What Has Happened to Receiving Feedback As A Seller?

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

What Has Happened to Receiving Feedback As A Seller?  I checked my sales & out of the last 50 items sold only 10 people bothered to leave feedback.  Some people don't care about feedback but it matters to me.  I have always left feedback when I have bought something.  And I always reciprocate when feedback is left for me.  Another problem is that our feedback number is not really accurate as it does not show how many transactions or sales we have really had on eBay.  I think it may be that our society has lost the common courtesy of saying thank you.

[ichopshop]

As stated to me a couple of years ago by an eBay CSR to me "our feedback system is broken".... They're attempting "I think" to develop more of a review system like Amazon, but part of the problem is the way they let sellers change a listing completely (to get around listing limitation), so the review you read on an item may be for a completely different product. The Feedback system is almost completely irrelevant anyways since eBay will side with the purchaser almost exclusively in the case of a dispute and poorly performing sellers are already placed in purgatory......

[reallynicestamps]

Historically, feedback has never been left for more than 40% of transactions.

And really it is a legacy from the early days of the internet when two very different themes were part of use.

• A 'we're all in this together' camaraderie which led to leaving friendly notes for complete strangers
• A fear of the unknown which made feedback useful in comforting fearful buyers (and sellers).

If you can find a member who had an account during the 20th century you will find some hilarious feedback, often left even if there had been no transaction.

Today most users are comfortable with buying on line. Buyers feel no more compelled to leave FB than they are to make a Yelp review every time they go grocery shopping.

Sellers leaving FB, which can only be positive, is the equivalent of the cashier's 'Have a nice day."

More useful are the 'reviews' of a product, since those reviews show up on every offer of similar products. Sort of a badly designed Consumer Reports review since they all too often review a transaction rather than a product. Particularly on used, vintage and unique items.

And for failed transactions, the Resolution Centre takes action against members, both buyers and sellers, who break the contract, whether by not paying, or by shipping junk. The punishments for these infractions are not public but eBay does act on them.

I agree that posting the number of transactions a member has been involved in, as buyer and as seller, would be a useful tool.

[recped]

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@2nd-time-around-jewelry wrote:

And I always reciprocate when feedback is left for me. 

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Looking at you feedback numbers it appears that you only leave feedback for buyers AFTER they have left feedback for you.....why?

4,063 Feedback received

4,307 Feedback left

If you want more buyers to leave YOU feedback maybe YOU should be leaving feedback for them and not holding it "hostage".

I am still getting feedback from about 60% of my buyers (only slightly down from 10+ years ago) but I do not wait until I receive before I give.

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

I don't think it has anything to do with whether I leave feedback first or not.  I have tried it both ways too & made no difference. Don't believe it has anything to do with holding it hostage as you say. Some sellers are just getting more careful as they want to make sure the buyer is happy first & to deal with any problems up front. With eBay siding mostly with the buyer these days you can understand our caution. But each to his own.

[silverpinups]

Feedback is dead. I'm down to about 10% of all transactions... People just can't be bothered anymore.

The only milestone I'm going to achieve is the 2500 feedback mark (coming up soon... ) I'm afraid that's as good as it's going to get for me. 

I'm surprised that eBay hasn't eliminated it by now... they've removed everything else worth while from the listing page.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

One little side affect of not receiving feedback is if you use mystoresmap with your listings you shouldn't have to worry about your charges going up by any jump in your feedback level. Not sure. May no longer be available to dot ca sellers? I guess that would be kind of a perk!!!

-CM

[retroman_studios]

I just only recently hit 1,000. Took me years.

[momcqueen]

Although today I receive only about 10 to 20 per cent reciprocal feedback as a seller (I leave feedback for buyers on payment for every buyer) I was pro-feedback for many years. Now, however, I have come to accept it is irrelevant. I think feedback should be replaced with a number that coincides with Sales Records or number of completed transactions for the seller which accounts for number(s) of items sold and, by all means, allow buyers to 'rate' the sellers somehow. Feedback for buyers should be, in my own opinion, also not counted based on feedback but by number of transactions completed. 

Product Reviews are also a tiresome bore. There might have been a point in time where, as a consumer, I would have been motivated to tell the world what I thought about a product as its user but now I cannot be bothered. It's hardly a scientific assessment, just the skewed opinion of a motivated vocal minority. Rarely do I find anything of value in reading a product review. Or a YouTube review. Or whatever. Snore.

[snoopwiz]

Do you think the give/get ratio has anything to do with one's product category?  I would think there has to be some reason as to why some sellers report feebacks received to be as low as 20% while others claim up to 82%. 

[silverpinups]

I agree, it's product based. The feedback ratio's increase/decrease depending on what type of items you are selling.

Product based feedback also reflects on the type of feedback you will receive and the DSR's left by the buyer. 

Sellers have their own type of clientele with personalities ranging from easy going to highly critical.    

Then there's the ones that you just can't please no matter what you do... I'm sure everyone has run into one of those at some point.   

[momcqueen]

“Do you think the give/get ratio has anything to do with one's product category? I would think there has to be some reason as to why some sellers report feebacks received to be as low as 20% while others claim up to 82%.“

I get many Guest Checkouts. Buyers who come to eBay for one thing only and I never see them again. I can tell by the weird user ID and zero feedback. They NEVER leave feedback, I’m not certain it’s even possible to do so.

[hlmacdon]

I would venture to guess it is demographics based. I was curious to see where I was tracking and looking at the last 90 days I have a 45% feedback received record. My customer base skews heavily towards experienced ebayers who are frequent repeat shoppers on the platform and those are the buyers who are leaving feedback. For them the gamification factor of themselves having a rating plays a role here I think whereas I wouldn't think that has any appeal to younger and newer ebay buyers as the concept of them being rated as a buyer probably seems quite alien. I find that the easiest way to get feedback is to leave feedback ahead of time and ensure your packaging and shipping makes for a pleasant end user experience. 

@momcqueen's comments about guest checkout buyers are also something to consider. I've consistently found those buyers rarely interact with the platform. I've used the guest checkout before and basically you get an order status page with a separate login that isn't an ebay account, just a combination of your email and an access code to use to login to see the page. In order to actually create an account where you can do anything you have to read the order status emails you get and actually click a link to "upgrade" to a free ebay account. Something to keep in mind as some sellers are seeing increasing numbers of these buyers due to individuals abusing ebay coupons as well as more traffic from google shopping deals now that ebay is  more consistently using those feeds.