eBay Feedback System – Neutrals Will No Longer Count – Good News from eBay

Posted on July 10, 2008 by Scott Pooler

According to an unnamed source within eBay, an announcement will be posted today on eBay's general Announcement board by eBay Marketplaces President Lorrie Norrington.

Lorrie Norrington - eBay

This announcement concerns feedback and neutral feedback calculation as a negative and will read as follows:

Recalculating Feedback percentages without neutrals: Effective in late August, neutrals will no longer be counted as part of the Feedback percentage. This means we will be recalculating Feedback percentages retroactively for users worldwide. In the interim, no one will lose their PowerSeller status as a result of neutrals being included in their Feedback percentage.

Helping you resolve issues and satisfy buyers: By the end of October, we will roll out a new process to help you resolve issues with buyers, even after the buyer has left negative feedback.

Everybody makes mistakes – buyers and sellers alike, and buyers should have a mechanism to change feedback if they make a mistake or if the seller rectifies an issue in a timely manner. Unlike with our previous Mutual Feedback Withdrawal system, our new process will enable buyers to change their feedback of the seller, not just withdraw the rating. We’ll provide more details of this new process in the fall.

This is very good news for sellers within eBay. It is gratifying to learn that eBay, and Lorrie have listened to the continued and consistent complaints about the neutral feedback policy.

Resolving issues with buyers who leave feedback without proper consideration, or by mistake is also a great move. We will of course need to see how effective this new system will be, but this is certainly a move in the right direction.

Thank you eBay for this reversal or alteration of these policies!

eBay Live 2008 – Thoughts from Atlanta – John Lawson of 3rdPO.com Speaks Out

Posted on June 27, 2008 by Scott Pooler

EBay Live? Simply not the best it could be

By John Lawson of 3rd Power Outlet (www.3rdPO.com)

I stayed home and evidently many others did too!

Let me back that up and rewind a bit… See for those who don't know me…I wrote a little blog at the end of the last 2 "eBay centric" events prior to this party. You can check them out by going to http://tinyurl.com/59yq8v.

So I would like to add on to that now that the BIG party is over…literally.

Man, after Catalyst and the PeSA/eCommerce summits the stage was set, eBay made a "killing". Lorrie Norrington "nailed the speech", eBay execs came and stood toe to toe, they said "we are listing", "good feedback", "give us a chance", sound familiar?…err shall I go on?

Why, thank you, I think I shall…

The sellers stood up and demanded clarity on changes on feedback, some could not help but protest the real world impact, while others simply whined (you know I am telling the truth). At the end of it all, we felt that something good was blowing in the wind. I got that "Obama" feeling of change, LMAO. It was an Oprah moment with a new since of purpose.

Fast forward to the approach of eBay Live 2008... everybody kept asking me if I were going? I just did not feel like I wanted to go.

But then they announced, No eBay Live 2009, see ya in 2010…WTH? Huh? Continue reading “eBay Live 2008 – Thoughts from Atlanta – John Lawson of 3rdPO.com Speaks Out” »

Tough Love for eBay – Guest Post – John Lawson 3rdPO.com – PeSA Member

Posted on May 24, 2008 by Scott Pooler

I LOVE eBay... with Some Tough Love …

by John Lawson
President of 3rdPO.com

John Lawson 3rdPO.com

Hey all my fellow eBay'ers!

WOW, what an "exciting" week we have had as sellers on the eBay platform.

I use the word exciting loosely, because for some it has been aggravating, for others it has been exhilarating and for most in between it has been somewhat trying.

When I started doing business on eBay, I quickly learned that my business would definitely need to become accustomed to many changes eBay makes and mitigate them as quickly as possible.

Over the past 5 years, we have endured many changes in direction at eBay, both good and bad. It is part of the territory and I must admit after all these changes… Continue reading “Tough Love for eBay – Guest Post – John Lawson 3rdPO.com – PeSA Member” »

PowerSeller's Impressions – Part 3 ECMTA PeSa – eCommerce Summit – John Lawson's Final Cut

Posted on May 4, 2008 by Scott Pooler

This is the Grand Finale of John Lawson's 3 Part series of commentary derived from his notes from New Orleans - eCommerce Summit 2008

Hey guys, here is Part III and this is the final in this series. So let's get into it!

First I want to go over the little notes I listed in Part II of this series.

I'll go through it and give you my personal feeling about what Lorrie Norrington said and how what she said in her speech might affect my business and as a PowerSeller on eBay.

I want to respectfully say that I am basically just a guy trying to feed my family with an eBay business. My business is a business that I started at the kitchen table, literally. It is a business that I actively run and the day to day operations of it are handled by myself, my partner and a small virtual staff. I think 3rd Power Outlet has come to the point now where we would be considered small to medium eBay Powersellers, experienced sellers, and primarily eBay-centric sellers.

When Lorrie started the speech and said primarily that eBay wanted seller's business and considered us sellers as partners, my initial reaction was, "OK, this is different". I was not really used to hearing keynote speeches from eBay Presidents speaking in these terms. Continue reading “PowerSeller's Impressions – Part 3 ECMTA PeSa – eCommerce Summit – John Lawson's Final Cut” »

Review – eCommerce Summit ECMTA PeSA 2008 vs Catalyst Pinehurst 2008

Posted on April 25, 2008 by Scott Pooler

The eCommerce Summit in New Orleans wrapped up the event today with a Habitat for Humanity volunteer workshop.

More than 100 of the over 500 eCommerce Summit 2008 attendees and journalists who attended this year's 3 day long conference in New Orleans, dedicated time and elbow grease to help this worthy charity build homes for people in need in New Orleans. Final numbers have not been tabulated yet, but at last count the event raised over $80,000 for Habitat for Humanity.

eBay Donation Habitat

On the first night, Frontier Marketing (one of the main sponsors of this Summit) presented a check for over $30,000 to benefit Habitat for Humanity. Frontier requested $1.00 donations from each active customer and over 15,000 customers joined the cause. To make the gesture twice as impressive Frontier offered a dollar for dollar matching donation. Frontier, together with their customers raised over $30,000 to help Habitat. eBay surprised the crowd prior to Lorrie Norrington's keynote address with a $50,000 donation for Habitat in the name of all eBay sellers. In addition, Genco Marketplace donated many fine prizes for a silent auction benefitting Habitat as well.

eCommerce Summit vs. Catalyst Pinehurst?

Recently (yesterday while in the NOLA airport via a Twitter Tweet from a friend) I was asked to compare this year's Summit event with the recent Channel Advisor Catalyst conference held in Pinehurst, NC.

On the surface one could say two events do not match up - based on the premise that Catalyst is primarily sponsored & promoted by a single multichannel solutions provider and the eCommerce summit is sponsored by two connected trade organizations with additional corporate sponsorship from multiple solutions providers. There is an overlap of sponsorship for each event, yet each event had a different look and feel.

Some points of comparison are available to informed observers, I am sure many of my readers could easily chime in with comments regarding the differences, I met with many of them at both events.

Trading Assistant Journal

eCommerce News & Internet Marketing Commentary by: Scott Pooler

Tag Archives: Lorrie Norrington