Some Mothers do 'ave Em

Dan Wilson is the former Community Manager for eBay.co.uk and is now a freelance consultant and writer. He blogs at www.wilsondan.co.uk.

It's been three months this week since I left the warming arms of the eBay bosom to a world of freelancing and freedom. Three months after leaving eBay is an important time for any former eBay employee: you have three months to flog your stock options after leaving and my time is up on Friday.

But one eBay buyer has decided to commemorate this milestone with an eBay first for me: a negative feedback. Now I really feel like I'm truly mortal, and just another humble seller amongst the Community millions.

It's time to swallow that advice I've dispensed for years on the boards and at eBay University. Stay calm. Dispense a factual, calm response, try not to worry.

And OBVIOUSLY it's unjustified. The justified negative feedback is a rare, rare thing. I sold a book and despatched it swiftly. I was let down by an impatient buyer, the Royal Mail and not spending every waking moment hunched over My Messages responding to buyer queries.

Still, I'm in good company: most sellers have a few here and there and most buyers are intelligent enough to work out what's happening. After all, sometimes however hard you try to please a buyer you can't succeed. It's also a salutary reminder of how Feedback 2.0 might play out when it comes.

You simply cannot legislate for the hasty neg-leaver. No matter how you break down the scores, some buyers will never be satisfied and will always want to make their complaints heard. In this case, I would have been marked down on communications and postage time. One is under my control and one's not. It's up to buyers to decide what's reasonable or not and there will always be people who will think delivery is too slow, however swift it is, right up until they invent the instantaneous teleport.

The only comfort we have is most people really are intelligent, forgiving and praising and we'll have to hope that they learn how to use Feedback 2.0 sensibly too.

Town Hall : more feedback changes to come?

Last night's eBay Town Hall was not so much about the new, as communicating eBay's conviction that all their recent changes were great, and that members who are complaining are completely in the minority. Seller concerns about the unintented effects of the anti-counterfeiting policy, for example, were dismissed in half a sentence: "we know we're impacting some sellers but..." Butt is exactly where Bill Cobb needs to get his head out of if he's going to keep sellers onside with that one.

After sixteen minutes of riffing with Griff, we finally got onto some real questions. Predictably, changes to feedback were a feature, and it seems that the recently announced "Feedback 2.0" is not the end of the changes. Matt, "resident Town Hall trust and safety guy", commented that:

With feedback 2.0, if a buyer rates a seller low on accuracy of item description, say a 1 or a 2 on a scale from 1 to 5, we're actually going to pop up another question that asks why, and one of the possibilities is was it a counterfeit or was it a fake.

And that's a good idea: you might even start to sell me on Feedback 2.0 like that. Assuming, of course, that eBay have the support staff to investigate.

Over the last few days, several sellers have said, some in jest and some not, that they would like the ability to rate buyers as they themselves will be rated. This had mixed reactions from the Town Hall panel, with some pointing out that it would make eBay unique on the internet, as buyers are almost never rated by merchants: whether this in itself would raise eBay's appeal was also a matter for debate. But the thought of "a gold dollar bill sign next to a buyer that pays fast" appealed to some, and we were promised more than once that "everything is on the table": looks like this is not the end of feedback changes.

Policies against excessive shipping and handling also look set to change: "we are all over the shipping issue, but it's more complicated than we thought." No kidding: the policy was a sledgehammer when first implemented, so let's hope this promises something a little more subtle.

And finally, unlikely as it seems, a call to promote eBay Stores (Shops in the UK) more prominently, met with apparent approval from the Cobbster: "good idea, I'll take that back to the Stores team". Fingers, as ever, crossed.

Moving right along: Feedback 3.0?

Instead of encouraging whinging and overcomplicating the one thing that actually worked on eBay, how about doing something a bit more fun with feedback? Letting your buyers record a message and post a picture of them wearing the new shirt/jewellery/car they bought off you would actually encourage some positivity around the place. And goodness knows, we could do with that at the moment.

Feedback wasn't broke, so they fixed it anyway!

eBay have confirmed Feedback 2.0 is to go live in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Belgium, France, India, Italy, and Poland. It's worth noting Bill Cobb in his eCommerce Keynote 2007 speech extolled the benefits to eBay.com sellers, whilst reassuring them it would be introduced, monitored, tweaked and only when running smoothly and any ill effects ironed out introduced on the North American site. Wouldn't want to upset the 250 pals invited to clap when he prompted them to now, would he?

eBay state that in trials, over 80% of buyers left detailed feedback, and try to allay fears that (as happens on Amazon) only buyers who had problems with a transaction will take the time to click the stars. Well they would, wouldn't they - it was a trial and something new. We suspect that in practice prolific and happy buyers (like sellers) won't have the time or inclination to bother, but they'll certainly make time to punish sellers they're upset with by ranking them poorly - it's human nature to complain. Regardless when given a choice to rank out of five most people will give a score of four, very few will give five out of five as the norm.

eBay seem to have listened to sellers who intimated they would automatically leave a negative feedback for buyers that gave them low rankings. Sellers will not be able to see the scores left by individual buyers, just overall rankings in four areas - accuracy of item description, communication, delivery time, and postage and packaging charges. This has pros and cons: sure, it protects buyers from retaliatory feedback which is desirable, but it doesn't give sellers the ability to add buyers that hammer their feedback score unfairly to their blocked bidders list to prevent them making further purchases.

