eBay Hacks, 2nd Edition

Withhold Feedback

Know when to hold ‘em, and know when to leave ‘em.

The trouble with the global village is all the global village idiots.

—Paul Ginsparg

The biggest flaw (and in some ways, the biggest strength) of eBay’s feedback system is the risk of retaliation. You leave negative or neutral feedback for someone, and they will—without considering the circumstances or who’s at fault—do the same for you. That is the fear, and that is the reason why many people simply let problems slide.

But the risk of retaliation also reminds people that they are responsible for their own words; if there were no consequences, people would leave negative feedback with abandon, and we’d have even more problems on our hands.

I won’t deny that the risks sometimes outweigh the gains. Sometimes a bidder has a seemingly legitimate reason for not paying. Perhaps a seller is inexperienced, and while a particular transaction might not have gone very smoothly, it wasn’t due to any malice by the seller. Do these people necessarily deserve blemishes on their records? Perhaps not, but they don’t necessarily deserve praise, either. In other words, sometimes the best move is no move at all.

Who Goes First

Often the fear of retaliation can work to your advantage. Say you’re a seller, and someone has just purchased an item from you. The bidder pays in full, and you go ahead and reward the bidder with positive feedback. But when the bidder receives the item, he’s not happy. Since you’ve already played your hand, the bidder ...