I don't have a perfect answer but Buyer Feedback should be different than Seller Feedback (they should also be listed separately). Someone smarter than me should develop a system kind of like a credit score.
Here are the thoughts. Your score could go up and down in a few different ways -
Score goes up
Positive Feedback from Sellers - Big Impact
Leaving Positive Feedback for Sellers - Medium Impact
Paying for auctions in a certain amount of time - Small Impact
Length you are on ebay - Medium Impact
Your score could go down
Leaving negative feedback for a seller - Small Impact
Taking too long to pay a seller - Small Impact
Bid Retractions - Big Impact
Non-Payment - Big Impact
And when I say your score could go down based on leaving negative feedback this is what I mean. If I pay all my bills on time for years and have a couple of long term credit cards then maybe I have an 800 credit score. But lets say in a 2 month period I apply for a couple of credit cards, a car loan, and a house loan my credit score could be hurt very slightly with hard inquiries. But lets say I decide not to pay my bills and I get reported to collections this will have a huge impact on my credit score.
So leaving negative feedback would have a low impact on your ebay buyer rating while bid retrations and non-payment would have high impacts on your ebay rating. And then maybe set a threshold where sellers can block buyers who are below a certain threshold. It would put more responsibility onto the buyers and make them think twice about certain things. Maybe try to resolve the issue before leaving a negative feedback or not paying for an item or retracting bids.
I am saying this and I am only a buyer. I have sold less than 10 things on eBay in my life. But now I could start selling things on eBay with a 100% FB rating. And maybe I'll turn out to be a crappy seller.
I've thought about this outdated rating system from eBay and I feel they could do a better job. Whether its something revolving around my idea of not. Buyers should feel comfortable leaving negative feedback when the experience is negative but if they do it all the time without trying to resolve the issues it should reflect in their rating. Just my opinion.
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