Ebay's total disregard for sellers...re: new 15 day limit on putting items on sale

[coniferclothingcompany]

I have been a seller for a few years, have done everything right according to Ebay, gone along with new policies (offer guaranteed delivery, free shipping, have 100% positive fb etc) and was a TPS Plus until the free shipping requirement. This morning I found out that Ebay has instituted a policy that an item that was on promotion cannot be put back on sale for 15 days. I sell clothing and this policy is going to significantly hurt my sales. Over the weekend I put a large part of my store on promotion and consequently had a significant boost in sales. I now can't put any of those items back on sale for 15 days. If I were to put some of these items back on sale next weekend and would get a similar boost in sales how is that a bad thing? I called Ebay and was told that buyers have complained about sellers marking items up and immediately putting them on sale. So instead of targeting those sellers and working with them Ebay institutes a blanket policy that affects all sellers. When I run a promotion it's generally 10-20% off. I do not mark up items before they go on sale. Increased volume of purchases as a result of a promotion is good for me and ultimately Ebay too. Also, there is no way to tell which items are eligible to be put on promotion. If I go to the promotions page and format a sale there is no indication as to which items are beyond the 15 day restriction. Finally, as a seller shouldn't I have received prior notice to this policy? I found out from another seller.

I have always been one to defend Ebay when others complain about policies as a great venue for selling but after they have made free shipping a requirement for TRS Plus and now this I am very discouraged. I would think I am the kind of seller Ebay wants to keep happy as I am making them money. It feels like Ebay is trying to get rid of sellers like me.

[davidstarcher]

I know marketing and I know the law and it is not illegal to clear old merchandise by progressively discounting it until you are giving it away for free. That is the principle behind the bargain bin and discount rack that most stores have. It is also used on 100% of every piece of merchandise sold in my local area Goodwill, Value Village, Salvation Army, and Habitat for Humanity. Some of them use a color tag system and others just go by the date on the tag but the idea is the same the first period(week or month) the item is priced and you must pay full price, the next period the item is a certain percentage off say 15%, the period after that 50% off, and so on until the final period before removal from the store they are practically giving it away. At Goodwill it is $0.99 regardless of the price on the tag and at Habitat for Humanity it is 75% off the sticker price. At no point to they alter the original sale price or remove it from the item, it is the color or date on it which tells you if it qualifies for the sale. This is a decades old inventory control system and nobody has ever been sued for using it. eBay was not compelled in any way to make this change to comply with a law.

The lawsuits you are referring to do not apply to a marketplace where all the prices and options from different sellers are side by side and the customer can therefore be deceived into thinking that they are getting a better bargain then they really are which is the heart of the deception claims. Such a deception can only occur where where is there is only one seller offering each item such as at a brick and mortar store or a single companies web page. On eBay there is no original or fixed price and the same item can be bought for $5 or $50 depending on which seller is offering it.

[davidstarcher]

The change was deliberately buried in their updates, the fact that so many people didn't know that it was going to happens shows that they did not do an adequate job of informing the sellers.  While it is true that graduated discount schedule can be accomplished by manually changing the price instead of running a sale it does not draw attention to it in the same way that a published sale with the slash-out does and it does not allow you to monitor the results of your marketing change as you can using the marketing tools. I pay a lot of money to eBay for my store and the marketing tool is part of that; I should not be handicapped in my use and have to resort to workarounds.

[vintage_villages]

What happens to 5, 7 day listing? Does the clock start over when you relist the item? I doubt Ebay ever thought of this.

[vintage_villages]

If you use good til cancel, your item will get deleted by ebay if your item doesn't sell within 60 to 90 days, so it is really not good idea to use it.  And also ebay will bury your item when you use good til cancel, there is no bump. It will be lost in the masses

When the item is newly listed or it is ending, ebay will normally bump your listing to 1 or 2nd page but as to good til cancel, you get nothing. If you talk to experience seller, they don't use good til cancel or 30 days, they use  5, 7, 10 days listing

[vintage_villages]

This whole thing is really stupid b/c if you don't time it right in term of listing the item, you will never use Markdown manager.

[couldabeenworse]

On eBay there is no original or fixed price

If that were true, there would be nothing to "mark it down"  from.  The heart of this matter is that too many eBay sellers were claiming a "markdown" from a fictitious original or regular price.  And yes, that is Deceptive Pricing as defined by the FTC.

In your Habitat example, Habitat was not using a "former price comparison"  but a "comparable value comparison".  Either can be abused, but Markdown Manager is only about "former price comparisons".

[goodluckselling]

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@blu_surfwear wrote:
Because eBay insists on trying to fix things that are not broken!

