Every eBay member has a Feedback Profile, which includes basic information about the member and the Feedback that their trading partners have left for them. Learning to trust a member has a lot to do with what their past buyers or sellers have to say.

For each transaction, buyers can rate the seller by leaving a positive, negative, or neutral rating, and a short comment. Sellers can only provide a positive rating to the buyer and a short comment.

A buyer can also rate the seller on additional criteria — accuracy of item description, communication, shipping time, and shipping and handling charges. These detailed seller ratings do not count toward the Feedback Score and are anonymous. This means that sellers can't tell which buyer left which detailed rating, so buyers can feel free to leave ratings that honestly tell the story about their experience.

Leaving honest comments about a particular eBay member gives other Community members a good idea of what to expect when dealing with that member. Once it's left, Feedback becomes a permanent part of the member's Feedback Profile.

Buyers can leave Feedback for a seller after a transaction ends. But if they are leaving Feedback for a specific seller again, that repeat Feedback will not be calculated in the seller's Feedback Score unless the repeat transaction occurred in a separate week.

With this Feedback approach, buyers can reward their favourite sellers not only with sales, but also with helping spread the word about the seller's services. And sellers can return the favour by leaving similar Feedback for their buyers.

Feedback scores and stars
Feedback ratings are used to determine each member's Feedback Score.
The higher the Feedback Score, the more positive ratings a member has received. Learn more about how scores are calculated.

The Feedback Score and the corresponding Feedback star are shown next to every member's user ID. A Feedback Score of at least 10 earns you a yellow star (  ). As your Feedback Score increases, you can earn different colored stars all the way to a red shooting star (  ) for a score above 100,000! Your star is your symbol of trust and experience in the eBay Community.