eBay Changes Feedback. Here's Why Sellers Hate It

by: DevilishlySarky

When I get one of those feedbacks

The ones that either complain that the sky was blue , when it was er ,,,,, blue
or complains about something already highlighted in the listing

My standard reply is
Your poor feedback says more about you , than it does about me

So far , never  had any issues with leaving that

by: plcombs

I rarely if ever leave feedback, couldn't care less about it. Send me the stuff I paid for and we're good.  

by: Jono77

It's a double edged sword.  I'm currently dealing with an eBay seller who sent me damaged goods. I suggested a partial refund of the amount it would cost the seller to pay to have it returned but the seller insists on a full refund upon return of goods.

He has also said that he can resell it for more because he made a mistake when he listed it... It would be hard to explain all the above in 80 characters.

I also think that  500 characters leaves them more room to trip themselves up. But eBay are now saying that feedback is a matter of opinion and will not remove any unless they libelous or insulting.

Reviews of the product that are not meant for the seller will be a massive problem that I can't see eBay marshalling. I've seen hundreds of customer reviews which are meant for the seller on Amazon and on eBay.

I just tried to leave feedback but it will only allow 80 characters. Not 500.

by: ySirTinLee

On the other hand, a buyer can now be more precise about the transaction when leaving positive feedback.  I've left 1 negative and 2 neutral out of over 600 tranactions.  That means I could have added more positive information to over 500 transactions.  However, I agree, Ebay staff is a joke.  I was contacted by ebay awhile back and the email message was in Chinese. WTF.

by: wrslss1222

Once again, and as it has been for years, eBay sides with buyers more than sellers.  I personally have had conversations with eBay reps about this and the thinking is that if a buyer doesn't buy and eBay doesn't create a world where the buyer doesn't feel safe than there would be no sales.  I have argued, an got no where, that without sellers there will be no buyers and therefore no fees for eBay to survive.

by: Jono77

@Covid-20
I have experienced the exact same thing many times and nearly always with Chinese sellers. When buying clothes they either send cheap badly made imitations that look nothing like their product images or they send incorrect sizes followed by least three or four messages - one a day over a week asking you you if you will accept a 10% refund, then a 20% refund then 50% refund and so on, when you complain. They don't even acknowledge what you say to them.

"Why would I need a pair of half price trousers that do not resemble what I paid for and don't even fit me"

I'm pretty sure that this is their business model - it's a way to shift crap. So many buyers probably can't be bothered to go through the laborious process of getting a refund and just bin it. I know many friends and relatives that will no longer use eBay.

We know you read this blog so take heed eBay! You are turning eBay into a damaged and counterfeit goods outlet.  

by: Jono77

@Covid-20
Oh I forgot to say. My neg feedback is for the Chinese sellers in my above post is nearly always removed!  

by: HardWorkingSeller

This is bad news.  It makes no difference to sellers leaving feedback as that should be left as soon as the order is placed (and not held back to 'trade' with the buyer later).  So for that 80 characters is probably more that you need to say ''thanks for the order''.  And most people just auto-post a generic comment.

For the buyer's side, now they get the opportunity to try and take up as much screen space as they can with vast amounts of rambling, irrelevant and probably inaccurate comments.

80 characters was plenty to get the gist of the issue - and a seeing buyer who couldn't perform the analysis to create an intelligible concise comment was a clue to the truth of the matter.

I can't see how this is a higher priority than fixing things that *are* broken, or how it moves eBay towards being the seller platform of choice.  Just another kick in the teeth.

by: LasVagueness

480 characters of embellishment.  

by: LasVagueness

*420

by: Bparty

I dont understand why you are buying clothes or parts from Chinese sellers. Plenty of clothing and auto parts dealers in the US, even for foreign cars.  I know you have to look hard for them on ebay, but at least on Ebay you have a way to tell as opposed to Amazon or soon to be Walmart.

by: Runs.With.Scissors

I wonder if I can leave my a 500 character fb reply like this:
Sorry
you
left
negative
feedback
for
delivery
time
as
we
shipped
on
the
same
day
you
ordered
whut
kind
of
effing
loser
does
this
I
wonder
?
(rhetorical)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
LOLR>

by: NorthCoast

So we will start to see 1, maybe 2 feedbacks per page.  How many scroll, click, scroll, clicks will people actually perform to determine if this person is someone they want to buy from or accept an offer from?   For small sellers with infrequent feedback, one negative could stay on the first page for months.  

by: Runs.With.Scissors

A positive thought:
After receiving bad feedback, leave maximum wordy responses to all subsequent feedbacks, until you feel that the bad feedback
has been sufficiently pushed out of the way on recent pages.
 

by: Runs.With.Scissors

Dear sellers:
Once again, the law of unintended consequences has kicked
in on us, from our new 500 character feedback policy.  Our servers are now overloaded from retrieving and displaying so many feedbacks that are the size of small novels. . . . so, we have determined that sellers must now be limited to only 25 characters, in order to help alleviate our system slowdown.

by: selling stuff

Totally needless change. I will continue to leave the same 80 character FB that I have been leaving for sellers/buyers for years.  

by: Marie

@Runs.With.Scissors

Yes, absolutely because if both the buyer and seller take full advantage of the 500 characters for leaving FB and then the buyer and the seller leave a comment which also has up to 500 characters, one FB could take up to 1500 characters.  Certainly a short story for each FB which is beyond ridiculous and a waste of server space.

by: CanBrit

Given the poor grammatical skills in our world today, I think there's going to be some rather hilarious feedback don't you think?

by: Covid-20

@ Bparty

Uhhhhh, .... when you have a car part listed as NEW for 34.99 matching the exact parameters of your engine and the retail cost at a local auto zone is 189.99, You don't think that's worth a shot??
Also take note, seller states Chino, Ca as a location UNTIL YOU MAKE PAYMENT and then see it come up as "  山东途易商贸有限公司  ". So there's that.

I'm not THAT brainless, and pretty much stay away from ANYTHING mailed from China save that a 2.00 USB cable or something!

by: Sierra

If eBay wanted to allow more space for review comments, 200 characters would have been MORE than enough.