I've complained to eBay on the phone and thru messages about this as this is just plain asinine. I hope others will do the same and maybe we can get this changed back.

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Many users complain about the international Asian sellers from running constant sales and pricing so low we can not compete.  This new policy helps eliminates these sellers many hate here from continuing to to operate in this manner.

It helps level the playing field in this area.  I believe we will see even more ideas from eBay like this come to be active to help stop some of the marketing techniques used by Asian sellers who appear to be much smarter than most users in this thread.

Good Luck Selling!

[brianc3784]

This is absolutely bogus. This pretty much means I will never be running a sale again. And putting all your listings as GTC will make them "go stale". I hope they go back on this change. With all these changes and very little sales here, I think I might be closing my store soon. I'm already looking elsewhere to start selling. eBay is just not a good place to do business anymore. 

[goodluckselling]

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@blu_surfwear wrote:

Interesting but I think there is a much easier work-around.   eBay could simply define a markdown price as a discounted price from the prior online price and the original online price does not neccessarily reflect a price where the item was sold in stores nor does it even suggest that the item may have been sold in a store in the first place.  It is simply a discount to the online price as originally set by the seller.

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There are advertising laws both on your local communities and well as online that restrict how advertising is marketed in respect to length of time for the exact same sale.

Good Luck Selling!

[vintage_villages]

How you would know if the price is frictitious as you described it?  Do you have actual facts that support your argurment? Most of ebay seller don't sell new items, they sell used items. When you sell used item it is difficult to judge the price accurlately. It is not like there is price guide that we could use, in fact only tool we have is 3 months sale data from ebay and that is it. If you sell vintage item like camera, it is really difficult to judge the price accuratly since there is no sales data for it.

[frenchblueshutters]

Oh It is showing... I Did the Same Thing as that is what ebay told me to do as a work around.. BUT Guess where it is showing??? Scroll to the very BOTTOM of any listing. It says there is a 10% order Discount.. SERIOUSLY The Buyer is NOT going to see it as a Sale PERIOD. My Sales Have Plummeted in the Last week on Antiques and Collectibles.. Not sure I can Make My Rent Next Month on top of Ebay Fees. WHAT A JOKE!!!

[vintage_villages]

I'm the buyer and seller on ebay and those international Asian sellers are not the problem. If you can't compete with them, then that is your problem. You are focusing wrong product to sell on ebay.

The reason why they could offer low price is that THEY are manufactuer,  unlike most of ebay seller.  They don't have to worry about middleman thus lower price.

[vintage_villages]

I know this suck but on the bright side, ebay makes less money. I have 2700 items and I can't make single sales

[castlemagicmemories]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@castlemagicmemories wrote:

@getitright1234 wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

If you regularly have some items in stock, I recommend using the Good 'Til Cancelled listing format with the out of stock feature - this will help you to minimize the 14 day waiting period for the sales you wish to run on these items.

All of my listings are Good til Cancelled, yet when I attempted to used the markdown feature after a recent sale, it would not allow me to start another sale.    Could you please private message me on what you mean by:  " I recommend using the Good 'Til Cancelled listing format with the out of stock feature."  This ID is largely my posting id.  

Thank  you.  I don't understand that as well.  I hope you will post what you find.

I also don't understand why buyers would complain when something is listed and put on sale.  

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GTC item is marked down, item sells, goes to out of stock mode, 7 days after the sale ends you restock, you update quantity on the listing, then you only have to wait 7 more days to mark it down again. If you started a brand new listing instead of using GTC with out of stock then you would have to wait 14 days.

Buyers complain because there are too many false sales. Items are listed high then instantly put on perpetual markdown. It's false advertising because the "sale" price is really the seller's regular price. There is a lot of discussion about it throughout this thread including links to laws on the practice. eBay created this policy because of sellers who abused the system.

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I have read that is why buyers complain, and I can understand it in the cases you mention~but the blanket statement, buyers complain when listings go on sale just seemed to be strange.  KWIM  I took it very literally and discounted (HA! pun not intended!) the part about these being false "sales".

[couldabeenworse]

How you would know if the price is frictitious as you described it?

First of all, the burden of proof for advertising claims rests on the merchant.  Nobody has to prove they are fictitious; the merchant is required to substantiate them.

In fact, I would bet that either the FTC or some state Consumer Protection agencies forced this change.  eBay would either have to come up with a way to define the "regular" price from each seller, or drop the Markdown Manager altogether.  I think this 15 day thing is eBay's attempt to define the "regular price" as being one that the seller has offered for at least 15 days before the markdown.