eBay calls Feedback “your permanent reputation as an eBay member” and it is a valuable tool to be used both before and after your transaction on eBay. You can get an Overview of Feedback on the eBay site. Below are my thoughts on how to use Feedback to your benefit.
Before the Transaction
As a Buyer: You should always check a sellers feedback before buying from them for the first time. Even if they have 100% positive you should read the comments and look at what was sold before making your decision to buy or bid on an item. The new Detailed Seller Ratings give more information to consider as well. If a Seller has less than 100%, it is even more important to read the comments and check the DSR. Check the Recent Feedback Comments box and look for the number of Negative and Neutral Feedback and when it happened. If it was over 1 month ago it may no longer be relevant but you can still look for the comment. Sellers with high scores will take longer to go through, but at the bottom of the page you can choose to view up to 200 comments at a time so that can help speed up the process.
Once you find the Negative comment read it and determine whether or not it was justified. As we all know there are some folks out there who will leave Negatives just for spite. (You can go one step further and look at the feedback for the person who left the Negative. Do they leave Negatives frequently or is this an isolated incident.) Did the seller reply to the Negative Feedback? How did they handle it? Sometimes you can learn more about a seller by his reply to a Negative comment than from the Negative itself.
