Changes to Feedback in the Selling Experience

[uk-news@ebay]

Introducing two new changes to feedback 

Over the past few months, we’ve been working to improve the feedback experience. We are making these changes in order to give potential buyers better insight into your products. 

We’ve started to introduce images on feedback for listings with more than one unit

Starting this month, some sellers will be able to preview feedback images on their own sold items for listings with multiple quantities. At this time, other eBay buyers and sellers will not be able to view images in your feedback. Once this rollout is complete, we will update you as we expand image feedback visibility to other eBay members.

To date, we’ve received just shy of a million feedback images from buyers on multi-quantity listings - and the vast majority showcase the great products and positive experiences buyers have had with sellers.

We appreciate that there may be some concerns that not all of the images posted will be positive. But rest assured, we take the protection of your reputation very seriously and have built moderation systems that review photos for inappropriate material. 

You’ll be able to report any inappropriate feedback images in the same way that you’d typically report inappropriate text feedback. We’ll review the reported feedback and take action to remove it if it violates policy.

For more information, visit our images, video and text policy.

We’ve updated the default sort to highlight the most relevant feedback

A large share of feedback is made up of generic feedback like “A+++ eBayer” or one word answers like “good”. However, in an age where buyers are increasingly looking at reviews before making a purchase, this isn’t always helpful. 

By updating the default sort on listings to highlight the most relevant feedback and deprioritise more generic feedback, this will enable buyers to receive a better understanding of what’s great about your products.

Please note that this is simply the default sort. Buyers will still be able to see feedback for all previous transactions, and on your feedback profile page, buyers can easily sort feedback by timeframe should they want to.

[douglaspuglas]

All I want to see is the newest or negatives.

Most relevant to eBay bots is irrelevant to me.

[kempseykate]

I guess this explains why feedbck went belly up recently? And I assume we can look forward to more of the same as they roll out the picture thing - which I have to say, I really don't get.

But hey-ho, feedback was working fine, so we shouldn't be surprised that it was on the agenda for 'improving'.

[best-range]

We've been promised there never will be any new rollout or changes to the site in the pre- Christmas period, that is now, so why this is going ahead ?

This site is at a breaking point from the endless & totally unnecessary tinkering & frequent changes affecting sales negatively.

Please stop & do those kind of "enhancements" after New Year if you must.

Those are not the changes that are desperately needed & I doubt the'll improve the ever diminishing sales due to broken search, luck of visibility & endless tech glitches that appear daily.

It wont stop disillusioned businesses leaving eBay.

[plpmr]

So we have changes regarding feedback -

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Business-Seller-Board/Changes-to-Feedback-in-the-Selling-Experience/...

“We’ve updated the default sort to highlight the most relevant feedback”.

Certainly not relevant for a buyer.

“By updating the default sort on multi-quantity listings to highlight the most relevant feedback and deprioritise more generic feedback, this will enable buyers to receive a better understanding of what’s great about your products.”

I would have thought that what buyer's want and need is a clear indication as to the reliability of the seller.

What good is being told how great their products are if they are not really a good seller?

Yet another unnecessary change when there's so much that needs attention.

[goingfishinguk]

As mentioned when the pictures on feedback were intoroduced it was said many times how open to abuse this is going to be.

'I bought 6 items from the seller but only sent 5.' - shows picture of 5 items (the 6th is out of shot.)

It's going to be a scammers dream and again only serves to be biased towards the buyer.

'You’ll be able to report any inappropriate feedback images in the same way that you’d typically report inappropriate text feedback. We’ll review the reported feedback and take action to remove it if it violates policy.'

Fills me with absolute dread as the current feedback removal system is looked at by 'bots' and is totally inadequate.  So will the photo version be the same?

[best-range]

---

uk-news@ebay wrote:

We’ve started to introduce images on feedback for listings with more than one unit

Starting this month, some sellers will be able to preview feedback images on their own sold items for listings with multiple quantities. At this time, other eBay buyers and sellers will not be able to view images in your feedback. Once this rollout is complete, we will update you as we expand image feedback visibility to other eBay members.