It's great that buyers have to select an overall positive, neutral or negative ranking first. At least in the short term, buyers that would normally leave a positive won't think "I've given two threes and two fours so I'll leave a neutral", although that might come in the future as they get more used to ranking.

1p e-Book sellers who then go on to sell high value items will be highlighted - feedback from the last ninety days will include the item title and price. This is a great change as it allows buyers to see in an instant if sellers suddenly list higher value or different items to usual. Any visible warnings of unusual behaviour are great as early indicators of possible problems for buyers. Similarly the new tabs showing feedback left as a seller and as a buyer separately are great. The feedback left as a seller will be default, showing up those that buy feedback as that'll be on another tab!

eBay state that "Detailed Seller Ratings benefit buyers by allowing them to rate sellers on a particular transaction more accurately. They also provide buyers with additional information about a seller prior to making purchasing decisions." They go on to say that the ratings benefit sellers by giving them the chance to differentiate themselves against their competitors. In reality the four areas buyers have told eBay are most important to them include those that sellers have least control over.

Delivery time in particular depends which day of the week a buyer purchases. Everyone has the buyer asking on a Monday morning where is the item they paid for at 5.30pm on the previous Friday - They're unlikely to receive the item until the Tuesday but in the buyers eyes they've already waited four days and Tuesday will be the fifth. Alternatively the buyer that pays at 11am on Tuesday could quite well receive their goods at 9am on Wednesday with delivery in less than 24 hours. In both cases the service from the seller was identical, but a very different experience from the buyer's viewpoint.

Communication is another debateable rating - is this ranking based on answers to Ask Seller a Question, or on information such as the end of item email, PayPal paid emails and despatch notifications? How will a seller even know if their buyers are rating them poorly because they send so many emails buyers class it as spam? Even accuracy of item description is subjective - judging many questions sent to sellers buyers pay such scant attention to them they'll barely remember what they read most of the time ;-)

The UK announcement is missing the promise from Cobbs' Feedback 2.0 announcement that feedback over two years old would be retired "Since it is less relevant than more recent feedback". The feedback scores would be unaffected but the feedback percentage rating would be based on recent feedback only with old negative (and positive!) comments being archived.

Cobb in his speech went to great pains to emphasise Feedback 2.0 would not be introduced in the US until thoroughly tested and all problems resolved in the test countries: "We will monitor its impact, we'll make adjustments if we need to, we'll continue to read it, and then, assuming it goes as well as we plan, we'll begin to roll out in the US." He appears to have forgotten by this stage that he opened his speech with a show of inclusiveness welcoming eBayers from around the globe. Cobb leaves the question hanging as to why he needs to assure US sellers that countries such as the UK will be used as guinea pigs, ensuring US sellers feedback won't be adversely affected if eBay got it wrong! Ah yes, he's president of eBay North America and doesn't know what goes on overseas much less care.

Finally eBay are changing the page title from "Member Profile" to "Feedback Profile". We've seen hints that some of the "My World" features from the US are to roll in the UK in the near future. It will be interesting to see if these are introduced at the same time as Feedback 2.0, certainly they're long overdue.

Ebooked

If you've ever felt tempted by an ebook on eBay, then (1) there are better way of earning feedback, and (2) Floodle.net now posts this nonsense so you don't have to pay for it.

(For the sake of fairness, I will say that there are a few people selling very worthwhile original material in ebooks via eBay, but they are few and far between.)

Via the always-wonderful Seth Godin.

Feedback 2.0: I have seen the future and it's full of whinging

Without a doubt picking up on the "Web 2.0" buzzword, this is eBay's attempt to "update" their feedback system. Buyers will be able to rate sellers on a variety of specific aspects of the transaction, including accuracy of description, shipping time, communication and shipping and handling charges.

This has been suggested by eBay, trialled and surveyed for months now, and it was pretty obvious it was coming. Sellers, it must be said, are almost universally against the proposals. This is a system that will be largely used by buyers with a gripe. Happy buyers will leave a positive and that will be that - only those with a complaint that their first class shipping took three whole days, or that they emailed at 4am and didn't get an immediate response, are likely to bother with detailed feedback.

