WebProNews

It looks like eBay may be considering a program for "certified sellers." Ina Steiner at AuctionBytes talks about one of her readers who wrote in and told her about a survey for eBay he participated in that showed a made up listing page for a digital camera. It looked something like this:

Click to enlarge.

Notice the new section where "Meet the Seller" would normally appear? It says "certified seller" and has attributes like:

- Committed to eBay's highest standards of customer service

- Ships item in 2 business days or less, and

- Earns a 99% or higher customer satisfaction rating

Steiner provides 3 screenshots of different templates for the box based on what different users were shown by participating in the survey. This would appear to suggest that eBay will be going forward with the change and is simply trying to test which design works the best.

"Distinguishing between professional sellers with good ratings and those with poor ratings, as well as those who are casual sellers, is not a new idea, and sellers have long lobbied eBay for some form of seller verification," she says. "But given eBay's current direction, there's bound to be concern that eBay would limit a certified seller program to high-volume sellers."

I know many of you will have something to say about this. So let's hear it. Share your thoughts on eBay's potential "certified sellers" box.