To not leave feedback because they've specifically emailed requesting some?

[Normalisavariantofcrazy]

And not only that ended the email with 'thanking you'

I bought something from Amazon, it turned up in a timely manner in good nick as you'd expect, I duly get the usual email from amazon asking me to leave feedback - which I never do for anyone anyway.

Then I get a follow up email from the seller saying they'd be grateful if I could leave feedback 'thanking you'

Now it's no skin off my nose, email deleted along with every other feedback request and duly ignored but AIBU not to leave feedback?

Also, what's the obsession with feeding back on everything these days? Surely feedback should only be given or expected if the service and product was either exceptional or diabolical and not for a run of the mill transaction?

All these constant requests from companies drive me mad!

(Yes I'm aware in the grand scheme of things there are bigger things to be concerned about but this has annoyed me)

"There is nothing to feed back to them"

You arent just feeding it back to them, you are providing help to future customers too. For all the ranting you have done on here you could have taken 30 seconds of your time to simply put "good service. reliable seller".. simple as that.

I can bet you would quickly be on there to moan if the service had been less than adequate. So, for example, out of 100 sales, 99 were without any problem and only one was, but the only feedback was that one bad experience, then prospective buyers might be put off, whereas if there were 99 good reviews and only one bad one, it puts it into a better perspective.

I'm not sure how a company can provide what you would class as exceptional service in delivering a standard product to you. By that logic, companies would only get negative feedback, which could be very misleading and damaging to their business.

Yes I could have spent my time leaving feedback but I chose not to and will always choose not to

Even though lots of people have explained very clearly how important it is to small businesses to have feedback even if it is just to say 'totally as you would expect' ?

You may not have started off being terribly unreasonable but you sure are headed in that direction.

You're misunderstanding the role of feedback in internet transactions. It isn't comparable to writing a letter of compliment or complaint to a manager. This is for other users of a faceless service to get a feel for whether they're worth using or not. It's equivalent to seeing if a shop is busy or empty, asking your friends if they'd recommend somewhere, overhearing a conversation in the supermarket about how some local business is great/awful, only on the global, virtual scale applicable to the internet. Yes feedback such as 'service as expected' or 'would use again' is utterly appropriate. 'Item as described' is a bread and butter comment on eBay. If no one fed back on anything how would anyone be able to sort an acceptable internet business from a cowboy?

The point isn't the time it would have taken to leave the feedback it was the fact that in the OP's opinion their was no need for any feedback at all!

has made me see the error of my ways. I am now vowing to send appropriate feedback for all my online purchases

Yes you and me both Flywheel ....I haven't always been all that diligent in leaving feedback but I will be now!

But, chazzer ... can you not tell that from whether people keep buying stuff?

I'm not trying to be arsey, I just don't follow what people want: do they want to know what we actually thought, or do they want to be thanked for not doing anything wrong?

Cos let's be fair, when you are trying to find out about something, nothing is more irritating than pages of 'was fine' or similar, which you get on some sites.

Cos let's be fair, when you are trying to find out about something, nothing is more irritating than pages of 'was fine' or similar, which you get on some sites

I beg to disagree LRD: that is PRECISELY what I need to know...that there have been oodles of transactions none of which has given rise to any complaint!

I buy a lot off eBay, I wouldn't touch a seller who is not over 95% positive.

Feed back helps other people

I have no problem with being asked for feedback, but I don't always leave it. I don't at all on eBay as their feedback system is extremely and unfairly biased against the buyer so I don't do it in protest.

Ok, I stand corrected.

I find it really annoying - if I am trying to buy something from someone, I want information. 'Fine' doesn't really tell me anything, especially if it's likely it's been submitted after a prompt.

LRD It's not about thanking the business. It's about communicating to other potential customers whether this is a good business to buy from. Just like we do in a whole host of ways, like those I listed, for non-virtual businesses.

How can you tell if people keep buying stuff if not through feedback? I can't see the usual signs such as lack of footfall. So if we can't communicate through feedback, there would be enough new customers who don't have any past experience to go on to sustain the business. So it won't just fail and thus show us they were a bad business. Feedback just provides the way of ascertaining the reputation of a business in a virtual environment where the signs we'd usually use are not accessible.

Xpost. 'Was fine' is precisely what I'd expect to see. I'm looking at the % of happy customers not the minutiae of their individual transactions.

Just like when I go in a non virtual shop I'm looking for a fair number of people, reasonable footfall, rather than expecting people cheering and popping party poppers.

Mmm. I don't think I know from one transaction if something is good or not. Same as in a high street shop - you don't go in, buy something, have it all go fine and rush out to tell your mates it was lovely.

Maybe we need a 'neutral' category more? Or maybe I am very odd.

Really really felt the need of a 'like' button for your post at 13.42 Chazzer

Which is why we need a mass of people saying 'yes fine, would use again' rather than only providing one off feedback to say how brilliant or dire something was. Putting 'fine' is not the same as rushing off to tell everyone how lovely it is. It's a closer equivalence to going in the shop again, like the footfall you'd see if it wasn't virtual.

YANBU. I do the same if an Ebay seller messages me looking for feedback. I always leave it....it might take me a week or two but I DO get round to it unless they ask!

But, you can see on sites like Amazon how many transactions - it's separate from feedback isn't it? Isn't that the footfall equivalent?

I leave feedback on eBay but never on Amazon. But I've never had an email asking me to either. I mostly agree with the OP though - unless the seller has done something extraordinary or seriously fucked up, it probably wouldn't occur to me to leave any. I've sold things via Amazon before and I can't remember if anyone left me feedback. It just doesn't seem as important on there as it does on eBay.

OP you cba to leave feedback, yet you have the time and energy to start a thread on here about it. YAB massively U!

You can't tell if they're repeat customers or unique. They could be lots of people sucked in by cheap prices being sold crap. Or they could be repeat customers. Virtual selling has both a huge market and lots of sellers, and the ability to set yourself up with lots of different names. There's never going to be a high enough concentration of people for there to be any ability to judge based just on numbers.

A real shop has a limited pool of people. The people who will travel to that area. The people who own the shop could be recognised, so can't just keep reinventing themselves as easily. And importantly people talk, people do or don't go back to places depending on their experiences, places get reputations based on shared experiences. Which happen in a whole host of ways in the non virtual world that wouldn't work in the virtual world. Hence the need for feedback to replace the informal process of 'feedback' that's been happening in societies since businesses ever existed.

yes and no, I see where your coming from. I buy and sell on ebay and never expect fb but 99% the time I get left it. I always leave feedback too, although in my own time (think have up to 90days) and get very disgruntled if asked, which I was once by a seller, they emailed several times asking, which to me is just bloody rude and so they received nada, had they left me alone to do it at my will, they would have got fb!! as for amazon I don't think ive ever been asked for fb.
FWIW Im sure, transaction as expected, or similar will suffice

Nor can you in a real shop.

And people talk about internet shops in real life.

I just don't find it all that convincing. I can see if you're selling, it feels really important, but that's life - we all find our own thing really important, and others less so.