eBay is displaying how long it takes a seller to respond to customer inquiries on their listing pages – and as we reported last week, it took a reader by surprise and appeared to be a test eBay was running.
This week, a product manager from eBay’s “buyer experience” team responded to questions in a thread on the eBay discussion boards, explaining it was testing the unannounced feature “because we heard from buyers that they value knowing if they can expect timely responses from a seller, and that it would encourage them to engage more on eBay.”
eBay is testing the new feature with a subset of buyers “to help us understand if it helps with increasing sales for our sellers and trust on the platform.”
The unnamed product manager said eBay calculates the “signal” based on data over the last 12 months and provided the following details:
- Seller has received at least 1 question and answered 60%+ questions over the last 12M
- Only the first question and response in each conversation are included. So not responding to a follow up question or a “thank you very much” response from the buyer would not be factored into this calculation.
- The result is rounded up to the nearest bucket from the list of 7 signals mentioned above
- The signal is not shown if the calculation shows a seller responds in more than 48 hours.
- The signal is also not displayed when a seller has received no questions over the last 12 months or when a seller’s response rate was lower than 60%.
The eBay product manager denied eBay had any plans to add response time as a criterion to qualify as a Top Rated Seller. Interestingly, rival marketplace Etsy requires sellers to respond to messages within 24 hours to become a “Star Seller.”
According to the post, buyers in the test could see one of 7 signals displayed in sellers’ listings depending on eBay’s calculations:
“Responds within 1 hour” OR
“Responds within 3 hours” OR
“Responds within 6 hours” OR
“Responds within 12 hours” OR
“Responds within 24 hours” OR
“Responds within 48 hours” OR
No signal will show up on your listings
The eBay product manager said occasional fluctuations in response time would not considerably impact a seller’s overall performance evaluation.
One reader commenting on the August 23 EcommerceBytes Blog post about the sudden appearance of the response-time feature suggested sellers simply use an auto responder.
Wondering if sellers started getting a lot of crazy questions? For example I was asked to share picture of wiring – like my business secret – would you respond to thatsince Ebay now measures response time” was this question asked intentionally by competition from 3-feedback account? How about question about where is my money (from new account) after was refunded 3 weeks ago- is Ebay withholding money for cancellations that long? Or was this buyer sabotaging new messaging system and my store?
Why is that buyers are not messaging if they have real/honest issue before requesting return for not as described?
Probably for the same reason buyers leave negative or neutral feedback without contacting the seller
I get a fair amount of “non-questions” which I do not respond to. Does this mean every comment I get I have to respond to which intern generates another response and then I will need to respond to that. I hate to say it but some people aways have to have the last word in.
I would love to have an educated face to face discussion with this “un-named eBay whip boy about the validity and usefulness of this idea, why don’t we all see it for what it really is; people like him with “zero” business knowledge or experience are given these sinister briefs by the office oligarch not with view of improving things for sellers, rather to find another stick to beat them with, and to set up another hoop for them to jump through, and if they fail to jump that high, their listings would be hidden UNLESS THEY PAY MORE for their stuff to be seen. If this Einstein really wants to improve things for everybody buyers and sellers alike, why didn’t he have the real business sense of asking buyers to abide by the same rule, and why they run sellers round in circles for days asking for most ridiculous questions, which in some cases such as mine, getting the answers invariably means travelling to the warehouse, measuring, weighing, and providing researched material without a whine of discomfort, only to face the insult of watching ignorant so called buyers dropping dead the line of communication without as much as a simple thank you!
Mr Einstein, you’re a bigger fool to think that you’re fooling anybody;
We have to send offers, cut your margin wafer thin while in the same breath you encourage sellers to deceive buyers by adding shipping cost on item price so that item is listed with free p&p, and if we are uncomfortable adding p&p onto item price, we can always ship for free because we are descendants of the guys who own Royal mail and UPS, we also ship same day or next day since we are deemed by the BIG BOSS to have no lives, families or children, let buyers use our stuff for 60 days, then PAY THEM to return it possibly damages or missing parts, pay your listing fee, store fee, FVF, promotion fee, PPC fee, payment reconciliation fee, revenue & duties collection fee, get abused by dishonest “buyers” and professional scammers who have no qualms in destroying your name that you worked for years to build if they don’t get something for nothing safe in the knowledge that THE BIG BOSS had rigged up the feedback system in their favour; all this effort, all the sacrifices, while eBay fat cats while pushed to retire for failure, get fired, get prosecuted, but always leave with minimum £50m worth of your late shifts, sweat & tears
With respect, we only get one life, I don’t tell you how to live yours, so please don’t tell me how to live mine. Do you know what happened in 1833? Our country abolished slavery! I am embarrassed for you.
If I read it correctly you only have to reply the first time…
Best are some dropshippers etc when they respond in seconds with automated message stating they will get back to you within 72hours. That would suffice for Ebay?
I’m paying 13.25% to pay the salaries of fools gathering info for a meaningless stat?
How many “questions” are the equivalent of “what color is your red sweater?”, and go straight to the round file?
Nobody wants to “engage” with lowballers! Just buy or don’t. Stop wasting sellers’ time playing games!
A required response time is beyond ridiculous. Best offers on eBay last only 24 hours, even on weekends when most businesses are closed. Responding to messages about actual listings is a priority. Responding to requests like creating an additional image is done on a “best efforts” basis. Some messages have nothing to do with the listing or are asking the seller to do free research for non-buyers.
When do sellers of one-of-a-kind items find the time to create new listings that have the potential to add to eBay’s revenue?
I’d be much happier with this if they used the same wording as other sites like AirBnB:
by adding the word “Usually” to the front of the sentance….
OK, so my page says I respond in an hour and a buyer sends a question at 3am? This is just going to setup unrealistic expectations. I can’t be awake 24 hours per day. If they are going to put a response time, they need to add the hours those are in effect. So they need to let the sellers choose whether or not to put a response time on their listings and the hours they will respond. This, like most new “features” on Ebay, is just going to shaft sellers again.
First, the person is not named. Then he denied eBay had any plans to add response time as a criterion to qualify as a Top Rated Seller. Then he goes on to say occasional fluctuations in response time would not considerably impact a seller’s overall performance evaluation.
So which is.
Again, transparency at its finest.
‘Cause Im so %101 SURE that Griff The Stupid and his merry band of Fools, ALWAYS respond on Facebook and other places – RIGHT AWAY.
I’m SURE his team of purple and green haired college drop outs (the ones with the many nose rings) (when they aren’t busy on Reddit or Bumble or where ever) will HOP TO IT right away (taking a break from planning Climate Change protests or what ever).
More idiocy from brain dead people.
I noticed several questions in this thread remain unanswered, why hasn’t the eBay’s “buyer experience” team responded to all of the question in one hour? Even the ones posted at 3AM CA time?