eBay Business All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 5: Checking Out the Seller and Leaving Feedback

In This Chapter

• Giving feedback
• Reading eBay's DSR System
• Viewing the seller's profile
• Comparing items
• Playing it safe with buyer-protection programs

When you're shopping on eBay, you're faced with hundreds of items, perhaps even hundreds of listings for the same item. How do you decide where to place your order or your bid? In this chapter, I show you the tools on eBay that guide you to a safe and positive transaction.

Understanding and Giving Feedback

One of eBay's strong suits is a sense of community formed through its use of announcements and feedback. Many experts say the reason eBay originally succeeded where dozens of other dot-com auction sites failed is that eBay paid close attention to the needs of its users.

In the early days, the concept was clear. Pierre and his employees figured that if users complained openly (for all other members to see), feedback would be more genuine — not so much flaming as constructive. “Do unto others as you'd have them do” prevailed as a philosophy; above all else, Pierre encouraged buyers and sellers to give each other the benefit of the doubt and to conduct themselves professionally.

It soon became clear to eBay's three employees that they did not have time to adjudicate member disputes. Thus the feedback system was born. But the pièce de résistance of feedback policy, the part that makes eBay work, is the fact that Pierre and his staff encouraged users to give positive feedback ...