Duplicate Listings Policy

[abhi@ebay.com]

Dear Sellers,

A lot of you have pointed out the fact that many sellers are committing violations of the duplicate listings policy. I’m sure we all agree that this results in a very unpleasant experience for buyers who see pages and pages of the same items. It also affects other sellers whose items are not easily visibly due to all the duplicate listings.

As we see it there can be a couple of reasons for allowing multiple listings:

a) A seller may want to offer the same product across multiple formats e.g. one in Fixed Price and one in Auctions
b) All sellers will agree that they never want their products to be off the site so will create a new listing before the old one ends.

By this logic, duplicate listings should not exceed 4 at any given point of time (2 per format). We are considering a change in the duplicate listings policy along these lines and would like to understand your views and get your feedback on the subject.

Specifically we would like to understand if as sellers you think there are any other cases for which additional duplicate listings should be permitted. I would also like to advise that the process of changing any policy takes some time at our end, so any change if at all, would take some time to become effective.


With Regards,
Abhi.
Regards,
Abhi
Category Management.

[snrama]

Dear Abhi,

The many duplicate listings are normally from the sellers who have less than 10 feedback. New sellers can't list more than 1 quantity and this leads to many duplicate listings.

If new sellers are allowed to around 5-10 quantities till 10 feedback, then these duplicate listings reduces more. ---------------
With Regards,
Snrama 😉

[cameras_n_such]

Hello,

Different Business Models require different type of listing policy.

It is true if a seller has hundreds or thousands of items to sell, he should not be allowed to list his products multiple times. However consider the case of a seller who has only 3-5 products or say maybe 10-20 products. He needs to sell multiple quantity of each product to make it a business.

Everyone knows that Buy It Now sales are non-existant on eBay and Multiple Quantity Dutch Auction are a big No No. So the option for such a seller is only to list his products multiple times to get multiple sales.

I can give an example of a US seller who has only about 10-15 products to sell but sells over 3000 nos in a month. in any given month, so he is selling over 300 - 400 nos. of each hotselling product. If he was restricted to 4 listing per product, the max he can sell is 120 peices (even if he does 1 day auctions). This guy is a titanium powerseller.

The simple solution to multiple listing is to charge them. Such mindless restriction on no. of multiple listing will not work. I say : charge all sellers who want to have more than 100 listings in a month.

If I feel a product will sell well and want to have 10 listings of each product, I would not mind paying for those extra listing.

Even a small fee like Re.1/- per listing above 100 would solve 90% of the mulitple listing problem.

Two negatives will never lead to a positive. eBay.in is afraid of charging listing fees and hence wants to put unnecassry restriction on sellers.

I also fail to understand this global / local thinking of eBay.in. Whenever it wants to deny some really good things to sellers, it says its part of our global policy. But when it suits them they say Indian ecommerce market is still immature and we need to have this stupid restrictions on sellers. Other such restriction being non-allowance of contact information in listing, bin - ipr format not allowed, basic courtesy of emails informing policy violations before seller-suspension, etc.

Be Brave and charge per listing - and see all those multiples dissapear.

[runalaila_in1]

there may be reasons for multiple listings ! but ten in a row and in the same format .... ? a very bad experience for the buyer
Charging multiple listings would be too cumbersome as who would decide that it is a multiple if i change the prices by Rs.5 in each of the multiples ???

a very bold move beneficial in the long term for both new sellers as well as buyers would be ... charge insertion fee for all sellers untill they reach a feedback of 10 .. multiples will automatically stop and the quality of the listings will improve dramatically ... the casual attitude of new sellers to try out an adventure will cease and paying always induces some seriousness in indian users ....

impose this rule for only new registrations from now on and for existing new sellers ...educate the violators with sternness about the ill effects of multiple listings

[touch_and_shine]

Sorry
abhi@ebay.com. I don't like ur policy.

Reason ---
cameras_n_such has explained it in a very good manner.

http://search.ebay.in/_W0QQsassZtouchQ5fandQ5fshine

[ristcomputers]

SIMPLE SOLUTION TO END MULTIPLE LISTING IS INSERTION FEE.

Insertion fee should be introduced at the earliest to make the site more pleasant to view and buyers would not get frustrated seeing the same item no of times.

Insertion fee is win win solution for all sellers.

The no of listings would definitely go down, which is the biggest fear of Ebay, but at the same time we would have quality listings and the sellers would put forward their quality and saleable items instaed of lot of junk being sold nowadays on Ebay.

Regards

RistComputers

[digital_das]

Dear Abhi

Thanks for your concern in this regard. My experience on eBay shows that even many hardened sellers who have more than 100 odd ratings use duplicate listings to show their items. But something differs in every listing- colour, price, size, etc. Also many different sellers may have the same item for sale which can also affect page views.

As such I would say that eBay cannot prevent such repetitions by automated methods since programming cannot overtake the clever human mind.
Also putting a fee on every listing wont help as much but may have its negative impact too.

I suggest to introduce a penalty for such sellers. This will make sellers think twice before crossing their limits. If a user reports such happening the seller can be penalised.

eBay can also prevent this right at the beginning by keeping a check on the no.of times one can use 'Sell Similar item' . I believe the best way to avoid duplicate listings is to put up a multiple item listing.

Hope eBay will solve this problem keeping in mind the interest of small businesses.

[electro-inc]

Hi Abhi,


We would recommend ebay to stat charging a small fee per listing and not to charge the insertion fee incase the auction/quickbuy closes successfully.

regards,
Vishal Seth.

[atulnc1]

CHARGING FOR MULTIPLE LISTING WILL ONLY HAMPER THE SALES OF EBAY.IN,
PLZ DONT DO THAT,
I WOULD STRESS ON PRODUCT TO BE LISTED IN RIGHT CATEGORIES,
ALSO
MAX 2 LISTINGS PER PRODUCT MUST AT LEAST BE ALLOWED,BUT NOT IN THE SAME CATEGORY.
THIS IS BECAUSE STILL EBAY.IN IS NOT SUCCESSFUL TO STOP THE FRAUD NIGERIAN BUYERS,WHO BUY THE PRODUCT AND END THE LISTINGS,SOMETIMES AS MUCH AS 5 LISTINGS ARE ALSO NOT ENOUGH.
AN INCIDENT HAPPENED WHEN A BUYER BROUGHT ALL OF MY 7 PRODUCT WHICH WERE LISTED MULTILY 7*2=14 THE SAME DAY,AND THE BUYER WAS A FRAUD.
PLZ LOOK INTO THIS MATTER,BECAUSE THIS IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT.

Live life as if there is no tomorrow.

REGARDS,
ATUL.

[abhi@ebay.com]

Dear Sellers,

Thank you for taking the time out to share your views with us on the duplicate listings issue. Two strong points are coming through:

a) Insertion Fee: We agree with you that if eBay India starts to charge insertion fee it would be the simplest and most elegant solution to the duplicate listings problem. However you will appreciate that this would be a very significant decision and would impact the economics of sellers. My point is that the decision to charge insertion fee is not something that can be taken based on the duplicate listings issue alone and there are many other factors that need to be considered before taking this decision.

b) The other point that has been raised is that a cap of 4 duplicate listings necessarily imposes a cap on the sales of a seller, the logic being that neither of the multi quantity formats (either Dutch Auctions or Fixed Price Multi Quantity formats) work. However you would be surprised to know that nearly 30% of the total sales occur in multi quantity formats. Given this I do not see the cap of 4 duplicate listings imposing a ceiling on the quantity a seller can sell.

Additional Comments, Suggestions?
Regards,
Abhi
Category Management.