eBay Gets Tough on Dupe Listings - Too Much or About Time?

by: ebayclosed2016

This place will be a ghost town by the end of next year anyways.

Just wait until the paypal profits stop and ebay has to stand, or in this case - fall on their own.

I wonder how fast they will pull back on this once listing revenue drops.

Line this one up for a short boys, it's going to be in the 20's before you know it.  

by: pace306

"A troubling aspect of the new policy is that sellers will pay insertion fees for exposure on eBay but not get it - and will not be told they're not getting what they're paying for."

HARDLY the ONLY crime eBAy does on a daily basis.

If they dont tell you they are hidding you then you wont ever know ....

Ahhhh THEFT as a business plan ...

Props to Lupin III ... "thievin' aint easy"

by: alaska

Dupe listings is not a major problem on eBay, except maybe for new merchandise. It's the nearly unlimited free listings has all but ruined eBay auctions. The sellers love it, but they don’t understand that it has driven away most of the buyers who have more money than they have free time. Free lsitings means tons and tons of re-listed auctions that have flooded search results making it almost impossible to search in the vintage collectibles and antiques categories anymore. The term "fresh to the market" only applies to a tiny fraction of  auctions these days, everything else is uninteresting stuff that never sells and gets re-listed forever, as long as it's free. EBay needs to create a site preference filter that we can use that will keep re-listed auctions from some of our searches. Forcing a buyer to see the same auction item show up in search results over one hundred times, over a whole year, is only hurting eBay. I am not against free listings, but we need a way to filter out auctions that have been re-listed in the vintage collectibles and antiques categories. It’s the problem that is ruining our eBay experience and preventing eBay from seeing the growth that one would expect for a site with so much potential.

by: lostinNYC

About time!

I have seen that some sellers have the same listing copied 10+ times with different titles. Often large sellers of low to medium priced new items.

At times a report to eBay, results in a deletion of the listing and if the impact in the future will be greater in terms of overall diminished sales, more merchants might begin to weigh the economic impact of such practices.

It is a win for decent sellers as well as buyers, who don't have to sift through stacks of identical listings.

Most important though: fair competition means more sales for honest sellers.

by: Enough Is Enough!

@alaska

You have this confused with re-listed items. The rule applies to listings of the same merchandise more than once (just like the spammers on craigslist who will list the same item in the General, Antique, Collectible, Auto Parts, Tools, and Garage Sale categories simultaneously).

One interesting question I have is: Will this also be enforced for their valued Asian sellers who list dollar cell phone accessories and other junk multiple times as well?

Or does the rule just apply to us ''noise'' folks who sell collectibles and other used goods?

In any event, the search engine will not work to everyone's advantage until ebay gets rid of Best Match as the default search and burns Cassini (can't see me) to the ground.

by: alaska

I'm not confused. I know exactly what these changes are. What I'm saying is that re-listed auctions in the vintage collectibles and antiques categories is a far more serious problem than duplicate listings.

by: angryllama

I can only expect this to Create HAVOC when DINGING all listings for a SINGLE "violation" to be comparable to BURNING DOWN and ENTIRE APARTMENT COMPLEX to kill a few Cockroaches in ONE Apartment.  Personally aside from the prime example of China Sellers promoting QUITE NICE, VERY CHEAP cellphone accessories I have notice FAR FEWER duplicate listings over the past 2 years.  The way I DREAD that this will DESTROY my own sales is that I sell DVDs and BluRays. SOME titles like 'Les Miserables' I must currently have SIX or SEVEN listings NONE of them actually duplicates. I have Full Frame Widescreen DVD BluRay Like New and BRAND NEW on just this ONE title. eBay SEARCH for a specific item already produce entirely DIFFERENT results mixed in with the RIGHT ones. Show of hands if you do NOT think the same silly-buggers search engine will decide that BRAND NEW WS Les Miserables is a DUPLICATE of used FF Les Miserables. I also dread the way it might count a SINGLE ONEIDA teaspoon and SET of SIX identical ONEIDA teaspoons as a DUPLICATE listing.  Or even a 5 piece ONEIDA Place Setting that INCLUDES a teaspoon. Just dam strange for some eBay Bozo to decide THIS deserves any persecution whilst they merrily IGNORE serial sellers of COUNTERFEIT DVDs. Duplicate listings are only annoying. Permitting sale of Counterfeit items actually violates FEDERAL LAW.  

by: Rexford

Reduced visibility?  LOL

How will that be any different that the current state?  And does this apply to the Chinese and the big box retailers?

eCrater folks...no reduced visibility, no threats, no unfair return policies, no invisible inventory, no constant tweaking of listings to keep the fresh, no hoop jumping.

by: Mark4

reduced visibility? and that is different from how things work now??? LMFAO So glad we moved our inventory to amazon.

by: ignatz

ebay had to fire the cringe-worthy Hugh Williams, who headed up the Cassini development effort.  Listening to that clown speak about Cassini in the videos ebay produced about it, it was clear he was a "buzzword BS-er", that all-too-common type of IT worker who has mastered all the buzzwords and the right order to say them in, but who doesn't have a clue when it comes to creating software for use in the real world. Interestingly, his LinkedIn account now says "self-employed."

by: Enough Is Enough!