Please exclude my account from life testing your new feature, I've a guinea pig for most of the summer & it killed my sales since, It's almost Christmas, I need a break!.

Also out of curiosity, is there none at the eBay towers concerned about the extra server's space you'd need to invest in to accommodate all those photo files from millions of users worldwide using your new feature ???

Buying or renting extra server space is most expensive, that's why apparently ebay will switch some servers off to save money, which I was told, explains the blackouts days of no sales.

Not sure if this is the case, but somehow it makes sense even if this is an infrequent practise.

I know other global companies do that for the exact same reason to save server space & money.

What will be the consequences of that for sellers ? higher ebay fees ? higher promotions price ? etc.

[bennotbill]

When buying something only recent feedback interests me.

A couple of negs from several months ago about "late" deliveries due to floods, bank holidays, and eBay's laughably bad EDD I really don't care.

Improve buyer experience? Stop "technical" problems which turn into "tests" which end up "working as designed".

Just put the fiddle away and concentrate on putting out the fire.

It's no wonder more buyers and sellers are deciding that eBay isn't their "best match".

[messier44000]

I,m in complete shock.

Not at the updates that will no doubt go belly up and break eBay, just before Christmas.

but as to why 2 people marked the announcement as helpful

[ojewellery]

Its good to know this is why feedback has been doing odd things. 

Several other platforms I'm on offer photo reviews and generally its been a positive experience.  On Etsy it works well, it shows the products sold are well represented (for good sellers).  Its a way over time of increasing your photo library with more candid shots.  I like it as a buyer too, less professional images can give a broader representation of the item.  Great for jewellery sellers like myself having shots of happy customers modeling items.   

The flip side is the odd unhappy customer who muddies the waters without any contact.  I appreciate the time delay in leaving a negative, its calm down and rationalise time.  

I can't see the platform or future customer advantage in having photos with a negative review.  Lots of negatives against a product/ seller should be sufficient for the system to highlight them and eBay to handle with existing systems.  Overly highlighting negativity, particularly with current societal pressures some people are lashing out more, doesn't enhance buying experience. 

These are product review photos, against a current ebay review system which for 90% of my reviews reffers to customer service. 

For products with unique identifiers will a negative review sit against the product and the seller?  A bad customer service experience from one seller shouldn't negatively imact future sales of that product when listed by other sellers.

[kempseykate]

I thought feedback was supposed to be based on how the transaction went, not a product review?

So if feedback for sellers is based on a product review, what do we rate buyers on, how well they formatted their address?

I really don't see that pictures have a place in feedback.

---

@ojewellery wrote:

 ...  Great for jewellery sellers like myself having shots of happy customers modeling items.   

 I can just about live with something like that - but if I bought size 10 knickers and posted a picture of me wearing them to complain they were too small (of course they would be, I'm not a size 10) no one would want to see that  - not the poor seller, not their buyers, not the casual user and probably not even any AI bot used to screen the pictures!

[theelench]

"Changes to Feedback"  --  So good they pinned it twice.

[insidethe93]

The priority for a buyer is how reliable a seller is. Buyers can buy elsewhere. Even if the product is unique in not being sold elsewhere, the buyer still wants a reliable seller above all.

Few buyers have the time or inclination for composing/taking/uploading photos. If the photos aren't good quality, how fair is that?

Keep it simple, please. Already there are too many sections to complete. If you've a number of feedbacks to leave, it's time-consuming ticking rows and rows of stars. No wonder increasingly fewer buyers are leaving feedback, but the answer isn't to complicate (and thus lengthen) the feedback process but to make it more straightforward. Some may be immersed in the eBay world, but for most of us eBay isn't the whole world but a tool merely, and we don't want to spend longer in eBay world than we have to.

