Who normally contributes feedback first, buyer or seller??

[rusticrye]

It should be the buyer, as feedback should come at the end of the transaction, ie. when the buyer has received the item and is happy.  Feedback isn't there to thank a buyer for paying, though many sellers use it as that.  I don't, as the buyer could turn out to be the buyer from hell.  Also, many buyers are 'feedback harvesters', so if the seller leaves it first, the buyer has no incentive to leave any for them.

@Anonymous 

[m25jet]

Personally if I'm buying an item on eBay then I will always leave feedback for the seller to reflect how I felt the transaction went.  Sometimes sellers don't leave me feedback but I don't allow it to bother me, so long as I got the item I wanted and it was as described in the listing.

From a seller's perspective there is really no incentive to leave feedback for buyers, as sellers are not allowed to leave anything except positive feedback for the buyer, even if they can truthfully say that from their perspective the transaction was a total nightmare and that they wish that they had never had to do business with the buyer in question.  Therefore a lot of sellers don't bother to leave feedback as it is really nothing more than giving buyers positive feedback for doing what they are contractually obliged to do - ie: to make payment for the item, and in cases where the seller's view of the transaction is not positive is not truthful.

Although I no longer sell on eBay, when I was actively selling on the site and managed to sell something I would always wait to see what feedback, if any, I received from the buyer first.  If I received positive feedback then I would leave positive feedback for the buyer in return, as in some cases it seemed to result in further purchases from the same buyer.  If I didn't receive any feedback at all then I wouldn't leave feedback for the buyer, as I always used to go by the theory of "If the buyer's not happy but isn't bothered about leaving negative feedback then just keep quiet and hope that he/she doesn't bother leaving any feedback."  I certainly never made a point of asking buyers for feedback, because as any seller will tell you, that's a surefire way of asking for trouble and potentially ending up with the kind of feedback that you would rather not have received.  I was lucky in that I never received any negative feedbacks from my buyers, but then again I only sold on a very small scale on an occasional basis as and when I had stuff to get rid of.

[john1297576]

As you are selling, let the buyer leave first.

There is no point in giving a buyer positive feedback because they paid, you are then at the mercy of any buyer who just leaves Negatives just to wreck a sellers Feedback. If you get a troublesome buyer at least you can leave none. 

Don't be worried about increasing your feedback score, that will happen naturally without risking the wrong feedback. Once you have left feedback you cannot take it back, whatever a buyer may say, you will get no support from ebay to protect against buyers from Hell.

[geosacha007]

The buyer.

[pixiesen2012]

sometimes it's the seller sometimes it's the buyer,

it really doesn't matter who does it first,

feedback is voluntary, no one has to leave feedback,

if you want to leave feedback, leave feedback, if you don't want to, don't,