Professional sellers
Buyer feedback experiments update
We've been running some buyer experiments to improve the buyer experience.
A few weeks ago we let you know about a planned feedback trial to capture and show additional seller and item ratings to buyers to understand if it helped to make a more confident purchase decision.
We've been capturing additional feedback ratings over the last few weeks, and we're happy to report that the overall average rating from all of the responses collected was 4.9/5. We’re stoked to see that our buyers are so happy with their items and overall experience.
We’re now preparing to run the 3 planned buyer experiments, where small groups of members will be able to see either the seller ratings, or an item rating, when viewing the listing details page. Each experiment will only be visible to a small targeted group of members (approximately 6% of active users will see each experiment). The experiments will begin on 27 Mar, and be live for approximately 2-4 weeks.
- There are 3 different buyer experiments that we will be running. Read on to see an illustration and summary of each experiment.
- Each experiment will only be visible to a small targeted group of members (approximately 6% of active users will see each experiment).
- The experiments will begin on 27 March, and will run for an estimated 2-4 weeks. We will turn each experiment off as soon as we’ve reached a conclusion on the buyer impact for that experiment.
Buyer experiment 1 - item ratings
For items that have received one or more ratings from buyers during our additional feedback capture period, we’ll show the average rating score (and the number of ratings) on the listing details page.
Buyer experiment 2 - seller ratings
For sellers that have received feedback ratings scores from one or more ratings from buyers during our additional feedback capture period, we’ll show the average rating that the seller has received (and the number of ratings) for the categories “Item as described”, “Seller communication” and “Delivery”. These ratings will appear on the listing details page.
Buyer experiment 3 - feedback sentiment
Our third experiment is a trial that uses machine learning to identify themes from buyers’ reviews. We’ll look at a seller’s positive feedback from buyers, and try to identify and group feedback that mentions “Communication”, “Item as Described”, “Packaging”, “Delivery” or “Customer Service”. This will appear on the listing details page.
After our buyer experiments have concluded, the additional star ratings and grouping of feedback themes will be removed from the listing details page. At this stage we have no plans to fully roll out any of these experiments, but we’ll use what we learn in these experiments to inform whether it’s something that we should consider in the future.
We're always looking for ways to improve our buyer experience because ultimately that means more sales. You can find out more about the experiments here or alternatively get in touch with us.
