years) been 50% or less but there hasn't been any sudden decrease, as there has on ebay.  On ebay buyers are now also leaving me FB at the same sort of rate.

I think there's also another so far unmentioned factor at play.  The majority of my buyers on the other site are new, both to the site and to me as a seller.  They have little or no intention of buying from me or using the site again.  Having no intention of becoming a regular visitor, they have little incentive to build any sort of reputation and none to "keep the site a safe place to buy".  Perhaps the same applies to ebay buyers these days.  As they are buying less here are they really interested in keeping ebay safe?

I do sympathise with new sellers who are not being left FB, I know from the other site that my sales there were very few and far between until my FB got into double figures, proving to buyers that I was a reliable seller.  I do leave FB when my purchase arrives and is OK, but as I'm also buying less on ebay these days, there isn't much to leave.

[bennotbill]

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@candytan67 wrote:

Can't afford M&S anymore.

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They're my favourite brand.

But only in charity shops.