New feedback form

[wunderdog]

Am I correct in understanding that you can no longer leave feedback for a buyer without rating the merits of the item you purchased? In other words, if you buy, say, a book, you have to read it and decide how much you liked it before you can assess the quality of the transaction? For one, I may not get around to reading that book for months. For another, whether that book is good or bad has no bearing on the seller. I'm not sure why item and seller ratings would be mingled other than to artificially inflate product ratings.

[bonjourami]

Where did you see that? Feedback has always been about the transaction, not the item.

[ebooksdiva]

The feedback I leave for my buyers is automatically sent. 
If you are referring to feedback you give to sellers and you see this...see image below..

That is merely there for people who don't understand what feedback is for. Some think it's a way of communicating with the seller, which it is not. Feedback can be given for up to 60 days after the transaction date. 
So you can ignore it or not, up to you. 

[ebooksdiva]

When you give a seller feedback you see this...

[soh.maryl]

And, just checking, you do not even ever have to give any FB at all and you know that, right? 

[dryophelia]

There was another post about this last week.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/Unable-to-leave-feedback-for-seller-under-new-system-unle...

[ebooksdiva]

I think since then those star ratings for the item has been removed because I don't see it. 

[gosimus]

@wunderdog 

< Am I correct in understanding that you can no longer leave feedback for a buyer without rating the merits of the item you purchased? >    

No, that is not correct.  Just because they say it, that doesn't mean you have to do it.  The most recent feedback I've left was before they started putting that box there, so I haven't seen it yet in real time.  But the next time when I do leave feedback, I'll put whatever comment(s) I want to, and it might or might not be a product review, probably not. 

[fab_finds4u]

Was the book as described? Did it match the seller's condition they described the book was in? Did the seller ship on time using the method stated in the listing? Was it packaged to protect it from rough handling?  That is what the feedback should be about. Not if you liked the book or not.

[wunderdog]

Not based on what I'm seeing:

[mudshark61369]

@wunderdog,

The new feedback form like many other changes to the site and feedback over the last few years, is another meaningless one. You are not REQUIRED to comment about the item itself. Feedback should be left about the sellers performance.  Then if one decides to comment about the item they can use what is left of the 500 characters to write a War & Peace novella about the item.

  If you are not going to use, read, listen to an item, before leaving feedback, then why would you even think about rating or leaving a comment about it?

What worries me about the change, is that ebay may be skulking its way back to using the DSR stars to rate sellers again.  That system was so totally flawed, it never should have been used in the first place.

[monkeystein]

The eBay for Business Podcast said eBay is testing product reviews as part of leaving feedback for certain items.

"Griff: What is rolling out?
Jessica: Currently we are testing the ability to leave a product review inside of the normal seller feedback intake form. So that means that for items eligible for product review, buyers will be able to give the item a star rating for the first time and item feedback along with the existing seller feedback already.
Griff: So a product review is different than normal feedback?
Jessica: Yeah, product reviews have been around for a long time. So on eBay, some items that are sold by multiple sellers have a product review page on eBay which collects reviews for that item across all sellers who sell it. These are items like an iPhone or a Dyson vacuum. They're often things that are mass manufactured or have a barcode. And in product reviews buyers also have the ability to leave a star rating for the item as well. So that is why we are bringing it into our feedback form.
Griff: This is something we see on a lot of other marketplaces. Why is eBay adding this to the feedback form?
Jessica: This is a step in the direction we wanna help more buyers discover eBay sellers online. We've had past research show that item specific feedback is something potential buyers are really looking for to make a purchase decision. And we just haven't really highlighted that as much on eBay. What's more item reviews and item star ratings are super important to search engines like Google. So if you google an item, the sites that show the item star rating and item review are the results that are prioritized in search results these days. You'll see like those pop up absolutely at the top. " ...
"Griff: I know there'll be a seller news announcement. I've seen the draft. It has some screenshots about what this experience will look like. So if you're interested, if you sell these kind of products and you're interested to know what buyers you're gonna see, keep an eye out on the announcement board and in coming weeks we'll talk more about it and if you have questions, of course you can send them to podcast@ebay.com. Jessica, thank you. It's always a pleasure. "

Link to the podcast

https://community.ebay.com/t5/eBay-for-Business/Ep-290-Picking-for-Passion-and-Profit-Not-Projects/b...

[chapeau-noir]

I ran across this trying to leave FB for a set of paints that I had purchased. It was forcing me to leave product feedback as well, and I could not bypass that step. Since I hadn't used the product, I just backed out and have not left feedback.

[jgrit]

I am happy eBay is at least trying to think of ways to make feedback better. I think the idea may be to try to make buyers understand the seller did not make the product that is being sold. Ebay may be trying to give an understanding of what it is that feedback is supposed to be for by a product rating first - then rate the things the seller is actually supposed to be responsibile for doing. Definitely a nice try by eBay. Ebay gets positive feedback for effort.

[liawri-75]

That section should NOT BE IMO "mandatory".