30 January 2008 | 09:19AM EST
Feedback is evolving
Feedback on eBay is an essential ingredient to building trust and having a positive trading experience. The current system has been in place since eBay began 12 years ago and was intended to provide a simple, honest and accurate record of members' experiences.
We’ve made adjustments to the system over the years to try to improve its accuracy, including the addition last year of anonymous Detailed Seller Ratings, but as eBay has grown, we feel the Feedback system is no longer working as well as it could - it’s time for it to evolve.
So what are the changes?
- Repeat feedback credit – coming in February
Members will receive credit for multiple feedback from the same buyer or seller for purchases made in different calendar weeks (Monday though Sunday).
This is great news for sellers. If you deliver great customer service – and it shows through repeat buyers – your feedback score will reflect this.
- Feedback percentage – coming in May
The feedback percentage which calculates a member’s percentage of positive feedback will be based on the last 12 months only (not a member’s lifetime transactions as it is today).
- No negative or neutral feedback for buyers - coming in May
Sellers will not be able to leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers. Of course sellers will have the option to not leave any feedback if they feel the buyer has not warranted positive feedback.
We know this is a huge change and it’s important we put appropriate protection in place for sellers so that buyers don’t abuse the system. With this in mind, we're also introducing these changes in May:
- All negative and neutral feedback comments will be removed (not just de-scored) when a buyer doesn’t respond to the Unpaid Item Dispute (UPI) process.
- All negative and neutral feedback comments left by suspended members will be removed. This will be done retroactively, so all negative and neutral feedback left by suspended members in the past will also be removed.
- Buyers will not be able to leave negative or neutral feedback within 3 days of the end of a listing. We expect this will help promote communication between the buyer and seller so they try to resolve their issues before leaving feedback.
- The number of days a member can leave feedback by will be reduced from 90 to 60.
- Sellers will have an increased block bidder list capacity (up to 5000 User IDs).
These and many other changes were announced today on eBay.com in a “Message from Bill Cobb”.
It is important to note that other changes in the eBay.com announcement are NOT currently scheduled to launch on eBay.com.au.
Regards,
The eBay team
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