eBay is Losing Sales Because Sellers Spam Wrong Categories
Hello,
I want to raise an issue that is costing eBay sales every single day.
There is a seller who posts hundreds of items a day in the wrong category. For example, they are listing solid 14k gold jewelry under:
Antiques > Silver > Sterling Silver (.925) > Other Antique Sterling Silver
These products are not sterling silver at all. Yet they flood the category and bury the legitimate sterling silver listings.
As a buyer, I follow this category daily to shop for antique sterling silver. But I can’t find what I’m looking for because it’s drowned out by irrelevant gold jewelry. That means I can’t buy what I came to eBay for, and those are sales eBay is losing.
Allowing sellers to misuse categories doesn’t just frustrate buyers, it actively blocks transactions. If eBay wants to drive trust and sales, enforcing correct category placement is essential.
Please take action to stop this behavior so buyers like myself can shop categories the way they are intended, and so eBay doesn’t continue to lose revenue on blocked sales.
Thank you.
eburtonlab
·11 months agoYou can exclude a seller's items from a search using the Advanced Search page in the Seller section. Up to ten sellers can be excluded by username (not store name) separated by commas.
Bookmark or save the resulting search and use it as a starting point for further searches to keep blocking those sellers' items from appearing.
atmosphere52
OP11 months agoGood suggestion thank you.
I am a mobile only user and this ability is not offered on the eBay iOS app so unfortunately not available to me.
eburtonlab
·11 months agoI am a mobile only user and this ability is not offered on the eBay iOS app so unfortunately not available to me.
You can use a mobile browser in desktop mode to set up the search and use the Advanced Search page, then save the search. Once saved, you can open the search using the eBay app and exclude those sellers. Go to ebay.com, the use the three dot menu in your browser to select "desktop mode" for that browser tab. Any links opened in that tab should stay in desktop mode.
If eBay browser links are opening automatically in the eBay app, you may need to tap and hold such a link and choose "do not open in the app" if you want to use a mobile browser to view listings outside the app.
house*of*paws
·11 months agoHi @atmosphere52
There reportedly are 1.7 billion listings on eBay at any given time … making it extremely difficult for eBay to monitor listings for all the things they monitor it for.
When I discover a listing error of the size you mention … hundreds of items a day … I usually contact the seller directly. [I usually start off with ‘I hope you don’t mind my bringing this to your attention…’ so that the seller doesn’t think I’m making a complaint.]
I would think most sellers would appreciate knowing that they’re listing items in the wrong category … which must disadvantage them as well as buyers.
Also, I recommend you do an Advanced Search for sterling silver jewelry using key words instead of Category. Once you receive the list of available items … click on ‘Save this Search’ at the top of the list’
You will receive an email from eBay every time someone lists an item that matches your search criteria. I find many of my purchased items that way. 🙂
atmosphere52
OP11 months agoThanks for the reply.
I have tried contacting the seller. They did not respond.
For “Save this Search†feature - that does not solve my problem. That feature only sends a few of the items through email when there are many. I need to review hundreds to thousands of items being posted a day for my business purposes.
I have reported some of these listings as “Search Manipulationâ€, with detailed description. Every time ebay responds with this message:
â€We looked into your report and didn’t find the listing to be in violation of our policy. This determination was made by a customer service agent.â€
Appreciate the ideas.
kensgiftshop
·11 months agoTried that and it doesn't work.
In the reasons to report, they used to have "listed in wrong category", but they've removed it.
bonanza125
·11 months ago"Please take action to stop this behavior so buyers like myself can shop categories the way they are intended, and so eBay doesn’t continue to lose revenue on blocked sales."
Ebay is not here. We are a community of your peers who answer questions and give advice. You can attempt to report listings to Ebay but if they side with the seller then that's it. If Ebay has done nothing then there isn't much else you can personally to make this situation improve. We as a community are aware of sellers doing this.