HELP U LOT! Solutions to FEEDBACK & BULK ad's/uploading.

[wood-family]

EBID

Solution to buyers and sellers who do not give/receive feedback after a sale

Both parties should receive an extra email say 7/14 days after the auction close to remind the user that feedback is an inertial part of ebid transactions, and must be left as part of your user agreement. For the benefit of yourself, and your trading partners. This kind of email will not be sent to the user who has left feedback, instead a confirmation email can be sent to confirm that feedback has been left.

I feel the above idea is necessary and quite adequate for an ongoing problem, which many users including myself would benefit from. I also feel it will inadvertently keep users coming back to ebid, and keeping their accounts above board, and in check.


Ongoing problems while posting BULK spreadsheets to spreads@ebid.co.uk

I have suggested this time and time over….I’ve seen more than once NEW users post on the forums asking for help because its been ‘more than 24hrs’ and their spreadsheet has not been uploaded.

EBID really need to start sending confirmation emails to users to confirm receipt firstly of the bulk spreadsheet and secondly of

(a) a successful listing of the ads

or if necessary (most importantly)

(b) an unsuccessful spreadsheet – IE where the errors are so they can be corrected, and relisted by the user.

I feel this is a very important feature. Infact, so do you! – you confirm ‘individual’ postings by email, why not confirm that all bulk auctions have been successfully listed or not? – its really massively frustrating when you do not get a reply from ebid, and you are just waiting for (24hrs plus) your ads to go on, and you received the bulk spreadsheet as soon as it was sent, but it had errors so you didn’t list it.
That makes me:

(a) not know what was wrong
(b) send it again (you might not of received it)
(c) not do anything to fix the erroneous bulk spreadsheet because I don’t know anything’s wrong with it.

It kind of has a revolving door element to it, if you can see that.


The more you can automate tasks (and make people happy) the less work you’ll have to do. I understand a lot of tasks must be done manually, but the above solutions could save you hundreds of man hours a year. A good manager will always try to do this. Lets see some good management now and some good/unique solutions to some old problems on here.

CAN ANY MEMBERS READING THIS PLEASE BACK ME UP IF YOU LIKE THE IDEA OR ADD YOUR CONSTRUCTIVE ADVICE PLEASE, THANK – YOU.

[blackwid0w]

Feedback should be left as non-compulsory.
People don't (or at least shouldn't) buy/sell to gain points, it's done to get a bargain or make a profit. Or am I wrong?
There are some users that choose not to leave feedback at all in the instance of an unhappy trade or where both sides have agreed to forgo the transaction - should they really be forced into leaving feedback under threat of suspension?

If a certain user appears to never leave any for anyone, then perhaps a nicely worded email from an 'aggrieved trader' could put them on track. Making feedback easier to leave in bulk would also help.

The bulk spreadsheet points, I agree completely. Several times I've had no auctions show and had to resend. On one occassion they did actually turn up the next day as well so I had to manually delete one batch which then appeared twice.

CJ

[wood-family]

hello

well regarding f/b i have sucessfully sold over 100+ items, and done a few purchases. I have only 12 marks, and at least two users (to date) think im not doing very well as a trader!! when infact im doing extremely well.

thanks for your feedback. if enough people relay their thoughts, perhaps some kind of 'final solution' can be found.

perhaps to save us loading up our Yahoo email accounts (etc) to email the users, couldnt we mail them internally...if we choose? like just tickbox from all the users who have not left f/b?

Lawrence.

[f3speech]

I'd prefer fb as non-compulsory. Sometimes if you have a bad experience there can be a fine line where leaving no fb is better than leaving a neg.

Sometimes, you might have probs that you feel yourself you were unlucky with, so you might prefer to refrain from the fb rather than leave a neg. jmo

[gazza]

Both parties should receive an extra email say 7/14 days after the auction close to remind the user that feedback

EBID really need to start sending confirmation emails to users to confirm receipt firstly of the bulk spreadsheet

Already in todo list

Already in todo list

Thanks for the comments... Sorry if things seem to be slow moving..

There are 2 of us trying to keep 6000 auction users a day happy, checking 150 new users daily, checking a good percentage of 7000 new auctions daily, deleting bad auctions, fighting fraud, responding to support emails, developing software, testing software, debugging software, managing our server hardware and software, developing new ideas, developing marketing plans, forming strategic alliances, keeping squabbles, arguments and accusations to a minimum on our forums whilst taking flak from all sides and trying to not take it personally, keeping the Police happy, keeping the FA happy, keeping about 20 music and film lawyers happy, new one just in.. keeping Trading Standards happy and keeping the Government Prescription Drugs Department happy (just had a nice suprise visit from 2 suited gentlemen on my doorstep)!

Thats all if nothing unexpected pops up which it normally does..

We read every post on this forum and if we agree with an idea we will add it to our todo list. We have added over 160 new features and bug fixes to our auction software since we went free just over a year ago.

We have another 20 to do before i will be happy that we can start to push ourselves into different international markets... Its a learning curve that gets slightly flatter each day... Stick with us, we are doing our upmost to make eBid a success for ourselves and for our customers...

Please remember, we are not eBay, whatever you think me and mark make out of this, i can assure you its lower...! We are running this place on adrenalin and dreams most the time.

Thanks for everyones support, we really do appreciate it.

G

ps. I wouldnt change my job for the world!

[johnwash1]

...
The more you can automate tasks (and make people happy) the less work you’ll have to do. I understand a lot of tasks must be done manually, but the above solutions could save you hundreds of man hours a year. A good manager will always try to do this. Lets see some good management now and some good/unique solutions to some old problems on here.

A good manager manages by exception.

In other words, your proposal of numerous emails will be good for some folk, but personally I'd rather be able to opt for an email only when something has gone wrong (e.g. spreadsheet rejected).

Feedback. I still believe that sending system generated follow-up emails to chase people for feedback is just going to cause irritation and resentment. I've discussed (I think elsewhere within this forum) the need for a redesign of the feedback -- if you have several feedbacks to fill in you get RSI before you've finished that many clicks. It could all be done on a single page (assuming G&M have a bit of spare coding time between 4.31am and 4.37am!).

I think we just have to be patient.

One of the things that concerns me about bulk uploads is that the present method assumes people are using Excel, I think. Are there people who would like to bulk upload but don't have Excel? If so, I might do something about that.

[pesky33]

i got office just to use the spreadsheet, but can't really get to grips with the whole photo thing, and find it quicker to sell manually anyway

when i did send a spreadsheet it was on there quickly

i think gary and mark do an amazing job at keeping it all running so smoothly with only two of them