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eBay made a couple of major changes on its marketplace that decrease transparency, which many users say make buying and selling on the site more risky. eBay spokesperson Ryan Moore said the recent changes to customer feedback pages and advanced search were made based on customer input along with recently announced site enhancements. But it's difficult to find eBay users talking positively of the changes on the eBay discussion boards.

As part of the first change, eBay removed key information from users feedback pages. Being able to review a merchant's feedback is important, especially on a marketplace like eBay, but last week with no warning, eBay removed the ability to see the item title, description and price of the items sellers have sold. EcommerceBytes confirmed this was a deliberate policy change and not a glitch.

The move is one of the most controversial changes to feedback since eBay introduced anonymous Detailed Seller Ratings and stopped allowing sellers to give buyers neutral or negative feedback ratings.

Buyers are particularly concerned about the lack of transparency on feedback pages of sellers from whom they are considering purchasing. They will no longer be able to see the types of items sellers have sold in the past, and some say they will be hampered in attempting to gauge the honesty of sellers receiving complaints from past buyers.

eBay rolled out the second change on Monday of this week when again giving no warning, it removed the ability for users to research bidders using eBay's Advanced Search.

A seller wrote with apparent cynicism that the latest change would result in fewer cancelled bids by sellers and would improve eBay's sell through rate, making more money for eBay. Likewise, they wrote, shill bidding drives up the price of items, increasing eBay's commission.

We asked eBay for confirmation on whether Monday's change to Advanced Search was a policy change, and if so, why eBay made the change, and how sellers could research bidders without the search by bidders feature.

eBay's Moore responded with the following statement:

"We recently made changes to customer feedback pages as well as advanced search. We've based these changes on customer input along with recently announced site enhancements that engage our customers in new and exciting ways while providing more choice and control over their account information. We continue to evolve our site experience, connect buyers with great value and enormous selection, and provide sellers with tools and innovation that drive their business on eBay."

EcommerceBytes followed up with additional questions, asking which type of customer requested that eBay take away the ability for bidders to research buyers on the Feedback pages and the ability for sellers to research bidders in Advanced Search, to which Moore replied, "The change was made based on buyer input."

In response to the question of whether eBay no longer wanted people to research bidders, he replied, "We give everybody the ability to research a buyer's activity based on the item they are interested in. (I.e. bid history page)."

How much did the "search by bidder" on Advanced Search get used? Moore said, "We've experienced low engagement on this functionality historically."

EcommerceBytes also asked, "The capability to search by bidder still exists, will eBay be removing that functionality entirely from eBay.com? And will eBay be removing that ability internationally or just on eBay.com?" to which Moore replied, "these changes apply to the US site."

Examples of how eBay sellers used the Search by Bidder feature on Advanced Search is found in the accompanying blog post. Comment on the EcommerceBytes Blog.

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About the author:

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.

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