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eBay seller ratings – a diluted commodity (Purchasing safely online)

Posted by TopOfTheThread on May 24, 2008

Purchasing on eBay should not simply be searching for products and looking at the seller’s ratings.

safely shopping online ebay

Unfortunately eBay’s online ratings (endorsements) are more and more becoming a diluted commodity as eBay had decided to ”push” users to provide ratings.

Let’s take a look at eBay comments:

  • Thank you for an easy, pleasant transaction. Excellent seller
  • Excellent buyer to deal with. Would highly recommend.
  • Good buyer
  • Excellent seller A++++++++
  • Hope to deal with you again. Thank you.
  • Great communication. A pleasure to do business with.

What kind of crap is this?

A standard buyer-seller deal should be well done. It used to be that comments were “voluntarily” posted from buyers and sellers. Now eBay sends you messages, reminding you to leave comments. It ends up in the “My eBay” section.

Does every transaction warrant a comment? eBay thinks so!

The truly good transactions are diluted because most (good and average) transactions are put up as good transactions. The bad transactions are disproportionately overweighed because there are too many good transaction comments!

So today I get 100 comments on 105 transactions. 98 of the comments are positive and 2 are bad. My 98% positive rating is a positive with regards to people bidding on my items.

* * * * * * *

How many of those positive ratings would have occurred if eBay didn’t notify us about leaving comments? 50? (Let’s use 48 for easier math.)

How many of those negative ratings would have occurred if eBay didn’t notify us about leaving comments? 2. The negative comments would still be there.

So 48 positive and 2 negative ratings create a 96% positive rating. The 96% is less diluted with “pressured” positive ratings and the entire system is more legit.

The only thing people would need to change is their thought pattern regarding the reference number. “I would never do business with a seller who has less than a X% positive rating…”

Simple. Done. Good, top sellers should want this process. The average and less than average vendors benefit from the diluted ratings.

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photo (unarco.com)

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