Which is better among these choices – low feedback, no feedback, excessive good feedback, or excessive bad feedback?  In the anonymous world of Internet users, it could be very hard to tell.  This is the place where good does not necessarily mean good.

Using Customer Feedbacks to Generate Sales

Communication is an important sales skill that should be developed by online businesses.  The ability to listen and pay attention to customers will make businesses understand what they need.  By answering real needs, patronage is attained together with financial success.  A legitimate online business always appreciates any feedback that could help improve its overall performance.

There are some techniques that can be used to get those very valuable feedbacks from customers.  The use of surveys and questionnaires on websites, newsletters or direct mail materials are reliable sources of actual information.  An online community for customers such as a chat room, message boards or email discussions will encourage participation.  Online businesses can also give away products together with an evaluation form for it.  There is not one single technique to use and everyone is encouraged to be creative.  The method is not as important as the information derived from such activity.

The emergence of online selling and buying gave rise to the importance of reading the seller’s feedback rating.  It is being used as a tool to determine the legitimacy, service orientation and reliability of a site.  With almost all of its transactions carried out and completed in complete anonymity, site users are looking for ways to protect themselves from those who would choose to take advantage and use it as a means to defraud others.

Positive and Negative Feedbacks

Positive feedbacks are those given and left by customers to signify their satisfaction, approval and appreciation of the product bought or the services rendered by the seller.  Negative feedbacks are those that would signify dissatisfaction with any aspect of the transaction such as but not limited to misrepresented item, overcharging for shipping cost, late shipment and non-delivery of promised items.  Buyers can also be given feedbacks by sellers.  Negative feedbacks for buyers generally involve late or non-payment and in some cases, false claims of damages to the delivered products.

The feedback system has enabled both the sellers and the buyers to decide whether the other party is acceptable or not to deal with based on previous transactions.  Having no feedback or very few feedbacks especially for high value transactions is not a good sign for a seller.  Neither is having excessive negative feedback for similar problems encouraging.  If a number of people are saying that they received damaged items or never received the items at all, how can you avoid suffering the same fate?  Simple; by avoiding transactions with the seller in question and looking for sellers that have very minimal negative feedback and a high percentage of positive transactions.

Risks are a part of online commerce.  Users would have to determine for themselves what they consider as acceptable risks.  The progress of online scammers has just made these risks greater especially with their manipulation of what makes a perfect seller.

Feedback Scams

Unfortunately for legitimate users of online commerce, scammers have found a way to get around the safety nets of the feedback system.  Dishonest sellers and buyers possess undeserved positive feedback to the detriment of honest sellers and trusting buyers.  What was once a feature used for the guidance of users has become a way to get their attention and take unfair advantage of them.

One way scammers do to achieve this is through direct purchase of positive feedback.  A seller posts an auction selling positive feedback and the winning bidder gives a positive feedback in return for his/her own positive feedback.  Sometimes sellers would resort to a subtle play of words and list the words “Positive Feedback” or “Feedback Exchange” as a real transaction instead for what it really is.  Item titles may vary but the essential words “positive feedback” are often highlighted or capitalized so as to make it clear to other scammers that free feedback is being given away at the auction.

Feedback exchanges and free feedback auctions have always been against eBay policies.  However, they continue to modify themselves to make the fraudulent nature of the activity less obvious.  The latest method makes use of items that sell on eBay for under $1 such as online recipes, e-books, wholesale lists and information booklets.  There are of course legitimate sites engaged in this line of business but whether or not feedback exchange is intended, this set-up makes it easy for scammers to buy 10 recipes or information booklets and get a yellow star in the process.

Another way in which scammers manage to obtain positive feedback is by setting up multiple accounts on eBay for the sale of multiple items.  It is not beyond this people to set up more than 100 of these accounts to attain the image of a trustworthy seller.  In this scam, these sellers would purchase the “items” themselves and leave positive feedbacks.

Scammers have also found a way to steal someone else’s feedback by hi-jacking or taking control of another seller’s eBay account.  The good reputation of a legitimate eBay seller is used to trick buyers into unknowingly transacting with these thieves.  The theft is successfully carried out once the buyers reveal personal information into fake eBay or PayPal sites.

Feedbacks are not just about numbers.  The meat of this safety feature lies within the comments behind these numbers.  It would reveal information such as the identity of the buyer and seller, the description of the item sold and the amount in which it was sold.  Overly positive feedback comprised of a lot of similar comments smells of feedback exchanges and scams.  Most scammers don’t take the time to leave original feedbacks every time they provide themselves with positive feedbacks.

Do not be easily swayed by the numbers and determine what particular activity merited those numbers.  A thousand positive buying feedbacks and zero positive selling feedbacks don’t speak much of a seller.  A single positive selling feedback can also come from the seller himself/herself.  A sudden switch from selling small ticket items to big ticket items should make a buyer wary.  Particular caution should be taken when transacting with sellers who have a lot of private auctions and feedbacks.  It is not natural to hide great feedback as sellers would obviously want buyers to know how well they perform.