Are these only for sellers?
Moved to discussions, and yes.
Do sellers get any recognition (Badge) for transactions?
Sellers get a positive transaction badge at the end of every successful transaction.
This shows on the profile?
Yes.
I cannot find any on my profile?
Please PM me about this, thank you.
Sorry I meant BUYERS, not sellers in my second post.
Buyers do not receive any badges at the end of successful tickets.
Have you considered implementing this?
No, we don’t see any need for it. In fact, we have considered doing away with badges completely in the past as they’re quite obsolete on a site in which users are required to use the checkout process.
Swapd has its own little gamified system with the badges in place, and there’s no argument that I can see that would justify removing them. However, keeping them it will offer an incentive to users to contribute to the community not only by sales, but also by useful information on the site. Its why so many universities, and online courses offer badges because it encourages the students to complete them. What ever the reason that may be, it could be the extra status from having a badge on the profile or could be a simple collectors item on the users behalf. Whatever the reason its proven to work.
Keeping the badges on site won’t have any negative effects. You’re right that a negative badge might look bad, and some users might make the assumption that the Swapd staff didn’t do a good job vetting the user out before allowing them to post, but this is a pretty poor outlook on things. If you really wanted too you could remove some of the negative type badges, and keep the rest. I think having an internal achievement system is good, and encourages growth through more ways than one.
I do think its the right decision to not include buyer badges. This is due to the fact that the checkout system requires almost no trust on the buyers behalf, and entirely relies on the staff member conducting the transaction as well as the seller. An example, would be if the seller left a “backdoor” via 2 factor authentication even after the staff giving them detailed information on how to remove it. This, is a great use of the negative badge. Also, for non paying, and time wasting buyers. I understand some things can breakdown during the checkout system, and I don’t think every unsuccessful checkout ticket should recieve a negative transaction. Although, I do believe the negative transaction badge can play a massive role in determining whether a seller wants to start a checkout ticket or even give them the handle of an account.
Also, keep in mind that users when entering a transaction with someone might cross check sites, and for the added reassurance, and protection of users offering a way to identify negative transactions, and time wasters is a good thing in my opinion (even if it does mean users using a different site). I understand Swapd is a business, and will do everything to retain its userbase, but some things including morals take presedence over business.