Poll: strict rules for listings with variations

[traut-gmx]

Hi all,

what's your experience with listings that contain variations?

I feel that this is one of the most abused and thus useless choices that sellers have.

The typical malpractice is: Create a listing with variations to select from. Have some more expensive choices, but do include at least ONE item which is much cheaper, although it's somethin perfectly different than named within the title - e.g. a small piece of accessory.

This does manipulate the search, to show this auction with a very low price, although the item which people are looking for is much more expensive.

Even worse, ebay does not show the full range of prices, but many times the lowest price ONLY.
And ebay does not offer any option NOT to show listings with variations.

In former times, the rules where more strict that variations may list items of comparable characteristics only, but not perfectly different items:

ebay sell: listing variations What wouldn't be considered a multi-variation listing?

Nowadays I to not find these limits any more:

ebay sell: Creating listings with variations The prices of your items can vary...

Because of this frequent abuse, I'd welcome a poll:

[  ] 1. ebay must not permit variation listings with very different characteristics

[  ] 2. ebay should create an option to exclude variation listings

[  ] 3. variation listings must have the SAME price for each item. A price range of ±10% could be tolerable

(is there any other choice to create a poll nowadays, instead of using the reply button?)

Thanks for an active participation within this poll!

[shoptalkid]

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@traut-gmxwrote:

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@shoptalkidwrote:

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If I am selling a "round princess cut loose stone", but it's available in different gems, some may cost more than others because some are more valuable than others.  

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If you are selling that different items, I actually do not see any need to offer this as variations, but as seperate auctions.

But the current practice with significantly lower priced choices is usually nothing else but price spamming - and it's further enforced by ebay not showing the price range any more.

Another, simple solution to get rid of this spam is to list variations not by lowest but by highest price - voila, problem solved.

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How are you not seeing a price range?  Because when I search for "blanket" I am clearly forewarned that the prices within the listing are going to vary.   (see attached picture) .    When I click on the listing itself, the price displayed will be that of the lowest remaining available item.    If that item sells out, it will show the next highest price item available.     

[traut-gmx]

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@dhbookdswrote:

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I see quite a lot of what you are talking about in clothing........  one color or size is lowballed and then grayed out.....(not available)........

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So that's an example which would be solved by requiring the same price for each item

However, I thought if an item is no longer available, its price is excluded automatically!?

[traut-gmx]

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@shoptalkidwrote:

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How are you not seeing a price range?  Because when I search for "blanket" I am clearly forewarned that the prices within the listing are going to vary.   (see attached picture) .    When I click on the listing itself, the price displayed will be that of the lowest remaining available item.    If that item sells out, it will show the next highest price item available.    

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This could depend on the category.

See those two screenshots: Items are listed at $0.77 only, although that's just the price spamming for the other articles with higher prices

[shoptalkid]

The following makes sense to me.  I dont think it's misleading at all because my search results let me know that the prices in the listing for this blanket were going to vary.     

[chrysylys]

^^^  However, are there ANY size/color combinations for the lowest price shown?

[shoptalkid]

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@traut-gmxwrote:

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@shoptalkidwrote:

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How are you not seeing a price range?  Because when I search for "blanket" I am clearly forewarned that the prices within the listing are going to vary.   (see attached picture) .    When I click on the listing itself, the price displayed will be that of the lowest remaining available item.    If that item sells out, it will show the next highest price item available.    

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This could depend on the category.

See those two screenshots: Items are listed at $0.77 only, although that's just the price spamming for the other articles with higher prices

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I see what you are saying.  I just searched for that item and the price range was NOT given.  I wonder why the range shows for some listing but not for others?   Maybe category specific or country specific?   Could be anything. 

I know when I search for my listings, buyers see the price range in the search results, so they do get a fair warning.  Hasn't stopped them from buying to tell the truth.   Not going to be upset either if a few who are biased toward multivariation listings dont shop from me either, because there are more that like the convenience of buying related items all from the same listing rather than jumping around to 25 separate listings.  

[shoptalkid]

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@chrysylyswrote:

^^^  However, are there ANY size/color combinations for the lowest price shown?

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yes, purple for $29.99 in a queen size is available.    Not all colors have a $29.99 option, so I'm guessing the lowest prices applies to colors that are less popular.   AMZ does this too! 

[luxe_beauty_4_less]

I also use multi-variant listings very successfully.  I sell makeup.  There can be multiple color/shade variations for the same exact item.  Instead of creating a multitude of listings for that shade variation, I create one multi-variant.  It saves on time to list and consuming the free listings which saves me money.  One other benefit is that a buyer might choose to buy more than one shade when they see what's available for that product in the variant listing.  Plus, as someone else pointed out, the category ends up less cluttered.  I know if you search for that shade, it pulls the listing in to search results and shows the price range.  The prices might vary due to higher demand for specific shades, but typically not by much.  While there might be abuse, these are really handy tools for certain sales categories.  This is a heavily used feature in the makeup category for these reasons.

