The actual structure of eBay's feedback mechanism and early evidence on the effects of recent changes
Open accessAbstract
eBay's feedback mechanism is considered crucial to establishing and maintaining trust on the world's largest trading platform. Yet, there is confusion among users about its exact institutional details, which changed substantially in May 2007. Most importantly, buyers now have the possibility to leave additional, anonymous ratings on sellers on four different criteria. We provide a thorough description of the institutional details of eBay's feedback mechanism, including those changes. Then, we provide first descriptive evidence on the impact of those changes on rating behaviour.
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eBay added features: a system allowing users to review each other as positive, neutral, or negative; aggregation into numerical scores; specific categories for reviews; and distinctions like coloured stars, power seller status, and punishments like NARU.
“This started with a system allowing users to review each other as “positive”, “neutral” or “negative” and to leave a line of feedback or description (such as that at the bottom of Figure 2).Next, these reviews were aggregated into numerical scores for each user (positive reviews added a point, negative reviews subtracted one, and neutral reviews had no effect), and presented in terms of different”
From Evaluative infrastructures: Accounting for platform organization (2017) · cites this paper as Klein et al, 2009
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References 26 · Cited by 40
- Authors
- Klein, T. J., Lambertz, C., Spagnolo, G., & Stahl, K. O.
- Affiliations
- Tilburg University (NL)
- University of Mannheim (DE)
- University of Rome Tor Vergata (IT)
- Venue
- International Journal of Electronic Business
- Publisher
- Inderscience Publishers
- Published
- 2009
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 301
- ISSN
- 1470-6067 (ISSN-L)
- 1741-5063
- OpenAlex
- W1984116156
- Cited by
- 40
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 5 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 1 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 3.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- International Journal of Electronic Business (publishedVersion)
- Cineca Institutional Research Information System (Tor Vergata University) (submittedVersion)
- Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
- Open access LMU (Ludwid Maxmilian's Universitat Munchen) (submittedVersion)
- Universitätsbibliothek der LMU
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Auction Theory and Applications
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Marketing and Social Media
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Digital Platforms and Economics
- Keywords
- eBay, online ratings, online trading platforms, institutional design, e-commerce
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