If your a buyer and go looking for something to buy and there are a tun of them going for around the same price and you have a choise of buying from a person with 100% and a person with 98% who do you buy from? It is obvious that the seller can lose money from negative feedback.
Now lets look at it from the other angle (the buyer) if you have a 98% feedback and a person who has a 100% feedback wants the same item but won't pay as much do you think a seller would not take the higher price? (you can see the double standerd already)
When won't a seller take a bid from a buyer? Even if the buyer has a 50% neg feedback a seller can get his listing fees back and be out nothing (except time) if the deal gose sour. So why do buyers think it is more important for a seller to leave feedback first? The only reason I could see this happening is if the buyer was also a seller but if they are they should know the risks each side takes and be accomodating.
Now lets talk practical. Feedback is a statement that says the transaction went well and if a seller gave feedback before knowing that it did indeed go well, then they are doing themselves a disservice and on top of that, the buyer can say whatever they want without fear of rebutal or anykind of punishment at all.
I have one neg feedback and thank goodness I was able to give him a neg as well. I shiped an item the seller didn't want insurance on and he told me some time later it never arrived. I gracefully gave him his money back and apoligised (even though I was not at fault at all I have the reciept from the post office) later (the day I gave him the refund) he posted negative feedback for me saying I kept the item.
The example above is a prime reason a seller should never go first unless they are very brave.
I have taken bids from buyers with 0 feedback and didn't think twice about it and so do other sellers. If a buyer gets bad feedback it isn't that hard to start over buy a bunch of 1 cent items get about 20 feedbacks and go again. The seller however won't recover quite so quickly I assure you.
Sorry about the rambeling to those who sat and actually read it I'm at work so I'm a little board
