As for eBay's ridiculous incentives for power-sellers, it's not the visible feedback that's going to hurt. It's the star rating system. How anyone can base real financial measurements on such a ill conceived method is astonishing. What's to stop me giving glowing positives to a seller and then slating them on the stars - just for a laugh? How can you have an incentives scheme that's open to such potential abuse? Because I don't have many sales I can usually tell when somebody has slated me behind the scenes - or I could until recently. One buyer sent out the usual 'Great - fantastic - A+++' stock message and then I noticed my averages had dropped across the board. He must have given me one star in every category even though his item was as described, delivered next day and at a knock down price. Some buyers like leaving feedback in one hit, maybe weeks after the sale. We're trusting buyers to even remember if the postage was cheap or the item as described. In other words we are expecting them to give feedback whilst the purchase is fresh in their minds. Otherwise they're going to be guessing and they'll probably go 4 stars across the board to be on the safe side. That's if they even bother at all. And I'm sure people will also bang in 5 stars without thought provided they don't have cause for complaint. This system measures nothing and probably took 10 minutes to knock up in some eBay backroom. Is the star rating system going to be made compulsory? And isn't it likely that dissatisfied customers (including the ones you can't please no matter what you do) are going to be more eager to make a point than somebody who's happy just to have their item and can't be bothered with the follow-up? And doesn't it fall on eBay to help out - like actually displaying the postage costs etc on the main feedback screens so you can make a real judgement when leaving feedback? How many have come to leaving mass feedback and bothered to click through all the item details to recall whether they really did get good value for money? There will be a lot less sellers getting discounts than people think. In other words, all this amounts to is a fee increase from eBay. What a convoluted way to try and hide what is surely just a case of pure greed.

Looks like eBay is gunning to become a virtual Bluewater (UK shopping centre) rather than a place where the public could trade anything from junk to lucky finds on a small time basis. That's sad with the only possible consolation being the gap in the market that will be created. Hopefully somebody with a little more respect for their customers will step up.

Actually if you want to have your eyes opened go have a look at the discussion boards on ebay. I almost never look at them but I decided to yesterday.. they are a real eye opener, some of the things they are saying    .. they are mostly seller orientated by the looks of it, we buyers don't really care to bother with such things.. the comments they make are well worth a read.. I suppose you have to remember that there are bad sellers and bad buyers out there.. there are people of both sides that are out to rip off people, its these people that ebay need to get rid of without penalising the good sellers and buyers. I'm sure things will change again in the future as things are fine tuned again with feedback...



Brette:)

serleran wrote:If eBay is serious, they should recognize that the changes have killed the hope of new power sellers, unless they reduce the requirements dramatically. I know my fiancée recently became a silver rated power seller despite not having sold a single thing for nearly 6 months. Since power sellers tend to have the highest volume, one would think eBay would want more of them, so they can get larger amounts of smaller fees rather than fewer amounts of larger fees... I dunno. I guess I'm stupid.

Strange, that . . . I got an e-mail supposedly from Ebay saying that I was a silver-rated PowerSeller.

Odd thing is, if you look at my feedback --  I've never sold anything on Ebay!

Plowing through this thread, most of the comments stem from the seller's POV. Most right on the mark, but they completely miss half of the equation.

From the POV of a buyer, the feedback changes are just wonderful. Now eBay feedback will actually be useful.

Without the Mexican standoff, where sellers hold the buyers hostage with retaliatory fb, we'll actually start seeing some honest feedback that isn't artificially inflated.

Not saying that all sellers do that, or even most -- and regular Acaeum members have enviable eBay reputations -- but enough eBay sellers game the system to make it a problem. Ebay's finally addressed the issue.

So many times, when reviewing a seller, you can't go by their numbers. You have to laboriously go through the pages, counting the positives with negative or mixed remarks. That's just plain silly, and indicative of the problem. Not to mention all the negs that are never left because the buyer fears retaliation. Until now, eBay fb has been a gimped tool for the buyer, particularly the occasional/casual buyer.

C'mon, everybody here buys too!    Won't realistic fb make life simpler?

Well... If they're a non-paying bidder, that problem's easily remedied.

As for the others, isn't the occasional asshat customer a part of selling? I remember when I used to work in a grocery store, I would have loved to pre-emptively block jerks from entering the front door.

"i am plenty capable of determining who I beleive is telling the truth and who is full of shit, its usually patently obvious when you look at patterns of behavior."

Of course. But the casual buyer won't be as skilled or patient as you. That's who eBay is appealing to in the changes.

Look, I'm not trying to start an argument. Plenty of good points made in this thread.

I just wanted to point out that all is not gloom-and-doom. Sellers will adapt, and probably see higher sale prices, since eBay will better retain buyers.

red_dawn wrote:Plowing through this thread, most of the comments stem from the seller's POV. Most right on the mark, but they completely miss half of the equation.

From the POV of a buyer, the feedback changes are just wonderful. Now eBay feedback will actually be useful.

Without the Mexican standoff, where sellers hold the buyers hostage with retaliatory fb, we'll actually start seeing some honest feedback that isn't artificially inflated.

