Town Hall : more feedback changes to come?

Last night's eBay Town Hall was not so much about the new, as communicating eBay's conviction that all their recent changes were great, and that members who are complaining are completely in the minority. Seller concerns about the unintented effects of the anti-counterfeiting policy, for example, were dismissed in half a sentence: "we know we're impacting some sellers but..." Butt is exactly where Bill Cobb needs to get his head out of if he's going to keep sellers onside with that one.

After sixteen minutes of riffing with Griff, we finally got onto some real questions. Predictably, changes to feedback were a feature, and it seems that the recently announced "Feedback 2.0" is not the end of the changes. Matt, "resident Town Hall trust and safety guy", commented that:

With feedback 2.0, if a buyer rates a seller low on accuracy of item description, say a 1 or a 2 on a scale from 1 to 5, we're actually going to pop up another question that asks why, and one of the possibilities is was it a counterfeit or was it a fake.

And that's a good idea: you might even start to sell me on Feedback 2.0 like that. Assuming, of course, that eBay have the support staff to investigate.

Over the last few days, several sellers have said, some in jest and some not, that they would like the ability to rate buyers as they themselves will be rated. This had mixed reactions from the Town Hall panel, with some pointing out that it would make eBay unique on the internet, as buyers are almost never rated by merchants: whether this in itself would raise eBay's appeal was also a matter for debate. But the thought of "a gold dollar bill sign next to a buyer that pays fast" appealed to some, and we were promised more than once that "everything is on the table": looks like this is not the end of feedback changes.

Policies against excessive shipping and handling also look set to change: "we are all over the shipping issue, but it's more complicated than we thought." No kidding: the policy was a sledgehammer when first implemented, so let's hope this promises something a little more subtle.

And finally, unlikely as it seems, a call to promote eBay Stores (Shops in the UK) more prominently, met with apparent approval from the Cobbster: "good idea, I'll take that back to the Stores team". Fingers, as ever, crossed.