I’ve just left eleven feedback for recent eBay purchases and I have to say it’s a tiresome experience.
Click the “Positive” radio button, type a comment, click a load of stars. The frustrating part is does anyone care? That’s up to 55 clicks (thankfully some were auto five stars) and 11 comments to type before I can click the submit button.
Are feedback comments really that valuable these days? I rarely read a seller’s feedback unless something goes wrong and by that time it’s too late anyway. There’s no point reading a buyer’s feedback as they’ll only have positive comments anyway.
I wish there was just one button for feedback when I’m happy with a transaction. One click to leave a positive feedback, to fill out a proforma positive sounding comment and to click those infernal stars. I didn’t count how many clicks it took and letters to type (I resorted to cut and paste feedback comments), but it was far too many. The only reason I left feedback was out of a sense of duty to those sellers who’d left feedback for me.
Is it time that eBay simplified feedback for buyers? Would you like a single click to say you had an experience that was anything from “OK” to “Great”?
Trust me if I have a bad experience on eBay I’ll be more than happy to spend my time typing comments and dinging the seller’s DSRs with low star ratings. When I’m happy however, leaving positive feedback should not be the chore that it is.
16 Responses
Way, way overdue. I have no idea why eBay haven’t adopted the NetPromoter model (how likely are you to recommend this seller to a friend, on a scale of 1 to 10) and leave it at that. If someone wants to leave a comment then make it optional.
For a company that have become very buyer focused in recent years, they make the process very long winded for a buyer.
To be honest I take my hat off to you for bothering to leave feedback, I don’t bother any more!
I agree, the amount of buyers leaving feedback has been falling for the last few years I think buyers used to do it to get their feedback numbers now most buyers get theirs automatically so just don’t bother.
If a buyer doesn’t leave feedback I think it should be an auto positive in a ‘no news is good news’ basis. The more the whole feedback thing is automated the better.
I’ve also noticed in some parts of eBay they are now calling them reviews rather than feedback.
A yes or no, simples!
I like the auto positive idea works.
Unless eBay has changed things under the hood since I last checked, I only give feedback when I get it.
I do glance at feedback comments weekly/fortnightly and 99% are nothing special but I do get to catch the occasional comment that is worth following up, even if they gave me 5 stars across the board.
What I find really difficult about the feedback is, so many people don’t bother until they want a rant. Then the low DSR’s go though the roof and your in danger of loosing top rated! But it’s actually not a reflection of all your customers. Item as described has always confused me, we have made so many improvements over the years to our listings and images, but its such a subjective thing. We always suffer from a high number of low ratings on IAD. We are still trying to work out how to improve it.
Leaving seller feedback is tiresome for buyers. A one click option should be offered or an option ot autogenerated when item flagged as received.
TRS no longer linked to DSR’s so do they really matter any more?
High value ebay buyers (ebay’s best customers?) must rate the ebay feedback system with a NEGATIVE for ebay.
If you go to http://www.base.com & have a browse around the dvd section you will see that pretty much every seller has 100% feedback…Base automatically leave you positive feedback after 60 days if no buyer issues have been raised.
The high seller ratings, give greater confidence in the marketplace & puts in context the fact that for regular sellers, problems rarely occur….Not something you would realise if looking at seller feedback percentages on Ebay/Amazon/Play/Rakuten….
If you leave feedback first on Ebay- you are less likely to get reciprocal feedback from buyers. (In my experience leaving feedback first gets you about 70% FB return, and leaving it last, gets you around 90%….On Amazon buyer FB seems to be running at about 25/30%…and on Play its less than 10% ).
Ultimately, I would like to see auto positives on Ebay (as per Base)..The only question I would ask buyers is ‘what date they received their item’- which would then be used to provide average delivery time data for each seller- and create transparency- particularly in relation to those who lie about their location and/or do not hold stock..
I would also allow the option of negative comments…. However, they would be temporarily ‘blind’ i.e. ONLY viewable by the seller the buyer & Ebay…This would prevent visual graffiti & keyboard heroes from having their way..e.g. a buyer leaves a negative stating that the cd/dvd wasn’t shrinkwrapped….The comment would be hidden & the seller could respond to the buyer pointing out that as clearly stated on the listing- stock from suppliers is not always shrinkwrapped…..The buyer could then remove their ‘blind’ criticism- and their negative would become an auto- positive…If a buyer didn’t voluntarily remove their criticism after say 10 days (in spite of the seller making a reasonable response), Ebay could do it manually……For sellers who didn’t resolve issues Ebay could suspend/ investigate the seller.
2 buttons, yes ‘I’m happy’ and ‘open case via #eBay’ so seller gets chance to sort it out as now.
If the case is escalated then eBay sorts it out 🙂
Would be good if there was an incentive for using feedback! I’ve just left positive feedback from someone who I purchased from some time ago – just never got round to it and no longer see it as an essential task.
I have compared my percentages of feedback with others. I do not know what I am doing different to anybody else but about 90% of my customers leave feedback(the vast majority glowing). So only about 10% do not. Yet I have seen others where only a handful leave feedback most not bothering.
I wonder if it me or perhaps that the quality of my customers? I must admit that apart from a couple of customers since I started I am very happy with the quality of my customers. Indeed I would never use about most of my customers some of the descriptions that have been used in the past about customers on Tamebay. Mine on the whole are lovely people. Can somebody suggest what I am doing wrong(or perhaps right?)
I’ve never bought very much on eBay, to much hassle, that may change though after I signed up for that faster checkout thingy at the w.end, that’s super slick.
On the occasions I have bought something I rarely leave feedback unless it was exceptional.
As a seller I wouldn’t mind getting more, but I can’t really moan if I can’t be bothered myself.
Had a quick look, we’ve done over 7000 transactions and received 3314 comments, so less than 50%.
This makes sense. If you are happy with the transaction, 5 star will do, no need to take a lot of energy to do that. But if you are not happy with the transaction, a message box must be there.
I too find leaving feedback a real pain
one click for positive would be fine, with an option to leave a comment if wanted. I never do the rate details part I only have the option to leave positive feedback of course, which is what I do 99.9% of the time. if im unhappy with a buyer all I can do is leave no feedback.
my main gripes are
1) because of the bulk of each feedback item, there are relatively few feedbacks per page, so after an auction of over 100 items I get many pages to wade through.
as I only leave feedback after I am paid, I have to keep going past the same items over and over.
it seems you cannot move onto the next page without updating feedback for that page (I tried once and lost all the feedback id done for that page
it would be so much easier to have feedback in one long list, or at least a lot more per page
2) I sell a lot of relatively cheap items each auction I do. and a lot of items taken by same buyer
so of 100 feedbacks to post I might only have 10 buyers
so its pretty tedious to wade through leaving comments for same buyer for maybe 30 items………..especially as multiple purchases same bidder only seems to count as one feedback rating !
so I do it, but grudgingly………its way past time ebay made this less of a chore
I normally don’t bother leaving feedback. I am one of those lazy customers. However quite a few do leave feedback !
Definitely, simplifying feedback process with few clicks would be good. Star ratings are good ones.
It should really be modified to just sending a personal neg. message to the seller. Ebay would no doubt monitor.Obviously if a seller is collecting rather a lot then Ebay’s algorithm widget can alert trust and safety and this can be worked in with BBE.
The dispution resolution is a very useful vehicle for buyers and is easy to use and provides a more practicable solution to genuine problems.
A system of this sort would also provide a seller with genuine insight.
The present system is poor.