| Well, shiver me timbers! EBay made 2 announcements that are causing me to reevaluate my attitudes about eBay management.
Lorrie Norrington, July 10th
Recalculating Feedback percentages without neutrals: Effective in late August, neutrals will no longer be counted as part of the Feedback percentage. This means we will be recalculating Feedback percentages retroactively for users worldwide. In the interim, no one will lose their PowerSeller status as a result of neutrals being included in their Feedback percentage.
Helping you resolve issues and satisfy buyers: By the end of October, we will roll out a new process to help you resolve issues with buyers, even after the buyer has left negative feedback. Everybody makes mistakes – buyers and sellers alike, and buyers should have a mechanism to change feedback if they make a mistake or if the seller rectifies an issue in a timely manner. Unlike with our previous Mutual Feedback Withdrawal system, our new process will enable buyers to change their feedback of the seller, not just withdraw the rating. We’ll provide more details of this new process in the fall.Finally, we’re working to resolve other important issues that eBay sellers have raised over the past several months.
Dinesh Lathi, July 11th
- More Comprehensive Links Policy on Its Way We originally announced that we would start enforcing our new Links policy this month. However, we’re continuing to review the policy and plan to provide you with a comprehensive update around mid-August. This means we will not change our enforcement of the existing policy at this time. Once the new policy is introduced, you’ll have a four week “grace period” to give you time to adjust your listings.
Specified Shipping Not Required Until August – Improved Tools Coming Similarly, we’ve previously told you that starting this month, sellers will need to specify their shipping costs to make sure buyers have a clear idea of what an item’s total cost will be. However, we’ve been working on improving our bulk editing tools to make it easy to update the shipping information within your listings all at once. These will be available in August, so we’re going to delay the enforcement of this policy as well until these are available. Stay tuned for more information as we get closer to launch.
MY VIEWPOINT:
Any 8 year old would ask: Aren’t the neutral and negative the same? I believe some of these decisions, the original one to make the neutral and negative the same, are talked about in brainstorming sessions by eBay employees. Great idea John. Yeah, let’s do it. There seems to be little consideration for the seller - who pays their paycheck. Think of the anguish this has caused many sellers. Grandmother’s trying to supplement their social security checks. Single parents hoping to sell enough to buy groceries for their kids. I only ask, where were the sellers when these decisions were made? This could have been avoided if eBay were more inclusive in their decision making process. i.e. Include the sellers at your meetings!
I just spent 2 hours today revising my about me page and making new graphics so I could be in compliance with their new “no links” policy. Rumor has it - they’ll throw you off eBay if you violate this rule. Probably 500,000 other people have also spent 2 hours adjusting their about me pages. Now that adds up to 1 million hours of manpower that should have been spent listing items for sale on eBay.
I am convinced that the first 6 mo. of this year will show either the earnings or the listings have decreased. I heard a rumor from a very reliable source that said there were 2,000,000 less listings in the first six months of this year as compared to last and that included a half million from userid: Buy.
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Tags: eBay, feedback, Links policies
Posted in eBay, eBay Policies
