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Sellers negative on eBay feedback change
Being unable to rate buyers has some sellers fearing business will suffer; others say the change is overdue
Sweeping changes to eBay announced by the auction site's soon-to-be chief executive were met this week with an attempt by some sellers to organise a "listings strike". Why? Because in front of more than 200 top so-called Power Sellers at eBay's annual eCommerce Forum in Washington, DC, John Donahoe said that eBay was at a crossroads: "We need to redo our playbook, and we need to do it fast."
Several changes are being introduced to benefit top sellers. For example, the ones who get the highest satisfaction ratings will get preferential treatment when users search eBay and will get discounts on the "final value fee" (FVF) - what they pay eBay for each completed sale. Against that, sellers will no longer be able to give buyers negative feedback.
Fear of feedback
It's a fundamental change. When eBay started, buyers and sellers were much the same people, and mutual ratings encouraged trust. But many small sellers have built full-time businesses over the past decade, and they have been joined by some more traditional retailers. Many now sell new goods under the Buy It Now system, rather than by auction. So eBay is becoming less like a giant flea-market and more like an online store.
Following Donahoe on stage in Washington, Bill Cobb, the departing president of eBay US, said the old feedback system wasn't working. "Buyers are more afraid than ever to leave honest, accurate feedback because of the threat of retaliation," he said. Buyers who'd had a bad experience with one seller were less inclined to buy from anyone else on eBay. So from May in the US, he said, "sellers may only leave positive feedback for buyers".
This hasn't gone down well. A survey on the Auctionbytes trade publication site attracted 1,640 reponses: 98.7% said the changes would have a negative effect on their business. And in eBay's Seller Central forum, a husband-and-wife team selling as manchester689 protested: "We work very hard to maintain a 100% record. But this includes being able to vet or weed out idiots. Now that sellers can no longer leave honest appraisals of buyers means that we can no longer pre-vet buyers."
eBay user Mark Kobayashi-Hillary - a blogger, author and outsourcing expert - has a different view. "I think they [eBay] have taken a pragmatic decision as the system was no longer working. A buyer will often not feel it is worth giving negative feedback because it will be reciprocated, leading to them losing their 100% status. It is a dynamic that has ruined the feedback system for years now."
Sue Bailey, a UK-based seller, added a stronger comment to her own post on the Tamebay blog. "Who gives a flying **** if you can neg a buyer? Does Donald Trump/Richard Branson/Jeff Bezos neg buyers? No. Have a think about why that might be."
But it does seem clear that, as manchester689 says, eBay is responding to competition from "that large river in South America". Amazon does not charge sellers for listing products, or for pictures, just a percentage of the value of the sale. By reducing its listing fees, making pictures free and increasing its FVF, eBay is now taking a big step in the same direction. That could also be said of the changes to user feedback. Buyers rate sellers on the Amazon site, but sellers can't rate buyers. Retaliatory feedback is unknown.
It's not clear how long it will take US changes to reach international sites, but there's a clear mandate to improve the buyer experience. However, eBay UK argues that "it would be wrong to say it's all on the buyer's side". The shift to lower listing charges and higher FVFs meant eBay made money when sellers were successful, so their interests were allied.
Also, says eBay UK, eBay would try to weed out bad buyers - the NPBs or "non-paying bidders" in eBay jargon. Sellers could give them "unpaid item strikes", and when they were suspended, their feedback would also be removed. Any "negs" these buyers had given sellers would disappear.
Whether the furore will turn out to be a storm in a teacup remains to be seen, but, notes eBay UK: "We always see 'End of eBay' comments whenever we do something." People don't like change.
Any bids for alternatives?
Whether eBay's top sellers have a realistic alternative is another matter. Chris Dawson, co-owner of Tamebay, says: "Buyers are the most important commodity eBay has. Any site can get sellers: getting buyers is hard. Looking after buyers makes sense." Dawson doesn't bother looking at a buyer's feedback score: "What's the point? I just want their money! In general, if a buyer pays me, I'm happy."
Like many other eBay sellers, Dawson keeps an eye on alternative auction sites, online stores and classifieds, and sometimes offers things for sale to see how they do. The fact that Tamebay has shifted more than 10,000 items on eBay shows that it works, and eBay claims that it's now moving about $60bn (£30bn) worth of merchandise a year. It's come a long way since 1995, when Pierre Omidyar got the thing going by selling a broken laser pointer online.
Some have seen eBay's changes as another example of "The death of self-rule on the internet", the headline of a Financial Times column that claimed "eBay has given up its idealism". eBay had been held up as self-policed virtual state where old-style command-and-control methods had been superseded. Like Wikipedia, it was part of the web 2.0 zeitgeist. But as fiction-writer David Belbin, who also wrote a good guide to eBay, says: "eBay's just part of the retail picture now."