Of course, this will be the same for all sellers. Just as now, the average eBay seller has better than 99% positive feedback, detailed feedback will find its average level. Sadly, this is likely to be rather lower than 99%, which might give the impression that eBay sellers have suddenly all got much worse.

At the same time, percentage scores will be calculated over the last two years only, not from the beginning, thus "archiving" old negatives. No doubt this will be a much more popular move!

But really, one has to ask what the point of these changes are. Will they make eBay any more money directly? No. Will they make sellers more money, so making eBay more money indirectly? No. Will they really make buyers feel more secure? I doubt it. Who goes in to an eBay transaction thinking "oh well, if the seller doesn't ship for a week, I can give them a black mark for it"? This is simply a system that rewards the whingers.

It's also likely to mean the end of most sellers leaving feedback first. And that is something that buyers will not like one little bit.

A bad idea

Sometimes I really hate being right.

More in the morning when I have un-lost my temper.

Just check my feedback

Via Molly's Diary, we found this rather cute widget to allow you to display your feedback on a non-eBay website. Great for building confidence in your website shoppers, or just showing off on a personal site!

Feedback changes announced at the Town Hall on eBay radio

The last Town Hall of the year was held yesterday in the US. This is a chance for eBay members to ask general questions regarding eBay and for the first time was broadcast live as a radio phone in. Feedback as ever featured highly with two main developments being looked at

26 minutes in the question was asked now that buyers feedback is removed if they don't respond to an unpaid item dispute (UPI) when will the same happen with sellers. Although no specific time frame was given it's likely that during 2007 sellers that fail to respond to item not received disputes (INR) that their feedback will be removed similarly from buyers profiles. This is rather more complicated as the INR process moves across to the PayPal site if that was the method of payment.

53 minutes in "What's eBays plans as far as forgiving negative feedback older than a year?" was asked. An interesting question and even more interesting answer

This is something we're looking into. I wouldn't get into the time frame but as we're now 11 years old and grown as a site and changed as a site this is something we're studying. I think this is the right thing to do as a seller has proved their worth over an extended period of time that this is something that we should look to retire. This is a live discussion that we're inclined to try and figure out for sellers and for buyers.

Eleven years is a long time to carry around a red blot on your copybook, and it is possible in the future these blemishes may be removed in time. Personally I can't see what all the fuss is about - no one is perfect and to strive for 100% feedback is an impossible aim. You can't please all the people all of the time so why not just accept that if you trade enough on eBay sooner or later you'll get a neg?

It's easier to give

Feedback: we all love to get it (the positive kind, anyway). But leaving it can rapidly become a chore. How many A+++s do you want to cut and paste in one lifetime anyway? That's where Merlin Instant Feedback can help.

Instant Feedback can work in one of two ways, according to the way you like to leave feedback. It can automatically check your feedback and post positives for those who have left them for you, choosing from a selection of comments you input. It will also warn, via a heart-stopping screen pop-up, of negative and neutral feedback. If there are those for whom you don't want to leave any feedback - troublesome buyers, or those strange people who request no feedback - they can be added to a 'blacklist' and ignored.

Alternatively, manual feedback functions allow you to select from items paid for over a set period of time, either to leave them feedback or to email buyers asking them to leave it for you.

IF is unique in being a stand-alone feedback processor: all other similar products that I know of come as part of an auction management bundle, which are often costly, may not suit the way you run your particular business, and probably have a fairly steep learning curve. You can be up and leaving comments with IF in just a few minutes. And at just US$19.95 to download, it's money well spent.

Developer Jason Novak told me that there are more than a thousand eBayers currently using the software. Leaving feedback manually would take me on average twenty minutes a day, so in the two years I've been using it, that's ten whole days that Instant Feedback has given me back. Life really is too short to spend it pasting feedback.

eBay changing feedback system?

Earlier this year, eBay surveyed some users on possible changes to the feedback system. These would replace the current simple postive, neutral or negative choices with an Amazon-style five-point scale, rating accuracy of description, fairness of shipping charges, seller communication and so on seperately.

Unannounced, it appears that these changes are now being tested on the .com site.

To give buyers the opportunity to provide more details about their experiences, we're testing a feature in Feedback. We encourage you to leave detailed seller ratings, but during this trial period these ratings will not have any impact on sellers' Feedback scores and will not be shared with other users. Learn more.

Rate the seller on the details of the transaction.
How accurate was the item description?
How satisfied were you with the seller's communication?
How quickly did the seller ship the item?
How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?

Note: Each detailed rating is optional. Rate the seller only on the criteria that apply to the transaction.

More news as we get it.

Via Tuliptools.com.