Really now eBay, WHEN will I be able to say this!?
We all know how old-school eBay can be – it seems that they are always a few years behind on every new technology that is made available in the eCommerce industry. Be it social media integration, mobile user features or Turbo Lister, which hasn’t been updated for ages now, eBay is NOT innovative and that’s probably due to the lack of competition that they face.
As a regular eBay shopper, I really hate that they haven’t introduced product reviews yet. Or at the very least – connect feedback to the product purchased, in an easy to understand format, for example a full list of feedback on the listing page itself.
Amazon is where they are today in a large part due to their reviews! I often purchase a product on Amazon solely because of the large number of reviews I can read before making that buying decision. In fact, if you sell online, Amazon reviews are a superb way of learning everything you need to know about a particular product. It’s also a great method for finding ways to improve a product, by reading the negative reviews and seeing what design and functionality flaws are revealed there.
Even Ali Express has product reviews and pretty much any other major online store that you can think of, but not eBay!
On eBay all we see is ALL the feedback for a seller, on the feedback page; there’s no way to sort it or filter by a specific product that you’re looking to purchase, never mind read actual reviews.
Yes, you can see which item individual feedback was left for BUT you have to do that manually as it’s all just one big list. For a large seller with thousands of feedback per month, it’s practically impossible to sieve through all the feedback and find ones left for the product you’re interested in.
I really think this system is flawed and should be changed.
I remember a few years ago they were trying to introduce product reviews on the eBay Buying Guides portal but that disappeared for some reason. But even so, that concept wasn’t workable at all anyway, as you could only find reviews via the Guides page. Who reads those guides anyway?
It could be that eBay doesn’t want to introduce reviews because they KNOW that many products sold on eBay are subpar quality? That would at least explain it…. but my feeling is that they’re just so big and without any real competition that they don’t care enough, coupled with the fact that due to their massive operating scale, any changes or new features are horrendously slow to be introduced.
With that being said, I really hope eBay do introduce product reviews at some point, or at least match feedback left with each product and display that on the actual listing page. This would be a huge plus for people who sell quality goods, go the extra mile with customer support, offer their own branded goods and overall – deliver an exceptional shopping experience to their customers. A stronger emphasis on reviews would go a long way to rewarding these sellers!
So for today – the question is – will eBay introduce product reviews and if so, when? I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic so please leave your comments below this post!
Have an awesome week!
Andrew
Ebays product review is a bunch of crap cause they can take your feedback off at any time they please for any reason. They took mine off when there wasnt any cussing or anything. They took it off because I gave that person a bad review and wanted my money back and instead they told me no and that they didn’t care that it wasn’t what the title described. So the feedback is whatever they want it to be not real feedback. So get real. There is also no money back guarantee policy like they advertise which is FALSE ADVERTISEMENT!!!! AND A HUGE FREAKING LIE!!!!
Courtney… you do not understand the point of a product review. Product reviews are about products (as the name indicates). If you have an issue with a seller, then you need to use the normal seller review.
Do not enter “I gave that person a bad review” as a product review. How is it the product manufacturer’s fault, whatever your seller does or does not do?
If you do not understand the difference between manufacturer and seller to start with, then you should not participate in Internet transactions of any kind, seriously.
Couldnt agree more with this article. Ebay has become fat and lazy not introducing this most massively obvious feature that is a major plus point of it’s rival Amazon.
The rating of the seller is usually a red herring: what we all want the product rating first and foremost. I like many would often happily pay double for a higher quality product that lasted much longer. I dont want the hassle of buying stuff again-life’s too busy already. There’s no easy way the sellers can easily get this precious feedback they need from the buyers. I like I suspect so many millions of others only buy a new product on ebay because it is not available on Amazon.
Thanks for your comment John!
Ebay are offering a review system but it’s flawed. I am getting other sellers rubbish reviews appearing on my item pages. I wish Ebay wasn’t such a dominant force – they do what they like and this is because they have no serious competition. I called them last week and was on the phone for an hour – I didn’t get a satisfactory resolution to this problem – They really don’t give a monkey.
Hi Rich,
What kind of item it is for?
Do you have your own EAN number or you use catalogue one?
Thanks,
Andrew
I just interviewed on the product reviews team at ebay. I told the lead that they are years behind to catch up with Amazon, especially quantity and authenticity of reviews, and my goal was to join their team and help them catch up. Guess what? I didn’t get the job. I guess they can’t handle the truth
They don’t care to make it better cause they decided they were gonna pick and choose which feedback they were gonna allow. They took mine off of someone that I bought an item from, which was suppose to be a combo set and it wasn’t just because I gave a negative review and wanted my money back and said how their title is misleading. They want to forge their own feedback not try to figure out how to get better feedback.
[…] was back in June 2015 that I first wrote about product reviews on eBay and how it was a huge missing feature that made it very hard to use eBay as a […]
Am I right that we have this on eBay UK now?
I haven’t seen it on eBay UK yet, only eBay.com and eBay.com.au
Have you seen any UK listings with reviews?
if so, let us know the link to it! 🙂
It could be that they have started testing this in the UK now.
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Not sure if you got a reply – but my products have it on them on UK listings. I don’t want to put my products up on public, but happy to send you a link privately if you want to look.
Paul
Hi Paul,
Yes, I saw now that eBay started to test this on eBay.co.uk too now! 🙂
Can’t wait for the official announcement!
