Just as ebay sellers thought their landlords has learned something from their past and will dig in to attract sellers, here comes the latest blow to that fantacy. eBay has upped their rating system to only allow seller to leave nothing but "positive" feedback to buyers. The new system, dubbed the ebay's way of saying "customer is always right", no longer allows sellers to leave negative or even neutral about buyers and the new policy, since implementation, has undoubtfuly created a tidal wave across all forums. The initial reaction? Of course sellers hate it.
Katie of verticalwebmedia.com has done a coverage of this new system and published on August issue of Internet Retailer magazine with related stories from ebay's third party developer, ChannelAdvisor:
As eBay tries to attract more buyers, it upsets sellers with new ratings system
With its growth slipping, eBay Inc. has been making changes to lure
more buyers to eBay.com. In the process, however, it’s managed to upset
many of its sellers. And those sellers are speaking out on blogs,
forums and other social communities telling tales of how the changes
have hurt their businesses.
The
debate focuses on eBay’s new seller ratings including modifications to
its customer feedback system, which no longer allows sellers to leave
negative or neutral feedback about buyers—only positive. Merchants say
the policy leaves them vulnerable to crooked consumers who can make
unfair demands—such as a shipping refund or partial refund after the
sale—and threaten to leave a negative rating if merchants don’t comply.
Merchants also think the policy change to count a neutral rating
by a buyer as a negative when calculating the seller’s positive
feedback rating is unfair.
Those and other changes worry Erik R.
Faraldo, co-owner of cell phone accessory store Wireless Unlimited with
sales of about $60,000 a month. His eBay feedback rating fell from
99.9% to a 99.2% with the “neutral as a negative” change, he says.
Many
of eBay’s relatively small sellers are also concerned about the
company’s apparent shift toward more fixed-price sales by large
retailers such as Buy.com, which is doing about $3 million in sales a
month on eBay after starting to list about 500,000 items on eBay.com
earlier this year, according to Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor Corp,
a company that offers services to help retailers sell through eBay and
other e-marketplaces. The ability of large merchants to afford services
like free shipping can make them show up higher in eBay’s new site
search feature.
While it’s clear merchants aren’t happy, both
eBay and others who work closely with the world’s largest marketplace
say increased focus on buyers is necessary to fuel growth. Gross
merchandise sales, the total value of goods sold on eBay, grew 13% in
2007 over 2006, down from year-earlier growth of 19%. Moreover, its
fastest growth was in overseas markets.
“If you look back five years, eBay grew so rapidly that it took its
eye off its core U.S. market,” says Wingo. “They bought PayPal and
Skype but didn’t keep their core marketplace up to date with what
happened in the rest of e-commerce. It’s all about the customer
experience in 2008. There have been more changes in the last three
months on eBay than in the last four years. And there are more changes
to come.” --------- Internet Retailer, August Issue