I hate the seller's pricing tricks

[syl_jr]

Hello members!

I'm on ebay for years and in these years I'm starting to hate eBay and any other webmarket. 

A lot of seller create lists and put a mess to the list with ultra low price. 

What I mean: If you are looking for a cellphone, you will find a lot of 1$ products. Why? Because sellers put a foil or a tempered glass to the list with 1$ . 

eBay, please remove this possibility!!!!

[plumbingspecials]

How is it unethical, when you have variations of a product that have different price points? It's just easier to make one listing containing all the variations, instead of creating a listing for each variation. This is used for things that have specific sizes or such. I have Floor Mats, they come in different sizes . Obvio ulsy the one that is 9x9 feet is going to be more expensive that the mat that is 3x3 feet. This is variations, it's not a trick.
It's just a simpler way to list an item with variations.
As with any buyer, if you do not understand a listing, or if you do not like something about a listing, you move on.

[plumbingspecials]

The seller is not intentionally wasting YOUR time. You need something, spend the time to find it. We're not magicians.

[airsheep]

I do not believe it is ethical to advertise floor mats at a range of $2 - 39.99, but have the $2 item be a roll of sticky tape, with the first floor mat at $12.99. A roll of tape, although it might be used to hold a mat in position, is not a floor mat, and should not be factored into pricing ranges.

[jrinam]

different sized mats would be a practical application, a buyer could be interested in any of the sizes.  a .99 gift is not! nobody comes here looking to buy an item and decides they would rather have 'the gift'!  it is merely a tactic to have there items come up at different price points and to 'trick' you into clicking. maybe only 30 seconds to open, click on the appropriate choice and return to search but their are thousands!!! the time invested far outweighs any savings so why bother?  this is a form of search manipulation and hurts buyers and sellers alike. when i find too many of these items, i leave ebay and google the widget. NEVER find this bait and switch ANYWHERE else, EVER!!!   if buyers are constantly saying this is a problem, then maybe it is?

[speed_racer]

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@mudshark61369wrote:

@syl_jr,

What you are describing are multiple variation listings, with the Low price item not being the actual item you are looking for.  If you want to deal with honest sellers do not use Price: Lowest first as your search filter.  Use Time: ending soonest, and from the left hand search filter column on the results page, filter the item by its average trending price.

So if you have looked up the price of a cell phone and find its average selling price is $250. Avoid any listing showing the phone for $10.  Set the price range starting at $200 to see if there is a bargain to be had, but do not expect anything showing $10 to be for a phone.

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That doesn't help. I was looking for an iPad model with a specific capacity, specific cell carrier, maximum price $200, and I DIDN'T sort by lowest first. Tons of results, but guess what? None of them were valid results. Why? Because the sellers would list something like 12 different iPad models, with and without cellular, various storage capacities, etc. all in one listing. The results were for all the models, and I'm not interested in the old, low capacity, wifi only models. All of the features filters are rendered absolutely useless. Go ahead and specify 32GB. You'll get tons of results, but they'll be for 16GB because they're in the same listings, and the 32 will be way above the price limit you specify. Want an iPad Air 2? Too bad. You'll get results for iPad 1, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad mini, and everything else included in the listing. Since I don't want to have to sift through a few thousand results to find the auctions for the actual model I want, I stopped looking. eBay's loss for not stopping this bait & switch.

[a6zzz]

Nonsense. Sellers are doing this trick too often for it to be an innocent mis-categorization.

[a6zzz]

Nonsense ... this deceptive sales tactic is in widespread use to make finding the lowest price for an item almost impossible, because the search brings up a flood of these fake price listings. Your "solution" isn't helpful because we buyers have to open listing after listing to try to find someone who is actually selling the item their listing mentioned at the actual price that shows up in the search. Increasingly, I'm paying a bit more to buy items on Amazon because they don't allow this deception.

[a6zzz]

Really? Not a "trick"? Can you buy a "15xPro Duplex Night Angel Light Sensor LED Plug Cover Wall Outlet Coverplate Lot" from that seller for 99¢? Of course you cannot. That trick is called a "false and deceptive business practice" and is widely outlawed, but not in the increasingly lawless eBay cloud. Whatever the 99¢ item is among all of their choices (if it is there at all) is included only to trick potential buyers into digging through their add to find out what is really the lowest price on a "15xPro Duplex Night Angel Light Sensor LED Plug Cover Wall Outlet Coverplate Lot".

[a6zzz]

The seller IS intentionally trying to get me to buy at a much higher price after misleading me. They're not intentionally wasting my time, but they are intentionally using a misleading tactic. I see that your ads are honest. I don't see why you don't understand that eBay allowing sellers to use this tactic makes it much harder for buyers to find the products from honest sellers.

[a6zzz]

OK, so "there's nothing actually wrong" is a subjective statement of your personal morality which is unarguable.  However, this deceptive sellers technique ends up burying the actually honest listings by making a search for lowest price instead produce listings that are not only deceptive.  eBay purports to enable buyers to find items quickly at the lowest price, but by eBay supporting this deceptive listing practice they are, for some items, making that search practically meaningless.  So, not only is eBay facilitating sellers' false and misleading business practices, but eBay is engaged in a false and misleading business practice by purporting to offer buyers a search option that, for many products, is obviously no longer working and eBay is complicit in that.  This is different than a physical store putting up a sign that says "Screen Protectors 99¢" and trying to sell you a $799 phone as well.  Instead, this sellers listing practice is the same as a store luring you into the store with a sign that says "Samsung Galaxy 7 cellphone 99¢" when they are actually selling the phone for  $799.