The Feedback System is often considered to be the backbone of the eBay marketplace. eBay merchants take enormous pride in their overall total and will often boast about their high score. But does that big eBay feedback score count for much these days?
It’s worth beginning by considering just how much feedback is still left by shoppers on eBay. If the rate was anywhere in the region of 40% of total transactions, then we would be pleasantly surprised. Our hunch is that the number buyers leaving feedback has greatly diminished over time.
It’s important to define exactly we mean by eBay feedback. Specifically it refers to the positive, neutral and negative score that buyers can leave after every eBay transaction. Always we are not referring to the DSRs or detailed seller ratings. This is where shoppers have the opportunity to give more granular feedback and it will be displayed on a sellers profile.
eBay has numerous ways of accruing data. Firstly, there is the information they get from shipping tracking data that requires no input from the buyer. And they also consolidate experiences from a merchant’s other transactions. eBay can establish a much more accurate picture of your merchant behaviour by looking at many sales rather than just one.
But why is that this information important to eBay and what impact does it have on your merchant sales? It’s how eBay determines your position and prominence search. And as the product catalogue develops, that is is becoming ever more important.
It’s also true that a great deal of eBay wizardry happens behind-the-scenes. We may have a general notion of how eBay use it but full and detailed information hasn’t been revealed. And in any case it probably changes frequently.
So whilst you may be justifiably proud of your eBay feedback total, and all your green ticks, they sadly may not account for a great deal when determining your position in search as eBay seeks to present the very best goods from the very best sellers. Your seller hub is a much more useful business resource.
8 Responses
lack of comment tells the story
at one time this thread would have been alight with feedback related opinions
Hi we bought lots of stuff from eBay.com. Most of the time, feedback doesn’t much matter anymore. As long as we’re not dealing with less than 10 feedback who there is higher risk of non performing seller, it really doesn’t matter anymore who we bought things from. eBay money back guarantee pretty much is a factor.
We’re running at about 60% of buyers leaving feedback left on eBay. Wish we got the same on our website, that’s not much above 10% and is far more important to us.
As a buyer on ebay I do always look at the number of red dots a seller has and if there is a lot in proportion to the total sales, I might not buy from them even if the price is good. Having said that the ebay feedback system is total rubbish and in no way gives an accurate representation of the seller activity. Ebay are only concerned about whether the item arrived on time or if the seller sorts out problems, which is good, but whether the item is any good doesnt seem to matter.
The Amazon feedback system is far better because it gives the chance to rate the actual product, which ebay doesnt seem to care about at all. Thats why I tend to use Amazon more to buy online because I will have more confidence that the product will be something I will want. The seller is a faceless entity that I dont really care about.
Despite regular sales I have only had 3 positive feed back scores in the last year. One of those was for someone who bought an item in error but was please with my customer service. It really doesn’t see to matter any more.
I’d estimate it is around 60% leave feedback for us
I can see why people don’t bother though. If ebay want to encourage more feedback being left, then stop it with the inane questions. Unless it turns up the next day, nobody knows how quickly a seller dispatches the item and unless something went wrong with the order, most transactions are conducted without any buyer/seller communication.
A bulk 5 stars for everyone in all categories button would also let buyers take care of feedback quickly. Lets say 30 transactions needed feedback left. If they had an issue with 1 seller, they could leave that feedback as usual. Then click one button for the other 29 and job done.
Alternatively, it could autocomplete after 60 days. If no feedback left, no case opened, then just automatic feedback, assuming full satisfaction