The Trust & Safety 2004 Year in Review
by Dave Steer
eBay's Senior Manager of Trust & Safety Marketing

Every now and then, it's good to reflect, take stock, and review your achievements. There's no better time to do this than the end of the year.

I'm pleased to be able to say that 2004 has been a tremendous year for innovations in Trust & Safety. All through last year, we were hard at work building a safer, well-lit marketplace that helps enable trust – and safety – between strangers.

Let's take a look at some of the Trust & Safety innovations from this past year:

Member Profile, Feedback Redesign, and Mutual Feedback Withdrawal –
Back in January, we introduced the Member Profile, a new page that displays a snapshot of the various components that make up a member's reputation. Feedback is the reputation-system on eBay that helps make the whole idea of conducting business over the Internet with strangers actually work. The new Member Profile conveniently displays important information about a member – such as the member's feedback score, recent history, and feedback left for the member by buyers as well as sellers – in a way that is much easier for trading partners to read and understand. Member Profile also became the home for the Contact Member button – a quick and easy way of contacting your trading partner.

It's important to note that the Member Profile design was based on months of interaction with the Community. We solicited member input and received thousands of emails from our members, once again proving what a significant role our Community plays in shaping the site. Thanks to the input from many of our members, the changes help trading partners across the eBay marketplace make better use of this critical information in their buying and selling decisions.

Speaking of feedback, this year we also introduced Mutual Feedback Withdrawal, a new way for members to resolve disputes and mutually agree to withdraw negative feedback left for each other.

eBay Toolbar with Account Guard – Protecting yourself from email and websites impersonating eBay (spoof/phishing Web sites) became easier in February when we introduced the Account Guard feature in eBay Toolbar. Account Guard helps protect your account by alerting you if you're on a potential spoof website. It also warns you if you're about to enter your eBay or PayPal passwords into a non-eBay website. Every eBay member who wants to stay safe online should download and install the free eBay Toolbar with Account Guard.

Unpaid Item Process and Buyer Requirements – This year, we introduced a set of initiatives to help sellers be more successful by minimizing their Unpaid Items. The new Unpaid Item process, launched in the summer, facilitates a dialogue between a buyer and seller to help resolve Unpaid Item disputes.

The new process was followed by the introduction of Buyer Requirements, a new feature in My eBay that gives sellers more control over who can bid on their items. The most recent enhancement to this feature gives sellers the option of only accepting bids from PayPal registered users (who have a much lower Unpaid Item rate) on their items.

PayPal Buyer Protection Expansion – PayPal Buyer Protection, the flagship buyer protection program in the eBay marketplace, got even better in November when PayPal doubled the coverage offered. Now buyers can have greater confidence when purchasing high ticket items from PayPal Buyer Protection qualified sellers, knowing that they are covered for up to $1,000.

Security & Resolution Center – Although most eBay transactions go smoothly, it's important for members to have a single place to seek resolution in the rare event that they encounter a problem in the eBay marketplace. In November, we introduced the Security & Resolution Center, a new home for Trust & Safety resources, including tools for problem resolution, as well as helpful information on how to stay safe on eBay and on the Internet.

Return Policy – This year we made improvements to the Sell Your Item listing tool that make offering and promoting a return policy more efficient. Sellers who offer return policies build trust with prospective buyers, which can translate into higher conversion rates.

Item Not Received Process – In November, we unveiled the Item Not Received process, which will help a buyer who didn't receive an item, or who received an item that was significantly not as described, initiate a dialogue with their seller and reach a resolution. The Item Not Received process will launch in January 2005.

These innovations are vital components in our commitment of keeping eBay safe and enabling members to trust each other. On behalf of the Trust & Safety team at eBay, we'd like to thank the eBay Community for your part in advising us on these efforts, and we look forward to more efforts together in 2005.

Coming next month: The Item Not Received Process