Will eBay Suffer From Feedback Change?

Updated:13:53, Thursday February 07, 2008

Questions are being asked over the future of eBay after the Online auction giant announced that sellers would no longer be able to leave negative feedback about buyers.

The current feedback system will change in May, and while buyers will still be able to leave negative feedback about a seller if goods do not come up to scratch, sellers will not be able to leave similar feedback if a buyer fails to pay.

Many sellers have vowed to go on strike in protest, while others are preparing to leave eBay as a result.

Power seller James Wakefield told Sky News Online: "High volume sellers are spending thousands of pounds in fees and are not getting the customer service.

"They are looking to channel through other areas and I've been forced to do that."

Ebay has a system of allowing sellers to issue non-payment strikes against people who fail to pay for goods, and receiving two of those within a short time stops people from bidding further.

But Mr Wakefield said the system was "not satisfactory" and that negative feedback was "one of the only mechanisms" available to him if a buyer was proving problematic.

Ebay said that as a result of the changes, new procedures to help sellers would be introduced.

A spokesman said: "It will help good sellers. Buyers can have far greater confidence to leave honest and upfront feedback and if sellers are offering good service they will stand out even more."

He said that if a seller reports a bad buyer, and the buyer fails to respond or is judged by eBay to have acted unfairly, then any negative feedback posted by that buyer will be removed.

Chris Dawson, who also sells extensively on eBay and writes about the company on his Tamebay blog, believes that eBay's move is the right one.

He told Sky News Online that the reason eBay is so successful is that it has a large number of buyers, describing them as "the most important commodity it has to offer.

"When a buyer receives negative or neutral feedback then that buyer's activity stops or reduces, so it's quite a serious thing because it loses the whole site a customer."

One of eBay's reasons for making the change is the issue of retaliatory feedback - a buyer will often leave negative feedback about a seller and then receive negative feedback in response.

Mr Dawson said: "Buyers are now scared to leave feedback, they've not been leaving truthful feedback if they have had a bad time.

"For good sellers who give good service there is nothing to worry about - the people that are worried are the people who have left feedback on receipt of feedback. That is the cycle that eBay is trying to break."

He added removing the negative feedback restriction on potential buyers was no different to owning a high street store, saying: "I can't tell if you walk in off the street if you are a good or bad customer."

 

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