eBay has been testing a new feedback feature that reportedly may be rolling out to all users. It enables customers to say whether or not they received the item they purchased on or before a specific estimated delivery date. Yes and no are the only options. There is no field for additional details or comment.
While eBay has let buyers leave more detailed comments on a seller’s shipping time in “detailed seller ratings” in the past, this narrows the scope of the question, and some sellers are concerned that eBay could misrepresent their efforts.
Ina Steiner at EcommerceBytes points to some comments on her own site as well as in the official eBay forum where sellers are airing their grievances. Here are some samples from the forum:
“Just great, not only does ebay provide aggresive estimated delivery dates, they remind the buyer of them during feedback”
“Just by asking it in that way, at that time, it makes it seem even more like a promise instead of an estimate.”
“It SHOULD say, seller promised to ship by X, actual shipment date Y. This company seriously could care less about it’s customers – the silver lining of watching our sales dwindle is knowing ebay is on it’s way out too.”
“Oh, for cryin’ in the rain! Just one more thing to rate sellers on……Isn’t there enough already? Wonder how this will play out with holiday estimated delivery times, the winter months etc. I think I’ll just have a glass of wine now.”
“Looks like another way to put seller[s] out of business.”
“This is absolutely ridiculous! USPS is now about to fully close the Toledo Ohio sort facility and everything will have to go to Detroit , MI sort facility! What a mess this is going to cause for northern Ohio sellers! Already cases on the news where two day deliveries are taking TWO WEEKS! Once it leaves our hands it is completely out of our control but yet EBAY finds another standard by which they give give the buyer to leave us low ratings and a potential defect! WHAT ON EARTH IS EBAY DOING TO PROMOTE POSITIVE RESULTS ON THIS SITE?”
Are these overreactions? Even if they are, it’s clear that sellers aren’t happy about the change. There are pages of these types of comments in the forum. There isn’t much in the way of people defending the feature.
The overall theme throughout most of the comments on the feature seems to be that it is unnecessary at best with few seeing it as a positive for anyone involved. Many think eBay already has the data it needs when it comes to deliveries.
Image via eBay Forum
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