Rating online purchases of fungible items

[mtbc]

I bought some plain black shoelaces through eBay, as part of my effort to buy not-Amazon where I easily can. eBay would now like me to take a two-minute survey about my experience. I really don't think I have that much to say: the shoelaces turned up in an envelope, they were entirely as expected, I laced my shoes accordingly. There was no disappointment, surprise or delight at any point. It's rather like when I buy, say, some screws, and a little bag of screws turns up, and it feels a stretch to ascribe superlative excellence to any part of the experience. Any missing stars in a rating is taken as suggesting some problem, which leaves no room for giving extra credit for those times when a purchase truly exceeds expectations.

Comments

[thewayne]

I really, really hate this 'review every trivial transaction PLEASE!' culture that we're in. Sometimes it makes a big difference, as in restaurant workers can end up with cut hours if they get sub-par reviews.

Last week Saturday at 1:15am I ordered my new laptop, I dropped an extra $15 for 3-day shipping. It arrived Monday afternoon! Now THAT deserves some kudos!

[darkoshi]

If there were no problems, no matter the item, I give all stars and usually write something like "No problems with the transaction; item is as expected." If the shipping was very fast or anything else especially good, I add that to the text description. The reviews are for other shoppers; it's basically for them to know if they can trust the seller to do what they're supposed to do. The more it is less than 100%, you have to wonder. I sometimes look at the reviews to see if multiple buyers report the same kind of issues.