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.

[padanpcparts]

Awesome. So when they told us last week on the CS line that there was an issue with feedback and had been reported to the maintenance team, it was the usual gobblydegook palm off we always get. No notice of changes coming, no requests for opinion, just SLAP! 

I checked a friends seller account. Guy has 4000 positive feedback and a single negative 6 months back. Guess which feedback was highlighted as the top entry? Yup, you got it folks! 

The generic positive feedback is usually left by people who are either buying a lot on the platform or are businesses who are repeat customers who order more than a single item. Your telling me that 'Mr Jobsworth', who has all day to fill out long feedback replies is going to be the custmer you want to highlight? And not the regular business customers who blanket feedback 'Good', to everyone that is...well...Good. 

Mental! 

[theelench]

If your guy with 1 negative FB in 4000 positives isn't an anomaly thrown-up by a(nother) not properly tested innovation, it doesn't sit well with the announcements "...will enable buyers to get a better understanding of what's great about your product", does it.

If it turns out that complaints about this sort of thing, if they start occurring regularly are going to be met with yet more answers like "It's working as planned / It's working as it should be", I'll see it for what it is  --  another way to sabotage the attempts of low volume sellers to sell on ebay.

Presumably whatever way FB is viewed by potential buyers, a solitary negative will, with time, become less 'relevant'.  But the lower a sellers number of sales, the longer that one neg. will stay at or near the top of their list? 

Perhaps some more clarification is needed?

[anita@ebay]

Hello all,

Thank you for engaging here and sharing your feedback. In relation to the sort, the aim here really is to highlight the most relevant feedback, rather than more generic feedback, however I have passed on your comments to the relevant teams.

@rainbowtrax, default sort has been updated on both (listing and feedback profile), and on the feedback profile page users can change the sort from relevant to recent if they choose.

Thanks,

Anita

[plpmr]

"Your telling me that 'Mr Jobsworth', who has all day to fill out long feedback replies is going to be the custmer you want to highlight?"

Perhaps that's why eBay extended feedback from 80 to 500?

[best-range]

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@padanpcparts wrote:

Awesome. So when they told us last week on the CS line that there was an issue with feedback and had been reported to the maintenance team, it was the usual gobblydegook palm off we always get. No notice of changes coming, no requests for opinion, just SLAP! 

I checked a friends seller account. Guy has 4000 positive feedback and a single negative 6 months back. Guess which feedback was highlighted as the top entry? Yup, you got it folks! 

The generic positive feedback is usually left by people who are either buying a lot on the platform or are businesses who are repeat customers who order more than a single item. Your telling me that 'Mr Jobsworth', who has all day to fill out long feedback replies is going to be the customer you want to highlight? And not the regular business customers who blanket feedback 'Good', to everyone that is...well...Good. 

Mental! 

---

If this is the result of this latest "improvement" then accounts with most negative feedback will stop selling, if the negatives will float to the top, majority of buyers wont buy from such accounts.

The accounts with most negatives that I noticed are firstly Chinese sellers posting from China but pretending to be in the UK & secondly sellers dropshipping from Amazon using the Prime service after doubling/or tripling the price on eBay.

I though ebay liked those type of sellers as they never act when those accounts are reported, so they no longer want them neither???

So who does ebay wants on their platform ? only guys selling snickers for £300 a pair ? or £500 Gucci bags???? - items none in their sane mind would ever risk to buy on ebay... except people who'd use them for a couple of weeks & then return as "broken" for a full refund under the Buyer Guarantee... as a result after a few of those "forced refunds" all those sellers will leave too...

Will there be anyone left to sell on this platform  ???

[bennotbill]

Perhaps an option will eventually appear for the seller to "promote" the right sort of feedback.

And I expect the feedback pictures will end up linking to similar sponsored listings.

This is eBay so every change has to be about money.

[ojewellery]

@bennotbill Etsy have just introduced something similar to that.  Its one of those feel nice things,  on your seller dash you get a big banner of hey you're doing great here are your latest 5 star reviews (slightly different review process), each has a link to share to social media.

It works as a fluffy feel great when you log into your seller dash, and the push to social works well for some.

[the-nutwood-collection]

Etsy also reduces the FVF if you share a link on social media that leads to a sale.

[ojewellery]

@the-nutwood-collection   have you stumbled across this...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/selling/ebay-partner-network?id=4662

Ebay got in way earlier than Etsy on that one and its a broader programme.

[the-nutwood-collection]

No, I hadn't noticed that.  All I seem get offered is 50% of pay-per-click.

[stephen689]

Is the fact that you can now see histroic negative feedback on the app an intentional change? Other sellers and I have noticed if you click on the negative feedback section on the app, it now displays negatives older than 12 months. 

this seems very unfair, as it give the impression that you recieve negatives more often than is actually true, and in many case not a reflection of the current service being provided. Some of the negatives showing up on mine are many years old!

[messier44000]

Almost ironic quote from Anita.

"the aim here really is to highlight the most relevant feedback, rather than more generic feedback"

Followed by one of the generic answers we see on weekly chat Q&A every weds

"however I have passed on your comments to the relevant teams."