EBay to ban negative seller views
Jack Schofield
The Guardian, Thursday February 21 2008
guardian.co.uk
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
Being unable to rate buyers has some sellers fearing business will suffer; others say the change is overdue
Sweeping changes to eBay announced by the auction site's soon-to-be chief executive were met this week with an attempt by some sellers to organise a "listings strike". Why? Because in front of more than 200 top so-called Power Sellers at eBay's annual eCommerce Forum in Washington, DC, John Donahoe said that eBay was at a crossroads: "We need to redo our playbook, and we need to do it fast."
Several changes are being introduced to benefit top sellers. For example, the ones who get the highest satisfaction ratings will get preferential treatment when users search eBay and will get discounts on the "final value fee" (FVF) - what they pay eBay for each completed sale. Against that, sellers will no longer be able to give buyers negative feedback.
Fear of feedback
It's a fundamental change. When eBay started, buyers and sellers were much the same people, and mutual ratings encouraged trust. But many small sellers have built full-time businesses over the past decade, and they have been joined by some more traditional retailers. Many now sell new goods under the Buy It Now system, rather than by auction. So eBay is becoming less like a giant flea-market and more like an online store.
Following Donahoe on stage in Washington, Bill Cobb, the departing president of eBay US, said the old feedback system wasn't working. "Buyers are more afraid than ever to leave honest, accurate feedback because of the threat of retaliation," he said. Buyers who'd had a bad experience with one seller were less inclined to buy from anyone else on eBay. So from May in the US, he said, "sellers may only leave positive feedback for buyers".
This hasn't gone down well. A survey on the Auctionbytes trade publication site attracted 1,640 reponses: 98.7% said the changes would have a negative effect on their business. And in eBay's Seller Central forum, a husband-and-wife team selling as manchester689 protested: "We work very hard to maintain a 100% record. But this includes being able to vet or weed out idiots. Now that sellers can no longer leave honest appraisals of buyers means that we can no longer pre-vet buyers."
eBay user Mark Kobayashi-Hillary - a blogger, author and outsourcing expert - has a different view. "I think they [eBay] have taken a pragmatic decision as the system was no longer working. A buyer will often not feel it is worth giving negative feedback because it will be reciprocated, leading to them losing their 100% status. It is a dynamic that has ruined the feedback system for years now."
Sue Bailey, a UK-based seller, added a stronger comment to her own post on the Tamebay blog. "Who gives a flying **** if you can neg a buyer? Does Donald Trump/Richard Branson/Jeff Bezos neg buyers? No. Have a think about why that might be."
But it does seem clear that, as manchester689 says, eBay is responding to competition from "that large river in South America". Amazon does not charge sellers for listing products, or for pictures, just a percentage of the value of the sale. By reducing its listing fees, making pictures free and increasing its FVF, eBay is now taking a big step in the same direction. That could also be said of the changes to user feedback. Buyers rate sellers on the Amazon site, but sellers can't rate buyers. Retaliatory feedback is unknown.
It's not clear how long it will take US changes to reach international sites, but there's a clear mandate to improve the buyer experience. However, eBay UK argues that "it would be wrong to say it's all on the buyer's side". The shift to lower listing charges and higher FVFs meant eBay made money when sellers were successful, so their interests were allied.
Also, says eBay UK, eBay would try to weed out bad buyers - the NPBs or "non-paying bidders" in eBay jargon. Sellers could give them "unpaid item strikes", and when they were suspended, their feedback would also be removed. Any "negs" these buyers had given sellers would disappear.
Whether the furore will turn out to be a storm in a teacup remains to be seen, but, notes eBay UK: "We always see 'End of eBay' comments whenever we do something." People don't like change.
Any bids for alternatives?
Whether eBay's top sellers have a realistic alternative is another matter. Chris Dawson, co-owner of Tamebay, says: "Buyers are the most important commodity eBay has. Any site can get sellers: getting buyers is hard. Looking after buyers makes sense." Dawson doesn't bother looking at a buyer's feedback score: "What's the point? I just want their money! In general, if a buyer pays me, I'm happy."
Like many other eBay sellers, Dawson keeps an eye on alternative auction sites, online stores and classifieds, and sometimes offers things for sale to see how they do. The fact that Tamebay has shifted more than 10,000 items on eBay shows that it works, and eBay claims that it's now moving about $60bn (£30bn) worth of merchandise a year. It's come a long way since 1995, when Pierre Omidyar got the thing going by selling a broken laser pointer online.
Some have seen eBay's changes as another example of "The death of self-rule on the internet", the headline of a Financial Times column that claimed "eBay has given up its idealism". eBay had been held up as self-policed virtual state where old-style command-and-control methods had been superseded. Like Wikipedia, it was part of the web 2.0 zeitgeist. But as fiction-writer David Belbin, who also wrote a good guide to eBay, says: "eBay's just part of the retail picture now."
EBay to ban negative seller views
Jack Schofield
The Guardian, Thursday February 21 2008
guardian.co.uk
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
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