I noticed today that eBay is really pushing the idea that sellers can no longer leave buyers neutral or negative feedback. I was about to leave feedback as a buyer today and a pop-up appeared reminding me that the seller can no longer leave me negative in retaliation of me leaving bad feedback for the seller. I can’t remember ever seeing a pop-up on eBay like that so for whatever reason, they want buyers to be VERY aware of this change.

Later in the day, there was a message before I logged into my Seller Account reminding me of the new feedback changes. Most of the feedback changes occurred in February, but there were a few that take effect in May. May the what??? I cannot get an answer for the exact date. I doubt they know at this point but since the month is well over half way complete, it will be soon.

Here is the changes that will be taking place in May:

• Feedback back left by the same person on different weeks will be retroactively calculated back to when the feedback system started. So, for sellers like me with many repeat customers, my total feedback score will go up substantially.
• Sellers will no longer give negative or netural feedback to buyers. I don’t mind this rule so much. I feel if you are an honest seller, you have nothing to fear. I have been giving positive feedback the day a customer pays ever since I started been selling on eBay. I never had problems with negative being left when I didn’t at least somewhat deserve it.
• Neutral and Negatives left by suspended members or buyers who do not respond to the Unpaid Item Process will be removed from your feedback record
• Positive feedback percent will be based on the previous 12 months instead of the lifetime of a seller.
• Buyers must wait 7 days to leave neutral or negative against Powersellers who have been registered at least 12 months
• You now only have 60 days to leave feedback instead of 90 days
• You can no longer request negatives be removed through the mutual feedback withdrawal process. This one I don’t like so well. I have many customers leave negative before contacting me. When I fix it to their satisfaction, they really want to take back the negative. Now, there will be no way for them to do so.

Overall, I like the changes and am curious to see how it affects trading on eBay. My feedback score will go way up… The number of negatives I receive may slightly go up if buyers think they can leave negatives before trying to work out a resolution… Other than that, not much will change for me.

Here is the link to the official explanations of all the new feedback rules… http://pages.ebay.com/services/forum/new.html