Sellers taking advantage of eBay with multiple listings of the same item
Summary: onwards531 raised concerns about a seller on eBay who creates multiple listings for the same item, making searches cumbersome. Several participants suggested using advanced search options to exclude the seller from results. eburtonlab explained how to report this behavior to eBay and highlighted that while multiple listings are against eBay's rules, enforcement may be inconsistent. soh.maryl expressed confusion about the seller's strategy, questioning the risk of issues with multiple listings.
There is a seller who floods the listings with one item. Rather that list it as one item and say how many are available this seller overwhelms the listing with forty listings of the same thing. This makes it very difficult when you search for a specific thing (in my case a certain brand and model of an appliance) as you have to endlessly scroll through the one seller who insists on listing the same thing forty times. I have contacted the seller to change this and they ignore my request. Is this acceptable etiquette on eBay?
soh.maryl
·2 weeks agoAgain, an issue that I don't understand. If I have 30 of one particular item, but list it 30 times with 30 separate listings, aren't I risking a whole bunch of iNR cases?
stainlessenginecovers
·2 weeks ago@soh.maryl Not if you just have 1 for each listing. Once it sells, it zeros out and ends, then you have 29 listings with 29 thingys.
@onwards531 if the listings has 1 minor variance in the title and sometimes .01c difference in price- the listing goes through when creating it.
If EVERYTHING is the exact same, seller usually gets a warning before even being able to list it.
eburtonlab
·2 weeks ago@onwards531
You can report the seller to eBay, though I do not know if eBay will act on an isolated complaint like that or not.
If you cannot find an easy way to filter out that seller's listings by keyword, category or filter options, you can exclude the seller's items from your search results by going from the search results to the Advanced Search page and entering the seller username (not store name) into the Seller section and choosing "exclude" rather than "include". Then bookmark or save the search to use again. If you use the saved search as a starting point, you can continue to exclude the seller's listings from future searches.
onwards531
OP2 weeks agoThank you for this. I found this on an eBay page outlining the rules of selling. :Multiple fixed price listings for identical generic or universal items, such as AA batteries for example, are not allowed. Separate listings can be created for the same item on different eBay sites, as long as the international shipping options don't result in the listings cluttering the search results of any individual site"
eburtonlab
·2 weeks agoYou are welcome.
Unfortunately, the fact that something is not allowed does not necessarily mean that someone will not try to get away with it, or that eBay will always take action to prevent it when it is pointed out.
shire123
·2 weeks agoDo an advanced search. Near the bottom there are fields you can fill in to exclude a seller.