While most members have been contemplating the changes in policies eBay announced in late January, the vast majority apparently were not prepared for the additional changes announced yesterday by Brian Burke, eBay's Director, Global Feedback Policy.

The additional details posted yesterday regarding the amount of time that a buyer is required to wait before leaving negative feedback will only benefit the approximatley 200,000 eBay PowerSellers. (The number of PowerSellers is only an estimate as eBay does not publicly release detailed user numbers)

Here is a portion of the announcement posted on eBay's Announcement Board:

In January we mentioned that we'd block buyers from leaving negative or neutral Feedback for 3 days for sellers "with a track record." Since January, we've made the decision to increase the wait period to 7 days and define "track record" as active PowerSellers who have been on eBay for at least 12 months.

We studied the factors that increased risk to buyers the most and found there are three: a) a seller's Positive Feedback percentage and DSRs, b) the volume of a seller's Feedback – both in total and on an ongoing basis and c) length of time a seller has been on site.

We selected PowerSellers who have been on eBay at least 12 months in order to minimize risk to buyers, because:

a. PowerSellers have to meet quality thresholds for both conventional Feedback and, starting in July, for Detailed Seller Ratings

b. PowerSellers have to meet volume requirements – both in total and on an ongoing basis

c. One year on-site proved to be an important predictor of lower risk

All three factors prove important to predicting the risk to buyers – removing any one of them would increase risk to a level we are not currently comfortable with at this time.

We will watch all aspects of the new Feedback system very carefully, studying how the marketplace responds and we will make changes as we see appropriate.

This policy allows buyers to leave negative or neutral feedback 3 days after a purchase from Non-PowerSellers and 7 days after a purchase from a qualifing eBay PowerSeller.(Remember eBay says a neutral is not a neutral at all. In fact a neutral is weighed as 2/3 of a Negative)

New buyers with little or no experience often are more apt to leave negative feedback as they frequently do not read the TOS posted with the listings. Sellers must strive to better set expectations of their customers in order to try to avert problems.

Several posts I have seen ask why new buyers are not required to contact the seller prior to leaving negative feedback. Many sellers believe ALL buyers should be REQUIRED to contact the seller prior to leaving a negative.

Requiring contact between buyer and seller prior to negative feedback would be a good thing!