eBay Feedback Shows Verified Purchases - But What Does Verified Mean?
UPDATE 2-8-24
eBay has finally made an official announcement and it turns out Verified means exactly what most people thought - just a new term for the same old experience.
Earlier this month we introduced a change to the eBay mobile app displaying the term “verified purchase” on the feedback page. We are implementing this change on the desktop in the next few weeks.
We’ve added this text to remove any doubt that the person leaving the feedback was involved in the transaction. Unlike eBay, other sites allow anyone to leave feedback or ratings, not just those involved in a transaction.
We understand that experienced buyers and sellers on eBay may view the additional text as unnecessary. However, before implementing this change, surveys with eBay users showed that half of them didn’t know that feedback can only be left by those involved in a purchase. This text removes any doubt.
So feedback can still only be left by buyers and sellers involved in a purchase, they'll all just have a verified label...which begs the question, if every feedback is verified, does the label really mean anything at all?
eBay better get to hiring for that open Lead Product Manager Feedback & Trust role pronto, because this is not the tech-led reimagination we were promised.
Liz Morton
Eagle-eyed sellers spotted another change to eBay's feedback pages today with apparent testing showing "Verified Purchase" for transactions that received feedback, but longtime users were confused by what this new designation means and how eBay decides which purchases are "verified."
Today under the feedback I am now seeing "Verified purchase" after every transaction. In both the Received as Buyer and Received as Seller sections. Is this a new feature? What is the purpose of putting it in the feedback?
I suppose its a good thing for fraudulent concerns, but it doesnt seem like the right place to put it. Does anybody else have this and what do you think of it ?
Not all users are seeing this change and in testing, we were only able to replicate it in an incognito browser window.
It's understandable why sellers are perplexed - feedback on eBay is between buyers and sellers, not a product review, so it would stand to reason most feedback would by nature be for a verified purchase.
I find it strange, because as far as I know, you can only leave feedback on ebay if you have made the purchase of the item you are leaving feedback for
You can't leave FB if you weren't the buyer or seller, so this is completely stupid. Must have been some busywork quota that a programmer saw on other sites. EBay should fire the remaining 91% of employees.
I noticed it this morning and had the same question as you. This isn't the 90s where you could leave FB for anybody. You have to be in a transaction to leave FB for a buyer or seller. Adding 'verified purchase' seems pretty pointless to me when it appears on every single FB.
FB isn't a product review where 'verified purchase' has more relevance (though eBay does seem to be pushing in that direction).
eBay has been making changes to feedback recently, displaying feedback replies in more places across the platform, changing the default sort order to "most relevant" instead of "most recent, and allowing buyers to upload images with their feedback comments.
Liz Morton
While some of these changes do appear to be moving eBay feedback closer to including "product review" type content, this Verified Purchase notation still doesn't make much sense within the context of how feedback is currently displayed and used on the site.
Sellers wondered what might happen with "unverified" purchases, such as those who commit to buy but never complete payment.
Does eBay also show "Unverified purchase" or "No purchase but left feedback anyway" after any transaction? Wonder why not.
Unfortunately it doesn't appear that eBay is using this new designation as part of their ongoing efforts to "solve unpaid items on the platform" as even transactions that aren't paid for are at least currently also receiving the "verified" badge.
I wonder what happens if it’s not verified. I see transactions that weren’t paid for but received false positives are also a verified purchase.
We've previously suggested that, in the current age of social media user verification, eBay could have an opportunity for innovation and differentiation by verifying sellers who physically stock items versus those who dropship or use alternate logistics arrangements.
Liz Morton
@unsuckEBAY raised this possibility last year as a much needed innovation injection for eBay and expanded further on the idea with suggested badges and filters that could be used to highlight sellers who purchase or produce their own inventory and have it on-hand, as opposed to various dropshipping models that pose greater risks to consumers.
Given the ongoing and rampant issues with retail arbitrage, drop shippers, scalpers and pre-sale violations that proliferate across the site, this type of seller verification would still seem to be a far better use of resources than "Verified Purchase" for feedback.
What do you think of the "Verified Purchase" tag in eBay Feedback? Would you like to see eBay offer stocking vs drop shipping seller verification too? Let us know in the comments below!
