Flaws with EBay

Since 1995, eBay has been one of the best sites for buying and selling goods online. But it is still not without its weaknesses. In this day and age, with eBay doing record business and with just about everyone owning an eBay account, this needs to change. The last two weeks I spent over six-hundred dollars on eBay and many of these small problems became apparent in a hurry. Here are my qualms and a couple of suggestions to improve them.

• In eBay, the buyer holds most of the risk in the transaction. This is because the buyer is forced to pay the seller for their item before the item is even shipped. I can see why this was implemented, as for the most part buyers are more likely to cheat than sellers. In my opinion, however, it would be best if buyers had the option of working through a secure third-party. Once the third-party receives both the money and the item bought, it can exchange the goods. In the event one side does not hold their part of the deal, they can send the money or item back.
• Another terrible feature of eBay is the feedback system. Originally made to get rid of bad eBayers, the feedback system has really become a "you rub my back, I will rub yours" system. What do I mean? Most sellers do not leave feedback to buyers until they have received feedback first despite buyers completing their end of the transaction almost immediately in most cases. Why? Because sellers want to hold a possible negative feedback in case they receive some themselves. How do you fix this? There are a number of options. I would recommend either setting it so sellers do not receive feedback unless they give it first or making feedback completely anonymous to begin with.
• A final problem I saw was that sellers are not forced to give their buyer information on shipping. One seller, who I paid almost four-hundred dollars, has yet to tell me anything besides I will receive the item "ASAP." When accepting a payment for an item, sellers should have to give the buyer some information on what day they shipped the item, what shipping service was used and how long it should take. EBayers who do not provide this information to many customers should be banned from selling.

The truth is eBay probably does not care about alleviating concerns of their customers. They make money every time someone puts an item up for sale. But their system is flawed and it would be to the benefit of everyone to make transactions more secure. I know that after my experience last week, I won't be buying any big items off of eBay anymore.