Oh, hang on - teams - You mean there is more than one team working on Feed back. Heaven help us

[amphibolous]

I'm still seeing the old feedback system on my desktop computer, but reading through the comments, I can't see any reason whatsoever to promote negative feedback!

Usually most sellers get a very small percentage of negs at some point, and we all know they can come from buyers who love to leave bad feedback, or scammers, or somebody who hasn't read the description properly, along with genuine reasons of course.

Promoting that would only harm a seller, and harm eBay's profits - it's just commonsense. As to seeing negatives beyond 12 months, the same thing applies, what is the reasoning behind that? As it stands we can simply click on the negative feedback number to read all the negs if we want to. It never needed changing.

As to images with feedback, I wonder who is going to pay for the upgrade that almost nobody wants or needs. Will have to wait to see where it all goes, but it looks like polishing the brass on the Titanic.

[thesmokingrunner]

I don't think the CT do irony, messier44000.

What intrigues me is who decides which feedback is "most relevent"? And will the relevence of the feedback depend on, for example, whether the seller is paying to promote items? Seriously: if eBay can sort the order of search returns depending on who is paying most for promotion it would be simple to do the same for feedback.

[tidyingupanddownsizing]

My account - when viewed on app - has the most ridiculously over the top 'this seller is amazing' type feedback comment as the first one anyone sees. When i received the feedback i thought 'that sounds terrible its TOO positive and it simply sounds fake' [ it was actually from a genuine customer of a £6.50 with free post item] .  But  i thought 'it will fade away quickly enough so lets not worry about it'.  BUT ebay now have this as the first thing a customner sees when he looks at my feedback. Wonderful.....not.

EBAY : the old system was fine. Its still available on non app ie laptop/pc  views. PLEASE revert to the old system on app.

[kempseykate]

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@tidyingupanddownsizing wrote:

My account - when viewed on app - has the most ridiculously over the top 'this seller is amazing' type feedback comment as the first one anyone sees. When i received the feedback i thought 'that sounds terrible its TOO positive and it simply sounds fake' [ it was actually from a genuine customer of a £6.50 with free post item] .  But  i thought 'it will fade away quickly enough so lets not worry about it'.  BUT ebay now have this as the first thing a customner sees when he looks at my feedback. Wonderful.....not.

EBAY : the old system was fine. Its still available on non app ie laptop/pc  views. PLEASE revert to the old system on app.

---

That makes me wonder if some sellers might decide to buy a few of their own items to leave the 'amazing seller' type feedback to knock down less favourable reviews.

Which will basically mean that as a buyer I won't really trust feedback anymore.

I only want to see recent feedback - with the option to click and see neutrals and negs if need be. Which is what we have now. Such a shame that these teams don't have the common sense to think a thing through.

[tidyingupanddownsizing]

kempseykate said:

"I only want to see recent feedback - with the option to click and see neutrals and negs if need be. Which is what we have now. Such a shame that these teams don't have the common sense to think a thing through."

- EXACTLY!  well said!

As a buyer thats what i want too. As a seller who tries hard to provide accurate adverts and excellent service its what i'd want my customers be able to access too.

EBAY - why cant buyers have that simple ability available to them?

[tidyingupanddownsizing]

AND another [bad] thing:

on app the feedbacks shown are now the ones with the most positive words in them in random chronological order BUT if a potential buyer who wants to know more selects 'see all feedback' and then 'filter' and then 'negative' they get to see ALL negatives since the opening of your account but - worse than that - any response you have left to try to explain said negative IS NOT DISPLAYED. Which means: eg a long departed and forgotten about neg from 6 years ago from an unreasonable buyer has been brought back to life to help lose you sales!! And to make a buyer feel ebay is a worse buying venue that it is as it doesnt date the feeback it just says 'more than a year ago'.

SO: my 100% account has three visible negatives. How does that even make any sense to a buyer??

EBAY : please please reverse this un-necessary and damaging change to feedback. It was working fine before!! It now serves neither buyers or sellers .... or even ebay!

[amphibolous]

Wow, from six years ago? It makes you think that eBay must really dislike their sellers to make changes such as this. How does it serve anybody. Even as a buyer, I'm not interested in long historical feedback - 12 months is plenty, and the default chonological makes the most sense.

Let's hope this is a work in progress, and that eBay are listening to sellers. I'm dumbfounded by this latest change, and I say this as somebody who hasn't had a negative in the last 8 years or so.

[goingfishinguk]

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@tidyingupanddownsizing wrote:

BUT if a potential buyer who wants to know more selects 'see all feedback' and then 'filter' and then 'negative' they get to see ALL negatives since the opening of your account but - worse than that - any response you have left to try to explain said negative IS NOT DISPLAYED.

---

Seriously?  That is outrageous.  I mean the feedback system is biased towards the buyer and now even more so.  I understood WHY they stopped allowing sellers to leave negatives but that would have been very short lived as it would have weeded the wheat from the chaff very quickly making buyers be more honest.  This step is basically making it easier to be dishonest and why eBay would want to discourage people from buying is beyond me.