The Feedback feature on eBay can be a valuable tool when deciding whether or not to bid on an auction.  Generally, if the seller has a good rating, you can feel reasonably confident while doing business with them.

That being said, there are also drawbacks to the system as an accurate indicator of a seller's true attitude.  For example, many sellers wait to see what kind of feedback a buyer leaves them before rating the buyer.  That's simply wrong.  If a buyer pays in a timely manner, it is the duty of the seller to say so, and give a positive feedback.  Period.  I mean, come on, what else could be said about a buyer except how quickly the bid was paid? 

In turn, buyers may be deterred from being completely honest or many times, they will simply not leave any feedback, since negative or even neutral feedback could lead to reprisal.  This distorts the satisfaction rating of the seller, but in turn may keep a negative comment off your own feedback. 

Another consideration is the space limitiation.  Here, I can use all the words it takes to describe the transaction.  Thankfully, most of my comments thus far have been positive.

So as you can see, there had to be a better way.  I understand there are other sites that feature similar information.  This is simply a brief summation of many of my personal eBay transactions.  It is not fully complete at this time, and continues to evolve as my time allows.

If you have a comment, please contact me.