Bill Cobb gave his state of eBay speech at the 2007 eBay commerce convention held in California last week. In it he talked about several of the changes that are in the works for 2007.
We have the opportunity in 2007 to make significant improvements to the buyer experience on eBay. We’ll do it by focusing on these high-level priorities over the next year:
* Reinvest in eBay’s core by simplifying the site, improving finding, and accentuating the things that make eBay fun and unique.
* Take a more proactive approach to Trust & Safety to protect our members from fraud.
* Improve the buyer experience on the site by holding sellers to higher minimum standards
Sounds pretty good. If you’re a buyer. If you’re a seller, what you see is a increase in regulation on listings, regulation on product, and more regulation over all. For many, that isn’t good news. Many sellers are already tired of the excessive regulation of eBay and are starting to jump ship. Remember, the renewed focus on the CORE listings were the excuse used for the raised store listing fees late last year.
The two changes that I actually think will be welcomed are the ones that Bill dubbed “Feedback 2.0.” A change in the way feedback is given and a emphasis on only the most recent of feedback scores should help make the feedback system a little better.
Feedback 2.0 will add a new dimension to the current system, allowing buyers to rate transactions on item description, communication, shipping time, and shipping & handling charges.
Later this year, we are going to archive all but the last 24 months of feedback history. Your total score will remain, but your percent will be based on just the last 2 years of activity.
I still think it will need a lot more work. Fear of retalitory negative feedbacks keeps many users from giving negatives when deserved. The ability to rate on different parts of the transaction could help even some of that out. I would guess that many sellers will initially get stung by more realistic feedback, but as the marketplace evens out, things should be more reflective of the reality of the marketplace.
[tags]ebay,feedback,CORE,bill cobb,feedback 2.0[/tags]
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April 26th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
[...] The changes to eBay Feedback that Bill Cobb mentioned way back in January are finally set to roll out in the U.S. They’ve been testing them in the U.K. for quite a while now and it seems that for the most part they’ve been accepted and work out pretty well. [...]