Rewards for leaving low DSR’s for a seller!
As if DSR scoring is not flawed enough already, ebay.com are now offering coupons to US buyers who leave low DSR ratings for their purchases.
http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2008/3/1206374629.html
At first rumours were that it was scaremongering or an April fool of some sorts, but AuctionBytes has more integrity than that, but after the story exploded on the eBay boards both sides of the Atlantic, eBay were forced to come clean about it.
Hi everyone,
We appreciate your input, and we’ve passed along your comments and concerns to the teams. I also wanted to share a little bit of background about the coupons.
As you know the company is focused on retaining eBay buyers. In the case of coupons, we want to give our best buyers a special incentive to come back and shop on the site. We’ve been testing a variety of ways to use coupons to drive buyer loyalty, and in this case we’ve provided coupons to a few buyers who’ve had a bad experience. This is comparable to what other businesses might do for a customer who they feel has not been 100% satisfied — it’s not an admission of wrong on the seller’s part, but it does send a message to an important customer of the marketplace that their business is important to us and that we hope they keep spending their money with all the sellers on eBay.
Regarding the concern that some buyers could try to “game’ the system by leaving poor feedback intentionally just to get a coupon — that’s a legitimate concern and we have safeguards in place to ensure this doesn’t become a loophole that the unscrupulous few can exploit. For example, giving a bad score definitely doesn’t mean that you’ll get a coupon. Plus, people who show a pattern of complaints aren’t eligible at all.
In general, these coupons are being sent to buyers with established track records — these are some of our top buyers who have been good trading partners and who may have hit a bump in the road. We want to tell them we appreciate their business and that we want them back.
Increasing buyer loyalty is a win for everyone involved, and will continually evolve these types of programs to make them more effective.
I hope this helps clear things up a little.
Jeff K. | Community Development | eBay
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000671982&tstart=0&mod=1206641168752
“Safeguards are in place” makes me feel very comfortable - in the same way that safeguards against shilling are in place.
Regardless of whether it is selected buyers only, it is now going to lead to buyers trying their luck in a competition, with as many entries as they like, for no cost to them.
The only commnent from the UK ebay staff, was from Richard Ambrose, head of Trust and Safety, and more usually seen as the “talking head” that eBay roll out for TV interviews. Unprofessional and dismissive to does not come close to describe his comments. A personal snidy remark against another board contributor was totally unnecessary.
