Ebay Ashamed of their Feedback Rating?

What is Ebay's Feedback Rating Anyway?

Almost every, if not all, auction/marketpool selling venue on the internet has some feedback mechanism. Usually it is a two-way street - i.e. sellers about buyers, buyers about sellers. The big exception that I know of is ebay (but of course) who in recent years decided in their "infinite wisdom" that sellers did not have the right to leave feedback about their buyers. All very well and good since eBay holds the ball and whip.

I will be talking about eBay in particular here even though my comments could I suppose, apply to other similar venues. That there are other similar venues is important to the point I want to raise shortly. And I am also going to be talking about eBay because that is one venue I am most familiar with and unfortunately, eBay continues to be the biggest marketshare holder in this particular type of industry - i.e. providing a common venue for buyers and sellers.

Now I presume that there is much fairness and benefits to all parties that there are feedback ratings on sellers. I, as a buyer, rely on it quite extensively albeit, almost unconsciously. And as a seller, it is useful feedback to hear what your customers have to say - be it good or not so good.

More importantly, I think that the buyers, because they are spending their hard earned cash with any one seller, has the right to know something about the products, services, and efficiency of the seller that they will be handing their money over to. So if you are going to spend some money with me, you have a right to know what others have thought about my products and services. That is fair isn't it? Because if I continuously give bad service, then you have the right and the chance to find another seller of similar goods and give your hard earned cash to them instead. All a matter of money ... which brings me to my point.

Since our customers have a right to get some feedback about our offerings because they have a right to choose where they want to spend their money, we as customers of eBay, should have a right to give and see public feedback about eBay - their performance, their service, and what their customers think of them. Don't we?

Whether you are a buyer or a seller on ebay, every move you make, every transaction you undertake, you are putting ka-ching into the ebay coffers. But that payment is the most obvious from the sellers' link with ebay. As a seller, you pay to put your items up (i.e. advertise on ebay), and you pay if you want to have a storefront on ebay, or to use some of their packaged services (of which there are a multitude) - in other words, sellers are buying products and services from eBay. And of course, you pay if your sale is successful. So in a very direct sense, we sellers are direct customers of eBay.

Then shouldn't we also have the right to leave feedback about eBay and for that feedback to be public? Don't we have a right to know what previous/existing customers think about this seller (i.e. ebay) so that we can make informed choices as to whether we want to use their products and services? And even more so, since there are other "sellers" of similar services out there, this feedback will give us a chance to choose or not choose another seller of similar offerings - just like our customers do with our offerings. Isn't that the whole purpose of feedback ratings?.

Right now, of course there is some feedback about ebay. But it their own hidden, private data. They collect this via their Customer Support Questionnaire (and you already know what I think of ebay's Customer Support) and they certainly don't share it with us, their customers. To think of the amount of money we spend via our continuous payments to ebay, you would think that we would have some rights in being able to see feedback about them!

So all this just begats the question: Is ebay too ashamed of feedback about them that they dare not honestly share it with the public? Sure seems that way. "What is good for the goose ...." philosophy certainly doesn't seem to apply to them, does it?