Governor Marley

I won’t sell on ebay these days, I wanted to but I saw the announcement on the forthcoming changes earlier in the year and decided I didn’t like the policies. Now those policies are kicking in and the reaction is largely negative.

The new feedback changes are in place in Australia and the UK, and they’ll be coming to an ebay venue near you soon, the 19th in North America. The initial response is a tale of woe, there’s much wailing, there’s much gnashing and there’s much mention of eBid.

A few things strike me about this, first of all communication, the sheer number of people complaining about the feedback changes on the UK discussion boards suggests that ebay’s communication doesn’t reach the number of users it should. This is backed up with the new popup message users get when they leave feedback, the message tells users that sellers can no longer leave negative feedback, so that users should be honest with their feedback. This sounds noble, however the impression many have from the message is that it is encouraging them to leave negative feedback. However it all boils down to ebay knowing people don’t read their news messages, why else would they need to include the popup.

Then we have the issue about customer service, ebay have annoyed their customers with this move. This is a bit of a no no in business terms, you don’t go around annoying your customers in this fashion, it’s not a sensible thing to do. Ebay officials have responded that a feedback hub is coming at the end of May, that this may allow unfair feedback to be removed. However it is sheer idiocy on ebay’s part not to have had this facility in place before the changes were made.

The reasons for the feedback changes are well documented. Ebay felt buyers were receiving unfair feedback and this made them leave. Whereas I personally find this hard to believe, that’s what they claim and they should know better than me. Personally I feel buyers leave because when they have a bad experience, ebay don’t help them.

However a negative rating for a seller, means a lot more than a negative rating for a buyer ever did. Under the new policies a seller can be suspended if their feedback hits a certain level, a couple of ignorant buyers will leave a hobby seller suspended for a month and unable to rectify the situation. How many of those hobby sellers who are unfairly negged do ebay think are going to come running back to them with open arms at the end of their suspension? Do ebay realise that hobby sellers are often buyers? Has this thought actually struck the ebay management?

Beyond feedback there’s DSR’s. DSR’s are one of the most absurd ideas for rating seller performance imaginable. Here we have a five star rating system, where anything less than a five is considered bad. The rating guide itself doesn’t say a 4 is bad, but the reality is that a seller who receives all 4’s will be suspended. That’s an awful system and therefore means sellers have to point out to buyers that anything less than a five is harmful. Why have a rating system like that, it’s doomed to failure and totally inaccurate.

On Monday when these changes come to America, there will be many many complaints. Ebay have generally been churlish about complainers, describing them as noise, the vocal minority and trying to imply that those who complain are bad sellers anyway. This simply isn’t true. Some of them just happen to be in situations where they’ve received unfair negs and find themselves teetering on the brink. Meanwhile the scammers gain greater exposure because sellers are being suspended or shutting up shop. The scammers are the major cause of trust issues on ebay, ebay have decided to undermine trust for their decent sellers. The scammers are still there.

Already people are reporting that they’re being faced with feedback extortion, being asked for reductions or else they’ll be negged. Ebay do have a policy on feedback extortion, but sellers have very little faith in it. Read this link for an example of the frustrations sellers have over unfair negs, be warned it contains abusive language. A buyer could also have found themselves in that situation too, previously of course, now only sellers can be in this situation.

The fact of the matter is, ebay have changed policy to try and encourage buyers to stay and hey I’m an ebay buyer, but ebay’s policies have put me off selling. I’m not put off by liars, scammers and cheats, I’m put off by ebay policy and I’m not the only one. Ebay need to consider very carefully what they’re doing here, good customer relations are important in any line of business.