Not saying that all sellers do that, or even most -- and regular Acaeum members have enviable eBay reputations -- but enough eBay sellers game the system to make it a problem. Ebay's finally addressed the issue.

So many times, when reviewing a seller, you can't go by their numbers. You have to laboriously go through the pages, counting the positives with negative or mixed remarks. That's just plain silly, and indicative of the problem. Not to mention all the negs that are never left because the buyer fears retaliation. Until now, eBay fb has been a gimped tool for the buyer, particularly the occasional/casual buyer.

C'mon, everybody here buys too!    Won't realistic fb make life simpler?

I actually think Ebay's changes will in some ways HURT buyers....in some ways more than sellers.  Particularly foreign buyers, who may get hurt the worst.

A lot of ebay sellers are going to say goodbye to the overseas market...which is going to leave non-US buyers even a smaller selection to buy from.  As much as most foreign buyers complain about "US only" sellers, I think it will get ten times worse.  Most of my "misunderstandings" that lead to feedback problems result from long shipping times (and unrealistic expectations on behalf of overseas buyers about when items should arrive), and expensive shipping prices (flat rate boxes are $37 or so). I had to tell a buyer in France last week that shipping on two heavy boxed sets was over $70, and that was because only one each could fit in a flat rate box.  Because I have to be able to track shipments, I'm not going to mail by other less expensive methods.  Luckily, we worked things out to where he cancelled his BIN on one set and only paid the shipping on one item, but things could have gotten messy.  Surely I was not happy about the outcome which since he could have asked me first about shipping prices, but then again without threat of me dinging him maybe he would have just left me a neg and never paid...and I wouldn't be able to do a thing about it.

Surely once certain sellers receive negative feedback through no fault of their own (long ship times or complains about high shippng prices), and they have no recourse, they might reconsider or abandon foreign buyers.  Honestly, if I was outside the US I would be pretty worried I might not have a lot of choices in the future. I do quite a bit of overseas business, and since the announcement have seriously thought about doing away with Italian and Australian sales due to a lot of problems in those two places the last few months.

All Ebay has done is thrown the weight entirely to the other side, with no balances, and I think in about a year's time we'll see the mess that's been made and another swing of the pendulum the other way.  

Mike B.

red_dawn wrote:Sellers will adapt, and probably see higher sale prices, since eBay will better retain buyers.

This is nothing more than the eBay company line ... and there is no evidence at all to support that this will actually be the case.

We'll all have to wait and see, I suppose. As a seller, I've dealt with eBay tilting the field more and more in the buyer's favor for 10 years now; personally, I think they've finally gone too far. Making an already questionable feedback process a one-way street is just completely asinine.

Xaxaxe wrote:I'm taking all of my book, CD, and DVD listings to Amazon, effective immediately ...

Just wanting to put my money where my mouth is ...

I just listed 17 items on Amazon. Each of these would have normally gone up on eBay, but I'm not going to be part of their new scheme to eliminate small sellers (this is all discussed earlier in this thread, for anyone interested).

So, that's 17 listing fees that eBay will not see ... 17 final-value fees that they will be missing out on ... and, of course, they've finally managed to erode 10 years of (more or less) good will that I felt toward the site.

Meanwhile, the My eBay page that I used to check regularly has gathered a noticeable layer of dust. I think I just saw a tumbleweed go through there ...

+++++

Late addition: Bonus! As I typed this, I received an email from Amazon letting me know I'd made a sale! Woot! I'm $6.20 richer, baby! And the item had been listed for about an hour.  

That pretty much settles it: large and mixed lots go on eBay, with mandatory PayPal for buyers and mandatory Priority Mail for shipping/tracking (and any other draconian rules eBay forces me to use to protect myself) ... all single items go on Amazon.

Congratulations on driving out a 10-year veteran, eBay. Morons.

Xaxaxe wrote:Just wanting to put my money where my mouth is ...

I just listed 17 items on Amazon. Each of these would have normally gone up on eBay, but I'm not going to be part of their new scheme to eliminate small sellers (this is all discussed earlier in this thread, for anyone interested).

So, that's 17 listing fees that eBay will not see ... 17 final-value fees that they will be missing out on ... and, of course, they've finally managed to erode 10 years of (more or less) good will that I felt toward the site.

Meanwhile, the My eBay page that I used to check regularly has gathered a noticeable layer of dust. I think I just saw a tumbleweed go through there ...

+++++

Late addition: Bonus! As I typed this, I received an email from Amazon letting me know I'd made a sale! Woot! I'm $6.20 richer, baby! And the item had been listed for about an hour.  

That pretty much settles it: large and mixed lots go on eBay, with mandatory PayPal for buyers and mandatory Priority Mail for shipping/tracking (and any other draconian rules eBay forces me to use to protect myself) ... all single items go on Amazon.

Congratulations on driving out a 10-year veteran, eBay. Morons.

X, I just looked at Amazon last week, and Half.com today, about switching all my cd sales to either one or the other.  Throw in my meager dvd sales, that will be about 50 final value and listing fees Ebay will never see....a small percentage of my sales, but once again, sales ebay will never see.  I hope the billions of new customers their policies will certainly bring in make my business in media items unneccesary to Ebay's eventual succes with their new policies  

Mike B.