eBay UK are to revive Product Reviews, look out for a post on the announcement board any day now.
We reported last year that eBay Reviews were coming back as a test on eBay.com. You should see them reappear as a permanent feature on eBay UK this week.
Product Reviews were scrapped on eBay something like a decade ago (eBay Guides remained), but now they’re back in fashion as search engines like Google love UGC (user generated content). Of late eBay have suffered some well publicised Google penalties and eBay Reveiws are one of the tools eBay intend to fight back with.
Reviews will be product specific (not seller specific). This is yet another reason why you should be viewing eBay’s mandatory Product Identifiers as critical to your future success on eBay. Product Identifiers are just about the only way that eBay can compare your product to mine and be 100% certain that they are identical. Without being able to be sure that two products are the same, reviews just won’t work.
Anyone will be able to review products, and eBay will drive buyers to leave reviews via email marketing once everything is up and running smoothly. eBay users will also be able to leave reviews from the view item page.
eBay’s old Review and Guides pages are still active (I’m amazed that having written six guides about a decade ago, I’m still ranked as eBay’s 129th overall reviewer). Many other eBay users also created product reviews before they were killed off, but now all archived reviews will be rolled over and merged into the new Review platform.
There is an appeals process if you feel a review on a product you sell is unfair. Reviews should be about the product and not the seller and if you report a review eBay expect to moderate it and make a decision as to whether the review stands or is deleted within 24 hours.
Of course you can and should encourage buyers to leave reviews of your products especially if they’re unique to you as the manufacturer. The good news is that eBay will be encouraging buyers to leave reviews of generic products and if you’re listing with the same product identifiers then you should benefit as well.
11 Responses
They have time to waste putting the new “Write a review” on products.
Shame they don’t work on the selling issues affecting loads of sellers again.
The Ebay message boards are full of complaints about major checkout problems and low sales.
Yet again zero response from Ebay.
Why not write a review about Ebay !!!
Now that would be interesting.
As always Ebay can do a good thing only in the same time with a bad one, just to keep the balance.
Good thing: people can leave reviews.
Bad thing: ALL the people can leave reviews, not only the buyers.
That will pave the way for products / brands tarnishing as well as open the gates for your competitors to “review” your own products.
I bet that in less than 6 months few enterprising people will offer paid reviews (goods or bad) for anyone willing to pay. I can foresee offers like: buy 10 good reviews for your products and you’ll get 5 negatives free for your competitors…
Well DONE eBay, you’ve done it again.
I’m now convinced one more time that at Ebay works ONLY people that haven’t been a seller ever as they don’t understand our problems.
think this’ll fall into two main reviews:
5* – Love it, made up tiny reason for complaint, so ebay gave me it free.
1* – tried claiming against seller, but they wouldnt give me it free.
A decade ago eBay was it that long! Ten years of fiddling about and they still do not understand where there cash comes from .
.
They’ve got every seller by the short & curlys, and they know it, why else would they show so arrogance to their fee providers….!!
Yes, eBay have been doing this on US eBay since last Fall. And it has the same problems as Amazon.
Buyers don’t understand that they are rating the product. They think it’s a way of leaving feedback for ONE Seller. They don’t understand that the rating shows for every one of that product, listed on eBay, in perpetuity.
ANYONE can leave a review, even if they didn’t buy it on eBay (or even if they have never bought the item in their life.). This is because in theory, they may have purchased the item somewhere else.
But there is a lot of room for abuse in the system … Seller’s trying to hurt their competitors.
The good news is that a Seller may choose NOT to have the review showing on their product(s.)
The bad news is that no one at eBay has answered the Sellers’ complaints.
Reviews might be a good idea if they were associated with what you are selling but that is not my experience. I sell spare parts for some very expensive handportable radios on .com and if people look at my listings for a replacement speaker or plastic outer housing the find a review that obviously relates to the radio itself saying
“Great product. Pricey, but if you’ve got the funds it is tops.
The radio is simply the best two way handheld radio available today. I’m not a Motorola Employee, but simply a satisifed user.
I bought this product to use in my Public Service/ADES duties. It also interfaces with the ham radio repeaters quite well.
The only problem with the radio is it’s price. Other than that, if you’ve got the money, go for it.”
I have never sold him a radio, I’ve never sold one of these radios to anyone, but this is splattered across my listings for many different parts that fit them. To extrapolate, if a seller is selling headlight bulbs for a Ford Mondeo will he then suddenly acquire lots of car reviews?
Once again another eBay improvement that nearly works.
Doubtless they will revive Ebay Express next; that didnt work either
I’ve just seen this live now. Products are available to review, and a few have collated some already.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Beko-UL584APW-Free-Standing-54cm-130-Litres-A-Fridge-White-New-/301796840456