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The feedback system is the foundation of trust between eBay's sellers and buyers. This is a very helpful guide throughout your shopping experiences.

• There is a "Leave Feedback" link at the bottom left corner of your "My eBay" status page to leave feedback for all your available auctions. This will save time from going through your index and leaving feedback one at a time.
• Avoid people with less than four stars! You really shouldn't see too many of these, since eBay utilizes the star system to ensure quality sellers. For the power seller status, eBay suspends those that fall below a 4.5 star rating. eBay will penalize other sellers whose average falls below 4.2 in their search ranking system. This helps protect buyers from less than par sellers. But keep this in mind when you are wavering between a giving a 3 or 4 star rating for a seller.
• Target sellers with 99 or 100 percent feedback. 98 with reserve and caution. 97 may seem high, but in fact, means that every 100 transactions, 3 had a very bad experience.
• The feedback percentages are calculated by only the past 12 months that you can find in the "meet the seller" area of the auction listing.
• Feedback is ongoing. You can further investigate the seller's history in detail. People can reply and follow-up to the seller's user public feedback profile.
• It is easy to believe that the higher the score the better the seller. It is a good rule of thumb to make sure that the seller has a visible star by his or her name. The high score indicates the volume of transactions. So theoretically, a high score could have a history of negative (bad) transactions. So make sure you carefully review their feedback history (those with high percentages) and not simpy rely on searching for high numbers.
• Earlier in eBay, both buyers and sellers could leave negative feedback. Now, the responsibility lies in the hands of the sellers, so only buyers can leave negative feedback.
• Don't automatically assume that the lack of detailed ratings is bad. Details seller ratings really only appear after they have conducted with at least ten buyers that voluntarily left detailed ratings for them. So in some instances, depending on the types of goods, positive ratings can take some time to develop.
• Should a buyer fail to pay for an item or complete a transaction - he or she may lose feedback privileges. This protects sellers from getting unfairly penalized.
• Be cautious of people that make their feedback private. They usually have something to hide (their feedback history).
• After the close of the auction, you have 60 days to leave feedback for a transaction. It is wise to leave feedback immediately after you receive and are satisfied with the item. (so you don't forget!)

Following these guidelines will help further develop eBay's core tool to help buyers and sellers alike. The foundation of the feedback system has attributed to eBay's success. Utilizing this properly will help future shopping experiences be as positive as possible.