@alaska

The only way an antique or collectible item can show up over 100 times in one year is is the seller relists it over and over and over again on 1 or 3 day auctions. Which seems to be a waste of time and money.

This problem has been addressed with the $1.00 charge on any auction less than 5 days, which will perhaps put an end to this activity. This and the media fee increase have been put into place to ease the load on ebay's servers.

These items need to go into an ebay Store for the 30 day ''Good 'Til Cancelled'' period. The seller can always lower the price if not sold within a certain period of time, and / or re-list the item a few months later (not every 1, 3, 5, or 7 days) to refresh their place in search.

If these sellers do not want or need to purchase a Stores subscription, well, that's their prerogative.

@Rexford

Sure, eCrater has all those attributes, but they also have no traffic, and no sales. Unfortunately, there is no alternative or replacement auction site for the traffic on ebay (yet). But like everyone else, we are anxiously awaiting the day where ebay will be in our rear view mirrors, without losing any sales volume.

by: ajeweler

I have had in the past issues with this and policy violations that truly did not exist, I was selling similar item template, 1st and foremost some items look the same however they are indeed different items ie; watch band 7 inches black and another watch band 7 inches brown, in addition one was 18mm lug width and another 17mm lug width, however rep seen them as duplicate listings, pulled them, aand took me over 2 hours on the phone to have this straightened out, in addition there was case were the items were listed "good until sold" on more than one occasion the ebay computer "glitches" and listings were pulled down because it was listed two times by the computer at ebay, one listing would be posted 3 seconds before the exact next one, the listing times are noted on the listings, again e bay "we will report this to tech support" was the answer however another 2 hours on the phone to a rep to straighten this mess out
HOWEVER
I clearly understand that say copy toners there are hundreds of the same item with different titles and same picture by same sellers evading these policies, in addition ebay policies were that a item not to be duplicate had to have 3 differences 1 title, 2 pictures, 3 price or description

I guess the seller flogging will continue until all usa sellers are out of business

who ever dreams up these rules has no life they enforce only curtain accounts, others go without any restrictions......

I truly believe ebay is loosing sellers badly all the boards are full of the same complaints thousands of them

equal rules for sellers no favorites

and you cannot stop showing stuff you already do not show (rolling blackouts by regions ) did anyone notice your sales come from different parts of the country all at the same times then next day different region

by: Orwellwasright

Based on ebays past behavior, I am going to translate this Announcement :

Any small to medium seller who lists the same collectible item , but in different conditions, or accidently posts the same item twice, will be body slammed, penalized ,throttled and Humiliated

HOWEVER any super-seller-mega-junk-dumper Platinum account will still be free to list an article of clothing 150 times by having individual listings for every size and color, and may still list the same piece of crap 100 times by having seperate listing for it in groups of 1,2,3,4 and with and without free shipping etc, etc,

The deluging of the site by these sellers is obvious and ebay could stop it anytime. They do not need to proclaim that they are now going to enforce a policy which they allow to be violated ten million times over for their chosen sellers

This announcement is simply the latest in an unending and relentless war on ebays foundational sellers,

by: iheartjacksparrow

I'm another person who wants to know if this new policy will apply to Chinese sellers. Also, I was recently looking for an item and there were hundreds of listings of the same item from the same seller with shipping from India. If eBay is going to impose this policy on sellers, are they going to be fair and not just hit US sellrs with this? Wait! eBay? Fair? My mistake.

Since eBay's TOS already states they don't have to show your listings, I don't know how this new policy is going to make visibility any different. I guess eBay thinks this policy will scare any seller that doesn't know what is currently going on on the site.  

by: gizmo

Is this ebays admission they throttle sales? Liars one and all they are. What gives them the right to throttle anything? This is their demise of admission. Now all know we have been lied to , & all should act accordingly. EBAY THROTTLES SALES by their own words.
No equality , discriminating , liars , self loathing thugs. Put em all in prison where they belong , & give back that 23 million JD stole from good sellers.

by: gizmo

For those who dont understand ecrater. ecrater gives you your own http address. You can link this on most common sites you go to. ecrater is a kind of "do it yourself " sort of site.

They make the google attributes easy , & you can link in to some other sites with your own web address. Go to the bottom of any page , see if they have links , & a place to add yours. Its all good. I have my links on approx. 100 sites. Traffic is OK. And , dont over think the shipping matrix. It works like a multiplication table. I usually run flat rate. I know this was off topic , just wanted to give some insight.

by: toolguy

Another policy that doesn't affect my eBay selling in any way shape or form.

If you don't sell chinese junk you have nothing to worry about. . .

by: toolguy

I have an off topic question.

If you buy an item on eBay do you also get the rights to the picture of that item?

Just wondering where it says you do or do not own the picture of the item you bought.

 

by: Al G

-> toolguy

I may be just a little off, but if eBay hosts your image, eBay has the rights to the image.

Self-hosted = no eBay rights.

As to the buyer of the item, you are buying the item, not the listing.

Any intellectual property lawyers out there????

by: Rexford

Enough Is Enough! Sorry you aren't getting sales. We are doing very well there.  Are you using the item specifics so that your items are picked up in Google Shopping?  Hopefully things will improve for you.