Ebay lowering insertion fees, and raising final value fees!

[lemoncurry]

i apologize if i've missed an explanation, but i still don't understand why a non-paying bidder should be exempt from receiving a negative feedback.

 

The argument goes: Buyers whine when they don't get immediate feedback for simply paying, which eBay says hurts sales. Non-paying bidders will get kicked off soon enough, so negging them doesn't accomplish anything anyway.

 

New. improved seller protection is supposed to make up for the anticipated increase in scamming buyers.

 

I myself am on the fence whether I agree with this logic. I imagine I will go to leaving immediate glowing feedback along the lines of "Thanks for paying!"

 

I hope they don't take away the ability to leave follow up comments.

[classics]

I have a feeling this 'buyers can only receive positive feedback' is a bit of a red herring to distract people from the massive fee increases.

 

I think its very likely this part of the policy will be modified or eliminated, but the fee increases will remain.

 

Steve

[Captain Beard]

What's the point of having "positive only feedback" anyway?

Why not just eliminate feedback for buyers altogether?

 

As a seller, I can't think of a reason to leave feedback anymore if it means exactly nothing, dig?

That's why I never left feedback for Half.com sales -- it was pointless. There was essentially nothing a buyer could do wrong, so why waste my time?

[lemoncurry]

I agree, I'd rather buyers have no feedback than have them getting angry about not getting it quick enough...

[+batari]

EDIT: Oops, I was wrong... Carry on, nothing to see here

Edited February 5, 2008 by batari

[Tickled_Pink]

I agree, I'd rather buyers have no feedback than have them getting angry about not getting it quick enough...

Had one of those idiots a few weeks ago. I often took a little while to update feedback but this guy was so f***ing impatient. It was also the way he demanded it that made me decide not to bother giving him any.

 

Like I said on another thread, I'm done with eBay ... the new changes have just reinforced my position.

[Captain Beard]

I agree, I'd rather buyers have no feedback than have them getting angry about not getting it quick enough...

Had one of those idiots a few weeks ago. I often took a little while to update feedback but this guy was so f***ing impatient. It was also the way he demanded it that made me decide not to bother giving him any.

I hate hate HATE it when customers e-mail asking me to leave feedback.

It's annoying but it's also just kinda pathetic. If your life hinges on getting praise from a stranger over an exchange of goods... well... get a life. Positive feedback for buyers is essentially worthless, yet some folks just seem to need that "point" to fill their otherwise empty existence.

 

I once had a customer who took a week to send PayPal payment, sent outrageously detailed instructions on how to properly ship their item and then e-mailed every day for a week asking why that LP I'd shipped Media Mail hadn't arrived yet. When it did, they immediately e-mailed asking for positive feedback. I ignored them. The next day, another e-mail. I responded that the transaction had NOT been a positive one for me and that if I left any feedback at all, it would have to be a neutral, but I saw no reason to mess with their feedback so I had chosen to leave none. Their response was to leave me a negative for being "unreasonable."

[Inky]

All IM gonna say is that Bidiots! needs to make a comeback big time.

[atarian63]

I have a feeling this 'buyers can only receive positive feedback' is a bit of a red herring to distract people from the massive fee increases.

 

I think its very likely this part of the policy will be modified or eliminated, but the fee increases will remain.

 

Steve

 

I'll just leave my negative comment very obvious way in their "positive" feedback. If ebay holds my money, I'll refuse to ship till funds are released or file a non paying bidder against the buyer and let the buyer take it up with fleabay

[supercat]

BTW, another thing I've often thought with eBay is that they should insist upon hosting pictures, and such hosting should be provided for in the insertion fee, or else provide a picture validation service.

 

Otherwise, if someone hosts an auction for a NIB cartridge with an off-site photo showing a bright shiny new-looking box, and then when they ship they replace the photo with a crummy beat-up box which they actually ship, unless eBay has kept a copy of the photos in question it would be difficult to show whether (1) the seller pulled a bait-and-switch with the photo, or (2) the buyer saw the crummy photo, bought the product anyway, and decided to claim the seller pulled a bait-and-switch when he actually hadn't.

 

If eBay doesn't want to host the photos themselves, they could provide a picture validation service which would allow someone to save a copy of the ad, including pictures, digitally signed by eBay. I can't think of any way that could work without some sort of client-side software (so the buyer could ensure the signatures were legit), but it might be possible to do something useful in Flash or Java. If eBay took that approach, it could reduce its own storage requirements to something like 40 bytes/picture (four byte ID, four byte timestamp, 32-byte hash code). The biggest problem I would see would be preventing any proxy servers from downsampling pictures to improve transfer rates (though that sort of thing isn't as common as it used to be, I don't think)

Edited February 9, 2008 by supercat

[+wood_jl]

The only time a seller needs to leave negative feedback for a buyer is because of nonpayment. What the hell else can a buyer do but pay his bill?

 

If one of the many unscrupulous sellers sends you a PIECE OF SHIT, and you paid immediately, isn't that deserving of negative feedback? If it is, should you - the buyer and injured party - be worried about NEGATIVE RETALIATORY FEEDBACK??? I think not. Negative retaliatory feedback is a venue for dishonest sellers - with childish tendencies - to throw barbs at people they've screwed over. If that wasn't the case in many instances, this likely would not have been brought to Ebay's attention.

[DreamTR]

The only time a seller needs to leave negative feedback for a buyer is because of nonpayment. What the hell else can a buyer do but pay his bill?

 

If one of the many unscrupulous sellers sends you a PIECE OF SHIT, and you paid immediately, isn't that deserving of negative feedback? If it is, should you - the buyer and injured party - be worried about NEGATIVE RETALIATORY FEEDBACK??? I think not. Negative retaliatory feedback is a venue for dishonest sellers - with childish tendencies - to throw barbs at people they've screwed over. If that wasn't the case in many instances, this likely would not have been brought to Ebay's attention.

 

 

What else can a buyer do?

 

Let me ask you this. If a guy comes into a store, pays for his game, then reads the back of the game and realizes it's not for the system he bought it for, starts yelling tirades at the manager, and throws things in the store, and threatens employees, would you call that person a "good" customer?

 

By that definition there are no "bad" customers, only bad sellers, which is not the case.

 

I see buyers leaving negative feedback all the time for not reading descriptions thoroughly, and complaining about shipping taking 5 days after they purchased it (that one shocked me, the game ARRIVED 5 days after they purchased it).

 

And of course, everyone has their own view. I buy a ton of stuff on eBay and I sell a ton of stuff on eBay, so I can feel this from both ends. Most people complaining either do one or the other, but not both in bulk.