[dcintennessee]

Y'all know we're all wasting our time on this...but, I'll weigh in anyhow, as a thank you for your efforts, @traut-gmx. Awhile back I got on a kick to advocate for restricting improper use of Media Mail. Also a futile effort, but I appreciated the commiseration & thoughtful support.

I choose #1.  Variations listings should be multiples of the SAME item, differing only by color and/or size. While I support #3 in theory, that one won't work. Like @shoptalkid, I've found it annoying here and elsewhere that popular shoe sizes are priced ridiculously higher than the one featured. However, bedding and other examples cited show that even if Option #1 were enforced, uniform pricing is unrealistic.

Here's a perfect example of variations abuse, and why we're wasting our time complaining:  I see a listing for shoes, in the shoes category, where the ONLY price showing in search is $1.28, with free epacket shipping, of course. ZERO shoes actually are available for $1.28. Shoes are $14.83 - $16.35. But, you can get a pair of unicorn socks for $1.28. Are socks mentioned anywhere in the listing? Nope. You can find them only by selecting "one size." Do "one size" shoes even exist?? I say nope again.

The seller has a feedback score of almost 250,000, 60,000+ current listings, and 6500+ sales in 15 days, ranging from 77 cents to $600+. And that, dear community members, is why eBay will do absolutely nothing to stop these practices.

[traut-gmx]

unfortunately, you are perfectly right.

nevertheless, let's hope and at least try to do something about it

[ted_200]

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@kaelykatwrote:

Definitely the second choice.

If I could, I would filter these listings out completely. I just posted about this very problem a few days ago here. Unfortunately the answer comes down to, ebay doesn't care.

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I posted to that topic, and already voted for what I think is the best solution - allow the listings, but don't allow different prices for variations.  It's not just search and filtering, eBay pushes these listings on their "Recommended", "Other people also bought", etc. promotions, and on those you can't even tell it's got variable pricing... 0.99-19.99 variation listings just show up as 0.99, causing me to click on them, only to find out it's a bait & switch pricing scam. 

[lovtaco0]

The difference in screenshots provided by @shoptalkid and @traut-gmx is that board's screenshot showing a price range is a view of product-based search and traut's screenshot showing only the lowest price is an item-based search.

This supports the post I made earlier in this thread that once eBay moves heavily into product-based search this topic will be less of an issue.

I see no problem with a $10 price difference in blankets shown in board's screenshots. Less popular colors could be priced a little lower to help them move. If you forced them to be the same price then every color would be listed at the higher price or the other colors would have to be split into a second listing. As a buyer that would be a poor experience. You could also have blankets of different sizes in the same listing and have a variation in price and I think that is also acceptable.

What I think is unacceptable is what was referenced early on in this thread where you may have a $1.00 item added to a more expensive listing. That item may be related to the main product but should not be in the same listing. I think shoelaces and sneakers were given as an example.

Another example of where a range in price is acceptable is when you have an item that comes in different size packages. One pack may have a qty of 10 while the larger pack has 24. As a buyer I want to see those in the same listing because it makes purchasing easier. I don't care that the listing has a price range depending on the size pack you purchase. In my opinion that is an acceptable form of price variation in a listing.

[traut-gmx]

I don't get your differing of item based search and product based search.

Just do a search on "magnetic usb". I feel this is product based, isn't it?

I do get 1361 items, listed on four pages à 200 listings,

not one of them ABOVE $2 (that's the price limit I set)

But usually the article itself is more than $2! (cable with adapter)

So here ALL offers do use price spamming!

[lovtaco0]

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@traut-gmxwrote:

I don't get your differing of item based search and product based search.

Just do a search on "magnetic usb". I feel this is product based, isn't it?

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No, that search is listing based and there is no option to group similar items. You can sort items by price instead of best match to see the price ranges.

Upon closer look the blanket search is also item based, not product based. When I saw the text that said "new and used from..." underneath I mistakenly thought it was the product based search.

@Anonymous Can you provide some insight why a best match search does not always show the price range for a variation listing?

When you search "magnetic usb" filtered by best match listings with variations don't show the price range, just the price of the least expensive item in the listing. If you change the filter to sort by price the price range for variations becomes visible.

When you search "chezmoi collection blanket" listings with variations show the price range whether you sort by price or best match.

[dcintennessee]

OMG! So a potential buyer showed up on the Live Chat today, livid  because he/she was looking for an actual Live Chat...not the eBay version of the weekly chat. Bless that user. I quickly checked their previous posts to see WHAT question they had earlier than no one would answer. Here it is:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Member-To-Member-Support/Price-changes-as-soon-as-I-click-a-listing/qa...

Since they reference a particular listing, it's probably going to get edited or deleted, but...you guessed it! This would-be buyer is angry because of bogus variance listings. I pointed that out to the Chat hosts, and offered to provide many examples. I also told them it's already a hot topic today, but Chat was about to close & I didn't have time to grab a link to this thread.  We'll see if they ask me for more info....