eBay Springs Feedback Surprise on Sellers

eBay made changes to how users leave feedback, but there was no mention of the change in the latest Seller Update, nor did eBay announce the new feature when it launched late last week.

On Friday, an eBay moderator confirmed in a thread on the discussion boards that what a seller described as a new feedback flow they encountered was an intentional change, not a glitch. 

"The old format had ALL of my pre-typed Feedback available," the seller wrote in part. "The first time I saw this and clicked the Positive button I got a canned eBay Feedback in the window that I was NOT able to change and what it said was not what I ever would have typed, unacceptable." The seller included screenshots of the changes.

The eBay moderator responded, "You should still have the option to use your pre-filled feedback by accessing your feedback history and clicking on the feedback link on the bottom of the page."

But the seller, a frequent commentor on the eBay boards who goes by the User ID mr_lincoln, said that, as they had explained in their initial post, that would add extra steps to the process of leaving feedback for their buyers. "I do NOT want to go through the extra steps of going back to my FB history to leave multiple FBs when I can do them one at a time when I print labels."

The new flow provides generic prefilled comments, which one seller called ludicrous. "The prefilled comments have nothing to do with the actual transaction and it is difficult for users to enter their own personal comments."

Another seller said the old feedback system had not been broken, adding, "There are so many other SERIOUS problems on the eBay site that are in desperate need of change -- and the feedback page wasn't on that list."

Another eBay moderator responded to sellers in the thread to say the company was "working on gathering more information about this process and possible opt out options" and would update the thread once they had more details.

As troubling as the change was to some sellers, one pointed to threads written by *buyers* who appeared to be inconvenienced by the changes as well, including one buyer who was suspicious that they were seeing changes due to a virus.

On Saturday, some sellers reported being unable to leave feedback at all.

It's unclear if eBay consulted with any of its buyers and sellers prior to making the change to the feedback flow - and the failure to announce the changes to the feedback flow was clearly troubling to sellers.