Dealing with copycat listings

[the_ephemera_remix]

A few months back I started putting my store name in the custom details as a watermark to see how many people were copying my listings...

 It turns out, quite a lot. They all come up if I enter my store name as a search term. I've decided to tweak it a little to take advantage of their laziness...

 I may as well get some free advertising out of it...

[dbfolks166mt]

     What is laziness to some is efficiency to others. I have had sellers copy my listings and I have used the sell similar capability on more than one occasion to draft up my own listings off other sellers listings, what I equate to a pre-populated template. 🙂 

     However, I do like your free advertising idea although it's an easy thing to remove from the copy/draft. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@the_ephemera_remix  LOL! 

Great idea!

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@the_ephemera_remix  Also, it's quite interesting that the copied listings come up in search...I'm pretty sure ebay has said customized Item Specifics are not searchable, but that suggests that at least some are...I might have to experiment a bit with this.

[mirror-in-the-attic]

I’ll assume very few ever even read the item details….

It goes like this…..

See main pic, see price, see one more pic buy or pass.

Its not how I do it, but people have very low attention spans today.

It is funny, though.   I read through my item details (and I always use sell similar) so I think I’d catch it!

[toysaver]

Sounds like a good idea to copy. 

[jg.mason]

---

@dbfolks166mt wrote:

     What is laziness to some is efficiency to others. I have had sellers copy my listings and I have used the sell similar capability on more than one occasion to draft up my own listings off other sellers listings, what I equate to a pre-populated template. 🙂 

     However, I do like your free advertising idea although it's an easy thing to remove from the copy/draft. 

---

Laziness, when a seller uses the sell similar feature and only changes pictures, price and shipping.

Efficiency, when a seller uses the sell similar feature and tweaks everything in the listing.

I use the sell similar feature almost exclusively. I'll end up changing a lot of it but It still gives me a good starting point, for me it's faster than starting a listing from scratch.

[the_ephemera_remix]

Sorry, by laziness I was referring to people not actually adjusting their listings, not necessarily to using the listing as a template. A lot of the copiers have the wrong color or other details cloned over from mine. And then AI descriptions loaded in, also without double checking.

[the_ephemera_remix]

It works better on the app for some reason, but it's possibly an easier way for customers to find you if they don't know how to do a store search. They don't seem to come up in Google searching, though 

[fbusoni]

---

@the_ephemera_remix wrote:

Sorry, by laziness I was referring to people not actually adjusting their listings, not necessarily to using the listing as a template. A lot of the copiers have the wrong color or other details cloned over from mine. And then AI descriptions loaded in, also without double checking.

---

All of which works to their disadvantage and will contribute to INADs for those sellers.

Your attention to detail is to be applauded and my sincere wish is that eBay tightens things up on this site to facilitate rapid defenestration of such sellers.

PS: are you using AI generated descriptions in your listings?  I ask because from what I have read, Google sees such nonsense and recognizes it for what it is.   Of course, experiences with AI may be different across different categories.

[wastingtime101]

---

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@the_ephemera_remix  Also, it's quite interesting that the copied listings come up in search...I'm pretty sure ebay has said customized Item Specifics are not searchable, but that suggests that at least some are...I might have to experiment a bit with this.

---

You may have misunderstood. They are searchable @my-cottage-books-and-antiques when you enter words in the search box.

They are not found through side panel filters. So ... say you enter a custom color like "turquoise." That can be found with the search bar. But if a buyer is using side panel filters they will not see "turquoise" so they will select "blue" and your listing will not come up in those filtered search results.

[the_ephemera_remix]

I hadn't seen that, obviously I was running with the assumption that they were. I've also used it for making a brick number label for Mega Bloks, which don't have that description option like Lego bricks do. I think it's just the sku number field that isn't searchable.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@wastingtime101  I know that custom fields aren't used in the filters, but I had thought it was not too long ago that Griff had reiterated that custom entries are not searchable at all, until and unless the same ones are used by enough sellers to register as a non-custom entry. I don't have time to search thought the podcasts this morning to find that, and you are right, maybe I misunderstood him. I use a lot of custom item specifics, so it would be very good if they are searchable. Maybe I'll try testing it with some of my older listings when I get time. 

[natoman777]

So unless you are selling something that only you have, what you are listing can and will be copied and used.  I have seen my listings copied several times over the years.  I also have looked at comps on items I sell and somewhat used others listings, but never a direct copy.  With books, many copy and use the exact listing, sometimes even photos.  This is not too smart, as the condition of each book is different. 

I guess it is interesting to check into, but it is nothing new

[the_ephemera_remix]

No, I have a stock description that I edit for each listing