I am truly on a roll! My quest to find "useful programs to aid your eBay operations" is going very well with the discovery of yet another great tool, this one for monitoring feedback.
Recently, Yahoo acquired Konfabulator and renamed it Yahoo Widgets. Widgets allow you to place useful tools directly on your computer desktop so you don't have to open up applications each time you want access to them. On Yahoo's Widget Gallery, there are countless widgets to download and install, such as toys, gadgets and search engines. One of them, to my great delight, was an eBay feedback monitor.
Before using this tool, I would manually check my feedback four or five times a day by going to the eBay website. To me, it's important to keep an eye on the feedback and to respond to negatives and neutrals as quickly as possible. But anytime feedback hadn't changed since the last time I'd checked, I felt I had wasted precious time. Now with Yahoo's eBay feedback tool, I can watch my feedback score change right from my computer desktop.
First, you need to go to Yahoo Widgets and download a small program. Then you go to Widgets Gallery for the feedback monitor. (Without the Yahoo widgets program, the feedback tool won't work.)
No eBay password is required to use this tool. You simply type in the eBay User ID and up comes your feedback total. When the tool launches, you receive a pop-up window telling you the changes in your feedback score since the last time the tool was launched. The new feedbacks are broken down into positive, neutral and negative for easy viewing.
When you receive new feedback while the tool is running, you receive a pop-up window informing you a new feedback has been left. If the feedback is neutral or negative, being informed immediately by this tool allows you to respond to the complaint faster.
There is a slight downside: the feedback viewer only counts unique feedbacks. Feedback ratings from repeat customers aren't shown.
On a technical note, when you download the Yahoo Widgets program, it makes a widgets folder in your computer (in the "My Documents" section of the hard-drive). You need to drag the eBay widget into this folder to make it stay in the system. Otherwise it will keep disappearing everytime you re-boot the system.
Ever since downloading this widget, I feel I have saved time in my day. No longer do I have to remember, "better check my feedback." I now only have to go to the desktop and see if the feedback amount has changed.
http://widgets.yahoo.com
Yahoo Widgets
http://www.widgetgallery.com/view.php?widget=36679
The eBay feedback viewer
