eBay Feedback Examples, and the Rules That Decide What Survives
Most feedback guides hand you a list of phrases. The phrases are the easy part. What catches sellers out is that eBay silently deletes a whole class of comments, and the window to leave feedback at all is shorter than most people assume.
This guide gives you usable examples for both directions, then the four official rules that decide whether what you wrote stays on the page. Every rule below comes from the eBay help pages, verified on 15 August 2026. Feedback drives the click, and fees decide what the click is worth, so it helps to put your own figures in alongside it.
On this page
- Can a seller leave negative feedback on eBay
- The 90 day window for leaving buyer feedback
- Why a positive rating with a negative comment gets removed
- Feedback examples to leave for buyers
- Feedback examples buyers leave for sellers
- What to do about negative feedback you received
- The follow up comment is a one time move
- Automating buyer feedback
- Feedback score and seller level are not the same thing
Can a seller leave negative feedback on eBay
No. eBay allows sellers to leave positive feedback only. The official wording is that as a seller you can only leave positive feedback for buyers, because businesses do not typically have the option to leave a public review of their customers.
This is the rule that makes half the feedback lists on the web useless to sellers. Any article offering negative feedback examples for buyers is describing something the platform will not let you publish.
When a buyer genuinely misbehaves, the mechanism is the report a buyer flow, not the rating. That is a private signal to eBay rather than a public mark on the buyer profile.
The 90 day window for leaving buyer feedback
You have 90 days from the completion of the transaction to leave feedback for a buyer. After that the option disappears.
Ninety days sounds generous until you are running a few hundred orders a month and only remember feedback when a buyer chases you for it. Sellers who leave it manually and sporadically tend to lose a chunk of the window entirely.
The buyer side is more forgiving in practice, since eBay emails buyers a reminder after purchase and surfaces the option in purchase history.
Why a positive rating with a negative comment gets removed
Because eBay removes it on purpose. The help page states that leaving a positive feedback rating with a negative comment can cause confusion for other members and will therefore be removed.
This is the single most useful rule in this article and it is missing from most example lists. A sarcastic positive, a passive aggressive positive, a positive that says paid eventually after three reminders: all of these are candidates for deletion.
If you want a record of a difficult transaction, the record lives in the report a buyer flow and in your own notes. It does not live in the feedback comment.
Wondering what a problem order actually costs you? See your US payout.
Feedback examples to leave for buyers
These are written to be genuinely positive, because that is the only rating available to you. Keep them short, since long comments get truncated on the profile page.
| Situation | Comment to leave |
|---|---|
| Standard smooth order | Fast payment and clear communication. A pleasure to deal with. |
| Paid immediately | Instant payment, no fuss. Welcome back any time. |
| Asked good questions first | Thoughtful questions before buying, then quick payment. Ideal buyer. |
| Bought several items | Multiple items, one prompt payment. Very easy to work with. |
| High value order | Smooth transaction on a high value item. Communication was excellent. |
| Slow but polite payment | Payment received and communication was courteous throughout. |
| Repeat customer | Returning buyer, always prompt. Thank you for the continued business. |
| Accepted a Best Offer | Fair offer, immediate payment, straightforward from start to finish. |
The last two rows in that table are the ones worth stealing. A comment naming a repeat purchase or a clean Best Offer reads as real rather than automated, and buyers do read what sellers wrote about them.
Feedback examples buyers leave for sellers
If you also buy on eBay, or you are advising a customer on what to write, these are the comments that carry information rather than noise.
| Situation | Comment to leave |
|---|---|
| Arrived early and well packed | Arrived two days early and packed properly. Exactly as described. |
| Accurate condition description | Condition matched the listing precisely, including the flaws noted. |
| Good communication on a delay | Kept me informed when shipping slipped. Handled it well. |
| Rare item found | Hard to find item, fairly priced, carefully sent. |
| Minor issue resolved | Small problem, sorted immediately without argument. Would buy again. |
| Item not as described | Condition did not match the listing. Return was accepted without issue. |
Note the last row. A buyer can leave a negative or neutral rating with a critical comment, because the restriction to positive applies to sellers only.
What to do about negative feedback you received
You have three routes, and they are not interchangeable. Pick based on whether the comment actually breaks a rule.
If the feedback breaches the eBay feedback policy, request removal through Seller Help. That is the only route that erases it. If it does not breach policy but the buyer is willing, ask them to revise it. If neither applies, reply publicly and keep the reply factual.
A calm public reply is usually the right call. Future buyers read the reply as a sample of how you handle problems, so a defensive one costs more than the original comment did.
Whether you absorb a partial refund or take the return, the fee side moves too. The rate that applies to the sale is set by your market and category, which we lay out in the eBay fees breakdown.
The follow up comment is a one time move
Feedback you left for a buyer cannot be changed. What you can do is attach a single follow up comment underneath it.
eBay is explicit that you can only leave one follow up and that it cannot be edited or retracted. Use it once, deliberately, and only when the extra context genuinely helps someone reading the profile later.
The same is true in the other direction. A follow up you leave on feedback you received is permanent, so write it as though a prospective buyer will read it in a year, because they will.
Automating buyer feedback
Automatic feedback exists in your selling preferences and it solves the 90 day problem. You choose one of two triggers: after the buyer has paid, or after the buyer has paid and left you positive feedback.
The second trigger is the safer default. Waiting for the buyer to go first means you are never in the position of having praised someone who later files a baseless case.
The trade off is that automated comments are generic. A high value or repeat customer is worth a manual comment from the table above, so it is reasonable to automate the long tail and hand write the top of your order list.
Feedback score and seller level are not the same thing
The percentage under your username is a conversion signal. Your seller level is a fee signal. Sellers routinely confuse the two.
The positive feedback percentage buyers see on a listing is calculated from ratings members left. Your seller level, which is what actually changes what eBay charges you, runs on the separate performance standards system. A Top Rated seller receives 10% off the final value fee in both the US and the UK.
On a US sale in a default category, that discount takes a 13.60% final value fee on a 100 dollar base down to 12.24 dollars, a saving of 1.36 dollars per order. At the other end of the same system sits a surcharge. Below Standard sellers pay more across the seven eBay markets we model, which we broke down in our Below Standard fee comparison.
Good feedback helps you sell. Seller level decides what the sale costs. Improve both, but do not expect one to fix the other.
Conclusion
The examples matter less than the constraints around them. Four things to take away.
Sellers can leave positive feedback only, so any list of negative buyer comments is advice you cannot use. The window is 90 days from transaction completion. A positive rating carrying a negative comment will be removed by eBay. And a follow up comment is a single, permanent shot.
Write short, specific, genuinely positive comments for buyers, automate the tail, and keep your fee thinking on the seller level system where it belongs.