Negative Feedback on EBay’s Feedback Changes

It takes both buyers and sellers to make a market. But many experienced eBay sellers are up in arms this week over changes eBay has implemented to its feedback system that appear tilted heavily in favor of buyers, and perhaps also in favor of higher fees for eBay.

“I am so angry I am about to pop a vessel,” wrote a reader whom I know to generally be rather unflappable. “This week eBay implemented changes to their mutual feedback system that have essentially destroyed it. After working for four years on my hobby business, the last two as a Powerseller, doing everything within my power as an ethical seller to maintain a 100% feedback rating, it’s destroyed. As it is now, the seller is left with virtually no recourse, and I assure you there are psycho, vindictive, dishonest buyers out there that are going to take advantage of these changes. The number of reports of buyers trying to extort sellers is growing in the feedback forum by the hour. This is the most unbelievable boneheaded management decision I think I have ever seen an organization like eBay make.”

EBay announced the changes to its feedback system back in January, and then earlier this month detailed how the program was going to work. The mutual feedback system wasn’t working well, eBay said, because buyers were afraid to leave honest feedback — sellers would retaliate with negative feedback of their own. So eBay’s solution is essentially to eliminate the seller’s ability to file anything but positive feedback about a buyer and to change the way the buyer’s “positive feedback” percentage is calculated.

“They have set up the system so neutral feedback counts as much as negative feedback against the seller’s rating,” the reader wrote. “So as a seller, I am now open to threats and extortion and unethical pressure from buyers. I have absolutely no viable recourse if a buyer chooses to give me negative feedback and it is unjustified. The feedback system worked when it went both ways, there were mutual pressures to work out any difficulties. Now it is totally one-sided, and the seller can be targeted with unethical behavior by unscrupulous buyers. And this is proven, I think, in all the reports already surfacing of extortion and threats by buyers.”

EBay’s forums have been filled in the last few days with seller horror stories. Some buyers who had won auctions weeks ago had apparently delayed payment to wait for the new rules to kick in, and are now demanding discounts and positive feedback from the seller. Otherwise, the threat is that the buyer will destroy the seller’s positive feedback percentage without any fear of retaliation.

Since buyer fraud has always been a major problem for eBay, why would the company change the balance of power so radically? Many, including the reader, think it has everything to do with eBay wanting to improve its own bottom line. “I think there is great truth in reports that this dovetails with eBay’s profit motives. The lower a Powerseller’s score, the more eBay is freed from their promise to lower the fees levied against Powersellers based on high feedback scores. That’s not a big consideration for me personally, but over the last few months I have watched my eBay fees rise from 15 – 18 percent of my gross sales to over 20 percent. And there are reports that, for some, eBay’s fees are hitting 30 percent. It is reaching the point where a seller is really just working to turn all their margin over to eBay.”

After all, perhaps eBay has simply made the calculation that this is something the market – or, more specifically, the sellers in eBay’s market — will bear. “I absolutely believe that eBay knows they have the critical mass of eyes on product, and sellers like me will be hard pressed to find another venue where we can achieve the sales levels for virtually anything that can be achieved on eBay. And they are using that sledgehammer. So

I think they knew EXACTLY what they were doing with this, and they just plan to take the heat until it simmers down, and life goes on, and they rake in ever greater portions of seller margins.”

What’s your feedback on eBay’s feedback changes? Positive, negative, or neutral – all comments are happily accepted. Post them below or write me at Foster@gripe2ed.com.