eBay to identify top sellers with badge

In eBay, being considered a top-notch, honest and reputable seller is a good thing for the seller. It keeps people coming back.

Now, eBay - with a virtual badge that identifies those top sellers - is looking to tap into and showcase those seller reputations to push a steady flow of shoppers to the site.

The program will go live in October in the U.S., U.K. and Germany. Those seller will have a Top-Rated-Seller badge in the "view item page" for the listing, the company said. Later, the company plans to give sellers with as few as 100 transactions and $3,000 in annual sales volume the opportunity to qualify for the award, based in buyer feedback. that it expects to immediately qualify 150,000 eBay Top-Rated Sellers in the U.S.

In a statement, eBay Marketplaces president Lorrie Norrington said:

For buyers, the new eBay Top-Rated Seller status makes it easy to find the highest quality sellers on eBay based on the feedback of other buyers. For sellers, the Top-Rated Seller status recognizes and rewards their commitment to consistently delivering the highest level of customer satisfaction.

The company is making efforts to improve the marketplaces business - which includes the main eBay site - as declines in that business unit drag down the gains being realized in other divisions, notably Skype and PayPal.

In the most recent quarter, the marketplaces division saw a slight growth in sales over the previous quarter - its first this year, following a quarter-by-quarter decline in all of 2008.