The Importance Of Maintaining Good Feedback In Online Auction Systems

Online auction sites require a certain amount of trust between the buyer and the seller in order to operate smoothly. While it is possible to remove some of the risk to buyers by using a sort of escrow system (the buyer deposits funds into a third party account, the seller then ships the item, and then the funds are released to the seller when and only when the buyer indicates that the item was received as advertised), this method often slows down the process and thereby removes one of the great strengths of the online auction system. While the escrow method is still used quite often, a more streamlined and efficient way to ensure trust between the buyer and the seller is to use a rating or feedback system. In such a system, the buyer and seller are allowed to rate one another after the conclusion of a transaction and the ratings are made available to other prospective buyers and sellers to review.

Feedback ratings are scores that need to be carefully maintained and nurtured. Even one low feedback score is occasionally enough to make it very difficult for the impacted individual to do further business on the online auction site. Feedback ratings are seen as being more trustworthy if they are comprised of many transactions. Some online auction site power sellers may have a feedback rating higher than ninety nine percent based on several thousand reviews. When purchasers encounter such a seller, they are much more likely to assume that the person they are dealing with is legitimate than if the feedback rating were based on only five or ten transactions.

Clearly, however, someone who has a feedback rating that is based on several thousand reviews is much more able to tolerate a negative review here and there than someone who only has a few reviews. Therefore, it is vitally important that those who are new to doing business on online auction sites do their utmost to ensure that they do not have any negative ratings at all.

In order to get a "cushion" of positive feedback the potential buyer may want to consider making a number of purchases from users on the online auction site. By making purchases from sellers who have a high feedback rating and who have, in the past, made it a habit to reciprocate good feedback marks with their buyers it is possible to develop a comfortable positive feedback margin before selling. Indeed, it is often necessary to do this before selling anything since many buyers are unwilling to do business with someone who has no feedback rating at all. In other words, in order to become a successful seller, it is first necessary to be a responsible auction buyer.