[plpmr]

Indeed eBay say regarding the new feedback - “this will enable buyers to receive a better understanding of what’s great about your products.”

So feedback is now a product review?

[tommystrezures]

“this will enable buyers to receive a better understanding of what’s great about your products.”

Whats great about our products are that they are all one off's - so how does that help? We auction and never the same item twice. I want to see my most recent feedback at the top not something from 6 months ago or a year ago. 

If there is an issue with a buyer/item then sometimes its only ever mentioned in feedback, then it needs to appear first so we can address issues if they exist. We unlike ebay don't like to bury things under the carpet. So please stop this stupidity, there are so many other things that need sorting out on this platform. Not my feedback! 

Next you will be telling us AI are going to be writing feedback for sellers.......

[ducatimondo]

More bonkers twiddling for the sake of it with developer trying to show off their skills as a resume to springboard to someone else's golden towers.

I'd prefer it a lot, if you were to tinker with the feedback, then make it work full stop.

At the moment there has been a technical issue for weeks.

Why hasn't that been fixed?

How about reading the pages and pages of threads about technical issues.

How about fixing the estimated delivery dates that you claim are working as expected, but don't work as they should.

How about stopping hiding all of our listings when you show the most relevant "more expensive" or "higher paid sponsored" results and hiding the rest.

If your goal as a company is to make money for yourselves and your shareholders, pretty sure you are obligated to have that as your MO as a share capital company, but if that is your goal, that comes from sales.

Sales for us = sales for you.
I am sick of customer services saying if me, the seller doesn't sell anything, then eBay don't get anything. Other than the shop fees, listing fees and promoted plus fees and all of the fees from other sellers with their duplicated listings that sell for more money than ours, hmmm I smell a rat here. How come mine can't be found in the sea of duplicates that are at higher prices, yet eBay won't do anything about them? Answers on a postcard please.

Yet you look at the boards here, the calls from customers, the live chats you get and eBay still refuse to listen to any of the sellers with their reports of technical problems, cartel activity from the amount of duplicate listing sellers that go undeterred, artificiality promoted non business sellers or Chinese junk that rises to the top, blame the sellers when errors on the platform lead to buyer dismay, et al.

Seems to be that eBay is more interested in putting lipstick on a pig than actually fixing the site.

[theelench]

Same here virtually all my sales are one-off pieces of vintage glass.

Not that this tinkering will greatly affect me as most of my buyers no longer leave FB anyway. 

As far as I'm concerned the most necessary improvement that could be made is to make it clearly visible on the Seller Hub without having to scroll sideways.  I've probably not left FB for some of my buyers who did leave any for me as the little green cross is off the edge of the screen.

As a buyer of the same sort of items I read FB hoping to see lots of praise about the sellers' high quality  packaging and if something has gone wrong with the transaction that the seller was helpful in trying to sort it out  --  recently.

[typo_lee]

EBay really is screwed and trying to screw over the seller even more

[darth_baggins]

Yet another pointless change that nobody asked for. And obviously this explains why eBay messed up feedback last week, they were fiddling with this and broke it, as usual.

[rainbowtrax]

uk-news@ebay I think we need a bit of clarity on this. I'm reading this announcement as meaning that the change to the sort order is just on the bottom seller info section on listing pages, not on a seller's feedback profile page. Is that correct or not?

It says, "By updating the default sort on listings to highlight the most relevant feedback and deprioritise more generic feedback, this will enable buyers to receive a better understanding of what’s great about your products.

Please note that this is simply the default sort. Buyers will still be able to see feedback for all previous transactions, and on your feedback profile page, buyers can easily sort feedback by timeframe should they want to."

Or do you actually mean that you are messing with the order on the feedback profile page as well and have just worded it badly? I'm suspicious as this is clearly what was being tested the other day, albeit unannounced as usual then pretended to be a tech glitch, when everyone's feedback profile page suddenly went into a jumbled  mess of random order feedback.