We’ve woken up this morning to discover that eBay has deleted everyone’s feedback.
Whereas once you would see a feedback score in the Seller Information Box at the head of every one of the 14 million listings on the site, today there is none.
Tamebay reader Julius was first to spot missing feedback when looking at items on his watched list. Then he checked his own listings and there’s no feedback shown there either. I’ve not managed to find a listing with feedback displayed… so the questions are:
Is this a permenant change?
Is this a test and Julius and I just happen to be in the test group? or,
Is this business as normal and it’s just an eBay glitch?
Finally, now your feedback has gone, do you want it back?
We’ve got a query in with eBay but to be fair to them we only sent it just before writing this post so they’ve not had a time to reply. We’ll update you when we hear back from them, in the mean time enjoy the video below and replace the word “Mama” with “Feedback”.
Update: Comment from eBay
eBay have told us: “We’re currently conducting some user experience testing for a subset of users with the goal of improving the shopping experience. Among a randomly selected group of customers, we’re looking to understand whether the visibility of buyer feedback information on a seller’s profile and Top Rated Seller Plus icons influence purchasing behaviour. We’ll utilize the information gathered from these tests to help improve the customer experiences for both sellers and buyers“.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-EpWOzIzhf8
21 Responses
Hurrah. Hopefully its the beginning of the end for this god awful contrived system!
I can see everyones feedback on all our accounts?
Mine’s gone too. (Firefox)
Update on this. They are showing on Firefox but not on chrome so maybe a browser specific issue?
Ahhh yes Middle Of The Road, she had such lovely legs :p
Wish it would go forever. Had some awful blackmailerleave a neg. Though it it is clearly feedback extortion eBay did nothing. My only response is to double up efforts on other sites. Longing for the day I can treat eBay as an unimportant add on.
I have always hated the feedback system – but I admit I have 100% on both accounts – and no defects (yes, really). Presumably that’s doing me some good.
The eBay message said they were “we’re looking to understand whether the visibility of buyer feedback information on a seller’s profile and Top Rated Seller Plus icons influence purchasing behaviour” . . . that’s nice, you carry on trying to make a living and we’ll play with it.
Well due to eBay’s meddling I had one of the worst selling days ever…..Thanks a million eBay.
I have phoned eBay and they say there is no ‘opting out’ for the guinea pigs in the experiment and it is being conducted for a limited time period only (eBay playing god again).
Able Seaman “Captain, Captain, we’re heading for the rocks; if we don’t change speed and course now we’re all going to drown”.
Captain “All under control Able Seaman, I’ve ordered the navigation lights to be switched off – no one will see us coming”
Able Seaman “Eh?”
If you think that this is far fetched please look up the death of Admiral Sir Clowdesley Shovell(I think that I have spelt it correctly). He was the Admiral of a Fleet returning from service abroad. On board the Flagship one of the sailors was an ex-Isles of Scilly fisherman. He saw that the Fleet was heading straight for the rocks.
He approached the Admiral and pointed this out. The Admiral was furious that a mere sailor had dared to speak to him. So he ordered the sailor to be hung from the yardarm.
So the Fleet and the Admiral and all the Officers and men piled into the rocks with the sailor hanging from the yardarm. I am not comparing the stupidity of Sir Clowdesley Shovell with the stupidity of ebay. However the situation is very similar.
Are eBay users and TB readers really so stupid that you don’t yet get what’s happening? Are people really that dumb or blind?
All this is deliberate. Its purpose is to make all sellers appear even, whilst making eBay look good in the buyers eyes. I said all this befor defects was introduced. Few listened, many said I was wrong. Eat Crow guys!
Defects are a way to remove TRS.
By not showing FB scores on listings no buyer knows how good or bad a seller is.
By removing TRS eBay save many millions on fee discounts each year.
This makes all sellers equal and eBay increase profits.
To persue this policy eBay are closing about 50,000 accouts each month – but thats mostly a good thing. Sadly its software driven so some decent sellers are paying a price for what is an arbituary and unfair system/practice with no realistic appeal process.
WAKE UP, SMELL THE COFFEE all this has a purpose, and that is increasing eBay profits.
IDK why everyone has being so slow to grasp whats going on.
Long live The Revolution!! 🙂
Its not only ‘Where’s Your Feedback Gone’ but ‘Where have the Free Listing Weekends Gone’. I cannot remember how long it is since the last Free Listing Weekend. I know that several Traders have called for them to end but they are very popular with Private Sellers. So where have they gone?
In my case I used to fund my purchases from what I had sold. The items that I sold were often listed during a Free Listing Weekend. So no Free Listing Weekends no or limited sales and No purchases.
I understand that many others operate on a something similar basis. The Private Sellers selling the no longer wanted items or the not wanted presents etc no doubt use all or a proportion of their sales proceeds to buy what they actually need or want. But again No Free Listing Weekends no income and no purchases on ebay.