Andrew
As to the “new” eBay product reviews, feature….a definite PLUS! If a product, that I’m interested in, has a product review(s) I will DEFINITELY check them out, to get actual buyer input, and then weigh my purchasing decision on the reviews! I also will submit reviews for items I purchase, that merit a review.
One thing I would like to see is the ability to go back and edit/amend a previously reviewed item! Especially, when I find, that over time, the product does not merit my initial review! Otherwise, I have to forestall submitting reviews until I’ve had time to test the product.
Those product reviews aren’t accurate though because eBay chooses which ones they want to keep and which ones they don’t. I know because they took mine off and told me about it and took the feature off for me to try to leave another feedback comment so that I couldn’t. Their feedback system is a scam.
Thanks Ken, agree with you 100%!
Amazon knows all this, they offer ability to change reviews over time.
Hopefully eBay will do same.
Andrew
[…] that didn’t take long at all. Just a few months after my post imploring eBay to introduce product reviews, they began testing that exact feature on […]
I totally agree .I have just come across your comments about E bay reviews or rather should I say lack of them !!! It’s very important these days to have some idea of what the product is like especially if spending a lot of money .It has certainly put me off purchasing expensive items !
Thanks Carol!
I only ever use Amazon but had to use eBay recently because Amazon did’t carry a certain product. I spent a good 15 minutes searching everywhere trying to find a review of this product! long story short I ended up not buying it. I felt completely blind compared to shopping on Amazon, maybe they are still appealing to the “older” internet crowd, but they might’ve lost the market share in the college market.
Yep, eBay has always been years behind everyone else! 🙂
But they’re working on a new review system, which will be implemented soon.
Andrew
Hi Andrew, love the article. You state that eBay are working on a review system? Where did you hear this?
It was mentioned in one of recent seller updates (reading between lines).
Andrew
Thanks Andrew, I will have a scan through the seller updates to see if there is any detail unless you have the link where you saw the info?
Cheers,
Andy
I don’t have a link, no, sorry.
Andrew
Thanks Andrew, do you think this will ever come to fruition? I find eBay a great way to source cheaper products, but sometimes it’s hard to decide if the product is any good!
I think it will, yes.
Reviews are really important nowadays and I’m sure eBay will introduce them.
Even if it’s 10 years after everyone else, lol!!!!
The way I understand it, it should be introduced within next 12 months or so.
Andrew
[…] enough, considering my recent blog post: Product Reviews on eBay, one specific area that this may have a big positive impact is product reviews. And eBay do […]
Hi Andrew
You might not have to wait as long that long to see a shake up at eBay regarding what information is presented to the buyer when inside a sellers listing.
A few days ago I saw all of my listings, when viewed through Chrome, displayed without my feedback score and % Positive Feedback Rating. For around 60 minutes instead of seeing:
“Seller information
myedbayid (72069)
100% Positive Feedback”
This was all there was about me:
“Seller information
myedbayid”
If they are testing removing the only “review” or “rating” currently available to the buyer, they must be planning a big change to their current system.
Personally, I don’t want this to go, because despite the naysayers, it actually works!! It certainly helps me as I’m the only 100% Rated seller in a super competitive category, where I sell at prices in excess of 25% above the average 🙂
I hardly ever receive negative product reviews, so I would welcome product reviews to each listing.
If product reviews were added to each listing and feedback ratings retained, the buyer is able to make a fully informed buying decision.
There are plenty of TRS rated at 99.8% – 100% selling 1 star products, and the buyer has absolutely no way of knowing that until their order is delivered, but instead a buyer that’s presented with a seller displaying a 100% feedback rating, selling a 5 star rated product, the buyer can now make a much more informed decision, because they are now presented with the whole story (seller and product ratings) and not just the first few chapters. (Only a seller rating)
With all that said though, a large proportion of eBay buyers are led by one single driving factor, the cheapest price, and this wins out every time with that section of buyers, but great feedback and potentially a product review system, would definitely benefit those of us that focus on offering quality products with amazing service.
Love the Blog BTW Andrew. I’ve been an avid reader and lurker over the last couple of years. Its helped me a lot 🙂
Kind Regards
Steve
Hi Steve,
Many Thanks for your comment! 🙂
I also noticed same thing yesterday actually but I just thought it was some kind of glitch as today it’s all back to normal. Hopefully eBay is working on product reviews feature but I think we’ll first see it released on eBay.com and only after some time on eBay.co.uk an others. If it ever happens…
Thanks again!
Andrew
I to wish eBay would add product reviews, Its very harsh on a seller to receive negative feedback du to the product being not up to the customers expectation’s, the seller has shipped on time and at a great cost, offer to replace or refund the item, then gets a negative for his work, the comment slating the item not the seller. I think the ability to rate the seller and item is needed.
Great sellers refuse to sell on ebay du to the feedback system being geared to product reviews instead of the seller.
Totally agree with you Karl!
Seller and product “review process” should be separate – like it is on Amazon.
Andrew
eBay has released product reviews last year around August-September. Now I can see lots of listings where eBay allow product reviews. I am still thinking there are some listing where there are no reviews.
Yes, that’s on eBay.com, eBay.com.au but not on eBay.co.uk (YET).
I have a newer post on this issue here:
http://andrewminalto.com/ebay-reviews/