DUPLICATE LISTING AND ACCOUNT SUSPENSION - NEW SELLERS BEWARE!!

[natz2019]

We are a new eBay seller. We are trying to fix a problem with duplicate listings. eBay has decided to put our account on hold with not much warning. we have been ringing them almost daily to try and resolve the issue without much luck.

They assisted us at first (by taking account off hold) so we could try and fix our api feed. However they slapped our account on hold whilst we were trying to fix the issue. Now we are getting told that we have to wait a month until we can re-list and then from there we only have a week to fix the issue until. it seem totally backwards and crazy - how are u meant to fix something if u cant access it.

eBay needs to fix this policy as most of its sellers are small businesses trying to do the right thing. Secondly for Google (which own eBay) being such a large multinational company, I think they should have call centres in each country as I'm finding the call centre staff quiet varied in there level of service and understanding of the English language (e.g. eBay Australia - use Australian call centre etc etc)

I do hope that eBay reviews there duplicate listing policy as I'm quiet frustrated by the situation as both myself and my developer were trying our best to resolve the issue and then to get slapped with a 1 month ban and then only given 1 week again to fix the issue, until which the account will get put on hold again for one month. 

At this rate we will have our api feed commissioned in 2025. eBay you need to improve this policy, provide better customer service and be more tolerant towards new sellers (especially since ecommerce is booming in Australia). After all sellers are the one providing the buyers with more product selection.

[gutterpunkz05]

Not sure what your problem is,  your store is currently showing  1179 items for sale.

[collect247]

OP I think have to fix their duplicate listing issue before they can list more items but are still able to sell with the listings they have.

[pnc75]

This might help identify the duplicates:

http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/DuplicateListings.htm

[natz2019]

Thats correct, however we have another 3000 different products which we are trying to push thru via api feed. However sinse our account is on hold we can even see these as draft items.

[davewil1964]

Where did you get the disinformation that Alphabet own eBay?

If your system is uploading duplicates of many items, maybe you should list manually until you have the issue sorted. eBay have limited tolerance for such things and after your account gets suspended, it gets cancelled. No appeals, no redress.

[collect247]

Ebay=Viva

[brerrabbit585]

There's a good reason for ebay's duplicate listings policy. Some sellers deliberately do duplicate listings in order to gain an advantage over other sellers and buyers get sick of scrolling through umpteen listings for the exact same product from the same seller. For everybody to get a fair go sellers need to abide by the rules. It'd be a disaster if they removed this particular policy and ebay knows this so it's never going to happen.

[natz2019]

Hi.

yes i agree with what you are saying, however i thing ebay needs to be you account on hold, but still enable you to push listing via an api for testing purposes. i have stated this to ebay numerous times over the last 2 weeks.

What they need to do is put your account on hold put still allow you to push your listing via the api feed as draft listings. this would allow sellers to fix duplicate listings and protect your concerns (which i agress with)

Currently we cant push anything to a draft listing which would allow us to sort out our duplicate listing feed whilst our account is on hold.

[brerrabbit585]

The way ebay is set up, duplicate listings are detected at the time of creation. It doesn't matter whether you schedule them to start later or have them start straight away. I don't use drafts but I use scheduling for all new listings and I'd say they're the same. If ebay allowed duplicated drafts (or scheduled items), sellers would be likely to forget that they're duplicates and would list them without changing or deleting them. This would be why ebay has it set up the way they do. I seriously doubt they're going to change the whole system to accommodate you.

I think you need to learn to crawl before you can walk, ie. do small batches instead of trying to upload hundreds or thousands at a time.  It'd be a lot easier to find duplicates in small batches.  If you offend too many times ebay will close you down altogether.

If you sort your listings by title you should be able to find any duplicates.  If you've altered the titles the duplicates won't show up beside the original listing but they probably won't be detected as duplicates anyway.