is feedback finished?

[the-kazbar]

Each month less and less people bother to leave feedback.

ebay is more willing to remove feedback now than ever before. 

Buyers can only receive positive.

Sellers with terrible feedback still get purchased from.

etc etc etc

It just doesn't seem to be as important as it once was and millions of people happily shop on websites, that have no feedback system, every day.

Has the usefulness of feedback, in its present state, had its run?

Personally I would like it changed to a transaction count for both buyers and sellers.

Buyers would rate a transaction (possibly with a rank out of 10) and the seller would receive an overall satisfaction rating garnered from an average of all rankings.

It would be quick and should be compulsory.

Buyers pages would show the average satisfaction rating left for others.

Buyers could opt out of seeing items in searches from sellers whose rankings fall below a set level and sellers could block buyers who left rankings below their desired level.

The comments can go altogether. Sellers would not rate buyers at all.

What do you think? Has feedback had its run? How would you change it?

[2106greencat]

What about adding the number of unpaid strikes next to number of bid retractions on buyers feedback page Dave ???

YES YES YES

[the-kazbar]

@the-kazbar

Sure I have ideas, plenty of them does not mean I want to share them for nothing or agree with

That is just one small idea but hey im shore you,ll find something that your not happy with about it.

Aren't you just a little ray of sunshine? 😄

If you don't want to discuss feedback then I can't really understand why you are commenting in this thread.

I have been nothing but positive about looking for solutions to the feedback issue here on ebay.

It is certainly not me that is just shooting down others ideas every chance they get 😉

[***super_nova***]

Sure I have ideas, plenty of them does not mean I want to share them for nothing or agree with those ideas that make no sense.

It was called 3 strikes and your out. Simple effective and deserved for those who want to play I bid but dont want to pay game. after all if they dont want to pay there of no use anyway.

But with some modification. it would work like this 3 x 3.

Meaning if you get a NPB found against you 3 times your out for 3mths your name address and Ip banned,

Not for life like they originally did. Sure they can go rig a false one at a diferent location but its a hassel for them.

Then on there second chance if they get 3 strikes they then again are banned not for 3mths but 6mths.

  What you are suggesting would mean considerable expense in administering, and policing, and remember that people move around.  Not to mention that many non payers are young kids possibly sharing a house, and your scheme would effectively chuck off eBay all flatmates of the NPB, or whole family if the daughter or son did not pay couple of times. 

The cost of NPB to sellers is minimal, it is much less than stock damage, shop lifting and not collected lay-bys are for B&M store.

I have actually relaxed my NPB blocks from 2 or more in 12 months to 2 or more in 6 months.  I have had somebody who paid immediately, and all around it was pleasant transaction, yet when i latter looked at her FB to see what else she bought I found that she had several false positives for non payment.  Obviously she did not have strikes for them, but do I care?  No, I only care that i made a sale and got paid, and as it is well over 6 months ago now, there is unlikely going to be any hassle about that transaction.  That was the time I relaxed my blocks, and decided to take the chance; rather risk occasional non payment than to be losing sales.

[beach_and_home]

If we had a shopping cart there would be no more non-payers. That is a much simpler solution than worrying about strikes and all that.

[sprinklespowerpuff]

Beach, I'm a buyer only as most of you on the boards would know. I have said on previous threads about non-payers, along with a couple of others, that a cart system as you stated also would be the way to go. I believe that option is available on the USA site so why could Ebay not institute that here as well for sellers who are sick of all the change of mind, outbid everyone else then not pay so-called "buyers" etc, etc, etc?. The item then stays "on the shelf" and available to genuine buyers not tied up languishing unable to be sold until a non-payment dispute or mutual cancellation is opened.

[beach_and_home]

The thing that I like about the shopping cart is that it is a well known concept. That is what you have on most other websites. Then buyers come on here and don't understand why it is an issue that they clicked on 'buy now' but don't really want it. They are used to how other websites work. I have softened quite a bit lately on how I feel about non-payers because I'm beginning to understand that it is the ebay system that is wrong, not the buyers.

[digital*ghost]

I think a shopping cart would definitely help, but the bulk of NPBs I get aren't newbies, some of them have been on eBay for years and have well over 1000 FB, so they know how the system works, and they know exactly what they're doing when they confirm a purchase. 

Of course, if we had a cart system, it would also eliminate some of the problems that arise when using immediate payment required, and adding items to a cart, confirming them at checkout then paying for them before the order is made is definitely now much more intuitive than commit to buy, remove stock 'from the shelf', pay... sometime before a NPB dispute closes, if at all. 

[***super_nova***]

Shopping cart is a great idea BUT it is only useful as non-payer protection for BIN items.  If they buy stuff in auction, the auction is finished; how would having a cart help with non - payer?  Of-course, you could have system where immediate payment would be required and if not received within certain time the item would be automatically offered to the second bidder........  Well, that is not such a great idea either;  what about people who cannot be at their computer when the auction is ending?  Or people who wish to bid for more items from the same seller?  Or who bid 2 days before pay day and will pay in 2 days time? 

[2106greencat]

Aren't you just a little ray of sunshine? 😄

If you don't want to discuss feedback then I can't really understand why you are commenting in this thread.

I have been nothing but positive about looking for solutions to the feedback issue here on ebay.

It is certainly not me that is just shooting down others ideas every chance they get 😉

Well said. 🙂

Earlier I may have sounded like I shot you down, and came up with nothing better, not intentional, but I honestly can't think of anything that would be fair that could be enforced.

Having said that, I really do not understand why eBay will not make visible to all sellers a buyers strikes.

Ok, feedback can be retaliatory - but a non payer is a non payer, and a strike is a strike, issued by eBay for a VALID reason.

So why is it strikes are invisible, when sellers have neg's fully on display ?

and not all of those neg's are valid as we sellers all know!

[digital*ghost]

Shopping cart is a great idea BUT it is only useful as non-payer protection for BIN items.  If they buy stuff in auction, the auction is finished; how would having a cart help with non - payer?  Of-course, you could have system where immediate payment would be required and if not received within certain time the item would be automatically offered to the second bidder........  Well, that is not such a great idea either;  what about people who cannot be at their computer when the auction is ending?  Or people who wish to bid for more items from the same seller?  Or who bid 2 days before pay day and will pay in 2 days time? 

eBay's own proposed solution to that was to make a version of immediate payment required on auction items, whereby the funds would be deducted after the auction has ended, with the buyer being made aware of this possibility (and thus agreeing to it) upon bidding, and would have included direct debit from a bank account if that's how the buyer wished to pay.

That in itself is fraught with complications, mostly due to people bidding on multiple items to take advantage of combined postage discounts, and/or instances where someone is outbid but becomes the winning bidder at a later stage due to withdrawn bids, but that may be able to be solved perhaps if the debit did not occur until a seller-initiated invoice. 

Probably a moot point, as I can't actually see that being implemented.