Search manipulation policy In a Variation listing

[jcrue-61]

Just got one of my listings taken down today, in the video games category and this was the message:

Your listing didn't follow our Search manipulation policy. Offering a choice of different products in a single listing is not allowed.

What activity didn't follow the policy

Please understand that you have offered choice of the different items in your listing. Per the policy sellers can offer the choice of the color, size in a listing however offering a significantly different item is not allowed. Each item making up the allowed choice offering must be listed in a separate listing or you should create a Multiple quantity Buy it Now listing or a Multi variation listing. You can relist your item choosing the appropriate format of the listing.

It was for single games all for the same system in the same condition,  and it was listed as a variation.

Cs pretty much told me i could list only different versions of the same game, has anyone experienced this? Honestly it seems like this whole policy is open to interpretation, and i just got screwed by someone else's take on it. Just to illustrate how easy it was for me to "Manipulate search results" step by step.

 

[lacemaker3]

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@jcrue-61 wrote:

Yes i did sell a couple games early on, that were in really bad shape for 0.99 just to get rid of them. Other than that everything else was priced with prices from pricecharting. I've already said that most of my stuff was with 1-2$ of comparable games.

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The thing is, buyers get really upset when they see a low price on the listing in the search results, and then they open it up and choose what they want from the drop-down list, and see the price double, or triple, or ten times what it said it was.  That's what buyers call bait-and-switch, and that's what happens if you have a large range of prices in a single listing.

It doesn't matter if the price for each game is fair, and based on recent sales. If the buyer searches for a specific game, and sees your listing come up with a lowest price of $2.99, but they open the listing and then find out that the game they want is $12.99, they get mad. Even if the going price is $15.99, they still get mad because the search results said $2.99.

I would recommend that you try to group the games into groups with similar pricing to avoid this problem. Or better yet, at the same price.

Also, I don't know if you can remove variations that are sold-out or not, but that would also help avoid disappointing buyers.