Where buyers can see a B&M setup, they will gain a certain level of confidence. It's not going to disappear when they blink; there are other shoppers around who are willing to share their experiences; they have faces of staff to look at and body language to observe.
These are factors which are totally absent from eCommerce - unless there is an identifiable B&M behind it - such as Big-W.
Sure, B&M establishments have the 'bad hair day' customers to deal with - but their display is verbal and temporary - with any other customers in the store able to observe the complainant and the staff response. Written feedback is the equivalent of the sensationalism journalist's view of such events.
While useful in filling-in some of these missing pieces in the eCommerce world, I appreciate the argument that feedback isn't essential.
However, while Feedback and DSRs are used on eBay to impose commercial punishments - and - sellers have no ability for redress, extortion will continue to grow, as will termiting competitors and dumping on a seller because some buyer had a bad hair day.
There is another aspect of the eCommerce world that makes feedback on a venue such as eBay something to be desired by buyers - and that is buyer confidence. I have seen it said that once you set up your own website, expect to hang in there for 6 months to 2 years before you will be up and running. I see this as being a result of a number of things, however anybody can stroll in on eBay and start selling to the world in under 24 hours. No building up of reputation, word of mouth recommendations, etc. - just join, list and sell.
Feedback at least gives some opportunity for buyers to assess just who they are going to be sending their money to... as long as it is a true reflection of the seller - and not the result of some twisted efforts like extortion.
I appreciate the 'three strikes and you're out' philosophy as a means of keeping order - but the practicalities are problematic. The first is 'What qualifies as a strike?' - followed by 'Who judges that'. The answers aren't simple.
As for Paypal, I agree with you. My tip on the payment 'changes' is that there will be a 'glitch' in the roll-out ... and I expect they will string it out for as long as possible. Only when the news is old, people have given up waiting and continued using Paypal and the ACCC or Fair Trading start asking questions, will the facility will be operational - but in a non-announcement of deafening silence.
I think John Donuhoe is not the right person to run a company like eBay .........
sadly I think a lot of the people that run eBay have never run a corner shop or a market stall
I agree. Donahoe's Bains background might be good for running a corporation like Intel - but eBay is a different animal altogether. The market stall experience would be far more appropriate - at least they would understand the engine that drives the beast and work out how to facilitate the development of that.
Bains might provide useful hierarchical techniques for traditional business - but eBay is more like a cooperative ... and I don't know of any cooperatives that flourish under an ignorant dictatorship.
