The user feedback system at EBay will be changing, and it has a lot of sellers worried. Will you be affected by the changes?
In an earlier article, I wrote about some of the listing fee changes that EBay was instituting in an effort to get more sellers online and listing their goods. (If you missed that earlier article, you can click here to read it. EBay Slashes Fees!) Now on February 20th, there will be additional changes, this time having to do with leaving feedback.
The feedback system, allowing buyers and sellers to rate each other, has been in place from the beginning. It is one of the features that helps make the auction site so successful. Buyers and sellers can review feedback from other users and decide if they want to do business with a particular users. If you come across someone with a low rating and a lot of complaints, you might want to pass them by. This has given users a confidence about using EBay and not getting burned.
The new changes will still allow buyers to rate and give feedback about sellers, but sellers will no longer be able to do the same about buyers. EBay is thought to be making this change to encourage buyers to stay. Often, if a seller gives negative feedback, the buyer will not return to the website.
A seller may leave negative feedback to a buyer for a few reasons. The first is that the buyer doesn’t pay for the item. The second is in retaliation for negative feedback left by the buyer to the seller.
Sellers are concerned that there will now be no accountability for bad buyers. Especially worrisome is the fact that EBay still collects its fees on a winning bid, even if the buyer never pays or pays with a fraudulent credit card.
What do you think about these changes?
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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