However, even though primarily a buyer, I have the deepest sympathy for the plight in which many sellers now find themselves.

I cannot comprehend how eBay believe that sellers can “improve” by a combination of being prevented from selling and badgering their previous buyers for MFWs……. in fact the whole thing smacks of desperation.

I have myself fallen foul of a seller who failed utterly to deliver any goods whatever, and after a month ( yes, a MONTH ! ) of polite emails from myself, finally got round to sending a very churlish mail offering a different product entirely from the one I needed !!

Needless to say , they received a neg from me, ( and quite a few others ), and then proceeded to badger us for MFWs.
I ignored the mails, but sadly a lot of other buyers caved in…..

As a result , that seller is still trading ( under three different IDs )…. and still collecting negs……..
Is this really the way that eBay want to be perceived by the general public ?

There are a lot of very good sellers on the site , but I cannot believe that this is the way to make them more visible.

I can’t help feeling that the initial flaw is the way the feedback system is viewed ……
In general terms, a pos is indicative of a very good transaction, a neut (should be) neither bad nor good, just OK, and a neg a distinctly bad experience.
I’m sure a lot of buyers who may be new to the process would view it in exactly those terms….therefore, to penalise sellers for neuts as well as negs is adding insult to injury.

If a neut is now viewed by eBay as being on a par with a neg, then maybe it’s time to either

a) re-educate buyers to tell them of this fact, or
b) do away with neuts altogether as being a “white elephant”, or
c) scrap the feedback system altogether
(which effectively is what will be happening when the new rules come into force tomorrow, as sellers will be powerless to warn others about bad buyers)

I’m not surprised that many previously loyal sellers are now fleeing for pastures new, it’s nonetheless a crying shame that they should be forced into this position because of a lot of ill-conceived ( and equally poorly administered ) sanctions.

Help us turn the world yellow!
http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440513566

Boycott Victoriously
http://forums.delphiforums.com/boycottebay/

Also, have seen sellers with 5,000+ FB as no longer registered. Ebay may have offended all kind of sellers, small or big/

The main thing here is again the adapt and survive model that most seasoned Ebayers have figured out quite a while ago.

There is always a way around things, over them or under.

The more Ebay puts in the way, the more they learn to overcome.

Chasing a flotilla of little sailing ships, hundreds of thousands of them.

Interesting picture…

DSR farming.

Low flying DSR listings.

Whatever next?

Ebay attracts a certain type of seller, those that want to and can get on as well as the genuinely crooked.

The more systems Ebay put in place, the more ways around it people will find.

So the string gets pulled tighter and tighter and most sellers after a while will sit outside of it and chuckle.

This is a going to stop the scammers and abusers of the system for about how long?

A month at best?

Mark

I do agree that condensing the differences into just one star is just plain silly.

Traditional feedback is past it’s sell by date and needs scrapping!!! IMHO

The DSRs were brought in to give buyers the chance to complain about specific aspects of the transaction without having to put their necks on the line and do it in public. If only eBay had had this idea about no more negs for buyers *before* they had the idea about DSRs. Then we would have all this clicky star nonsense to deal with.

Hence my concern at buyers thinking that all they can see are shysters.

My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I’m sure that I recall one of the forthcoming improvements being that feedback withdrawal would become a thing of the past?

/Pollyanna

Depends on how many sellers on the previous 19 pages have been negged into oblivion as well Sue.

And if there is no 30 day grace period, will there be enough search returns to fill 20 pages?

Well you would hope so but surely if best match works well and would imagine in some areas comes up with limited results there is a good chance bad sellers will still appear on page 1!!

So the shoving down the list idea only works when there is a lot to shove down past!

Its all a bit worrying

I would go as far as to say that out of all the neutral or negative feedback that we have received over the years non have been justified. 30% have been left by mistake, when the buyer had intended to leave positive, the rest have either been from happy buyers but just leave a neutral as a matter of course, or from buyers have purchased an incorrect cable but fail to notify us before leaving feedback.

I feel that we can not improve on our service so why fear the change.

But they won’t, because the “shysters” will be at the bottom of page 20 on the search results and the buyers will never see em.

However, they’ve been made with an assumption by ebay that buyers are rationale and well mannered, when in certain categories this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Clearly the bar for excellence will have to be dropped from 99.x – 100% to something a bit lower.

If this isn’t explained to the average joe buyer, they could well end up thinking the site is populated by shysters.

I think it is a huge gamble they are taking with the sites reputation.

One thing is true though, whoever said that feedback doesn’t pay the bills couldn’t be further from the truth.

Now, here’s a really wild and crazy idea:
Why not get buyers to contact sellers with issues BEFORE the neg is left then there would be no need for this post feedback tampering.
Cart-horse, horse-cart?