Ebay has recently brought in new feedback rules. The most significant ones being in how feedback is calculated and selllers no longer being able to give negative or neutral feedback to buyers. Initially as a seller I hated these rules as I occasionally give negative feedback to buyers and resented the removal of this priviledge, however, after looking at different sellers revised feedback and submitting my first feedback to a buyer for an item I wasn't 100% happy with, I have come to like the rules. Why? because they totally level the playing field for sellers. A side effect of this is that it is now impossible for sellers to tell which buyers cheques will bounce, so I would now advise sellers to wait until the cheque has cleared, whatever the amount involved.

So What are the Changes?

There have been quite a few, but I will talk about the two I consider most important.

1. Changes to how Feedback is calculated.

• The feedback score is calculated on the last 12 months. This means that sellers and buyers who made a mistake years ago will not constantly be reminded of this and can achieve a 100% feedback score again. For me this means that in September, I could get my 100% feedback score again, whereas before the changes, I could never get this.
• Neutrals are included in the score. This has significantly affected some sellers scores as they  have a lot of neutrals. It dropped my score from 99.9 to 99.8.
• This affects both sellers and buyers at the moment, but in time will only affect people who sell. 
• Hence the feedback system is purely a sellers feedback system from now on.

2. Sellers can no longer give negative or neutral feedback to buyers.

Although I hated this at first, I  love it now as it totally levels the playing field for sellers

• It does what it says on the label. Whatever feedback buyers give, sellers cannot give them a negative or neutral score.
• It means that when buyers are looking at a feedback score with the view to buy, they can be assured that the seller doesn't have a high feedback score purely because the people who are unhappy feel too intimidated to leave negative feedback.
• It means that sellers will need to leave positive feedbacks for poor buyers, with negative comments on them or leave none at all.
• It means sellers will have to check feedback comments of buyers to get an idea of their reputation, but will also need to be aware that these may not be complete as many sellers won't give feedback at all.
• This does mean that sellers can no longer check buyers reputation easily and as a direct result my policy for receiving cheques has changed. I will still accept them, but won't send the item until the cheque has cleared as I have no way of telling anymore the good and bad buyers. Sorry buyers!
• I also love it as I am a buyer as well. I want to know that my item will arrive on time, as described etc, the previous system did not allow this.

The results of this

• In 12 months time, every buyer who never sells will have a 100% feedback score.
• Seller will have to rely on ebay to sort out non payers etc.
• Sellers will no longer be so willing to send out items paid for by cheque before the cheque has cleared as they have no way of measuring risk which used to be based on buyers feedback.
• Buyers already have a clearer idea of the real feedback score of sellers, it will take some time to see the true impact, but as they trailed this in America before hand, I presume it works. For high volume sellers the results will be very quick and the bad ones may well go out of business fairly quickly. nb. I have already seen evidence of this for a minority of sellers, most have not had a significant increase, but one I have seen has had a huge increase, in both neutrals and negatives. If they continue like that for much longer they will start to sell much less.
• Sellers of high value items would be advised to check feedback comments of buyers.
• The playing field for sellers in regards to feedback is now level.