How can we stop listings that put in a fake item option to make the listing appear lower in price?

[suthosplif]

Ebay these days is facing stiff competition from sites like Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace, and their failure to take effective action on listing practices that hamper finding the product I want is going to push me to the competition.

Pretty much everything I search on ebay for the last year, I have to wade through dozens of listings, mostly from China and Hong Kong, that have a drop down of options that varies the price. They will usually have a fake item, such as a colour that's 1/4 the price of the other colours but sold out, or 'packing box' or for example 5 different colours of $30 dog leads, and a $1 dog collar tag. The items are clearly not related besides both being for a dog, I'm looking for a lead but getting hits for tags.

I think ebay need to devote some resources to scanning listings for these fake listings, issue a warning, and then ban 2nd offenders. This may be difficult to do, but I am eventually going to stop using ebay if these practices continue.

[davewil1964]

1. You can't (in answer to the title)

2. Gumtree is owned by eBay and targets a totally different market.

3. Facebook, as above.

Gumtree and facebook are predominantly designed for local pickup, eBay is designed for a global market.

But the answer to your quandary is to buy from Gumtree or Facebook. Good luck.

[n-i-c-o-l-a-j-a-n-e]

Well, “we” can’t do much to stop this infuriating and deceptive practice, but there’s nothing to say eBay can’t do something about it. They could, and IMO at least, they really should, because sometimes I’ll be looking for something and I’ll forget I’m on ebay and think I’m on Ali Express because the search function is becoming almost as fruitless as Ali express, wish, etc - I.e. a gigantic cyber $2 shop where you never get exactly what you came for, but you end up with a whole lot of vaguely related cheap tat and your left scratching your head wondering what happened

[go-tazz]

On eBay it's simple,if you see a listing with a low price that can't be true just scroll past it,(if everyone did that

the practice would soon stop as they wouldn't sell anything and it's only because some buyers think that they

can get those items at those prices that allows the scam to continue).

Their click through rate would drop below an acceptable level and they would have to stop the practice,

[enigmabear]

Well said

Buyers do indeed have the power

[phorum_junkie*]

If I am searching for something that may be a choice listing I set the minimum price at $2 or $3 ( or more if the item cost is likely to be much higher) which weeds out the cheap $1 ítems.

[countessalmirena]

I set the minimum price similarly. It can be frustrating to have cheap Chinese extraneous results clogging up a search result, in spite of all the -[excluded search term] after -[excluded search term] that one can use.

@suthosplif,

As go-tazz and enigmabear have said, the only way to stop the practice of clickbait variations is to eschew those listings. It starts by thinking "A genuine and good quality [whatever the item is] is certainly not going to be available at this unrealistic price. I am not going to fall for these listings; I can tell even without looking at them individually that they are too good to be true, so I'm playing it smart. I shan't look at these, and I certainly shan't buy these."

If more Australian buyers were to think in this way, the inexorable wave of rubbish items being sold by Chinese eBay sellers would fail.

I don't believe that every Australian buyer will take heed; there are too many people who have posted on these boards, complaining about poor quality items, lack of warranty, failure to replace by the seller, etc., etc., but who have reiterated their intention to continue buying these sorts of items... and it initially dumbfounded me. But there it is; some people will buy from Chinese sellers because they think that there's no real difference between a quality item and a Chinese knock-off item - or they think that fortune smiles upon them and gives them genuine bargains of the "too good to be true" variety - or they think that at the low price of $2 or so they can afford to take the chance...

@n-i-c-o-l-a-j-a-n-e,

We can stop this "infuriating and deceptive practice". We can stop buying from sellers who do this. As has been said... if it doesn't work, the Chinese eBay sellers will stop listing in that manner. The proof that it does work (i.e., that Australian buyers may be foolish enough to continue buying from sellers who abuse the variations listing option) is that the sellers continue listing in this fashion.

Buyer behaviour drives seller behaviour.

eBay Australia can't stop Chinese eBay sellers from abusing the listings with variations option. The Chinese sellers are registered on and come under the operation of eBay.cn (eBay China). There are different rules there, and different enforcement of the rules. This is largely due to China's own perspectives on IP, business, international trading, and "face". eBay Australia has no jurisdiction over eBay.cn, and a complaint from an Australian buyer will go to eBay Australia, who probably don't even bother passing on the complaint to eBay.cn. Even if they did, the complaint would be as effective as cooked spagetti in a duel.

[springyzone]

It is annoying when you come across it, but don't hold your breath til ebay does something about it or you'll pass out waiting.

Their bottom line is getting things sold and obviously some people fall for this sort of listing. They click to have a look, give a sigh of disappointment to find their high quality product isn't actually to be had for $1 delivered, then can't be bothered searching any more so just buy anyway.

As others have said, you can set a minimum price if you're finding that the item you are looking for is riddled with junky Chinese versions with drop down menus. That should knock out a lot of them.  And you could try setting the search to Australia only, although some Aussie sellers do it too. Not as many though.

Just as an aside, do you think ebay is facing stiff competition from gumtree? I wish. I have found most things I list there get very few looks. It's disturbingly quiet, more than it used to be. The facebook marketplaces are hopping but facebook public sites are full of ferals.

[countessalmirena]

springyzone, re Facebook... a recent experience in creating a Facebook profile and joining local buy, swap and sell groups has shown me that it's quite an effective medium. (My brother-in-law used to sell the odd thing on eBay but has abandoned it for Facebook, which he earnestly assured me was very effective. I followed his suggestions for something that I wanted to get rid of. Within a day - successfully sold for a fair price and no complications or issues, and now I have clear passage to my 4000 CD collection again!)

Clearly Facebook wouldn't work for every sort of item; business sellers are still going to be better off with a dedicated ecommerce solution and/or an online marketplace such as eBay or Amazon or Etsy or whatever it may be.

What do you mean by "Facebook public sites"...? I am not a very Facebooky sort of person... so my in-depth knowledge of Facebook is not deep at all...

[springyzone]

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@countessalmirena wrote:

springyzone, re Facebook... a recent experience in creating a Facebook profile and joining local buy, swap and sell groups has shown me that it's quite an effective medium. (My brother-in-law used to sell the odd thing on eBay but has abandoned it for Facebook, which he earnestly assured me was very effective. I followed his suggestions for something that I wanted to get rid of. Within a day - successfully sold for a fair price and no complications or issues, and now I have clear passage to my 4000 CD collection again!)

Clearly Facebook wouldn't work for every sort of item; business sellers are still going to be better off with a dedicated ecommerce solution and/or an online marketplace such as eBay or Amazon or Etsy or whatever it may be.

What do you mean by "Facebook public sites"...? I am not a very Facebooky sort of person... so my in-depth knowledge of Facebook is not deep at all...

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If you have a facebook account, there are privacy settings. Mine are set so only friends can see my comments or posts.

But there are facebook pages (which work a bit like messageboards) you can join and they have differeing privacy settings. I am on quite a few of them. I think  some facebook groups could be of interest to you, countessa, as they cover all sorts of topics such as cooking etc

Some of my interest groups (genealogy/photo restoration) are ones where you apply to join/ be a member & only fellow members will see the posts.

But others, such as facebook buy/swap/sell sites have differing levels of privacy, some are public, some are members only.

I know facebook selling sites work quite well, my daughter has had success with them.

But I am on several  special interest sites and sometimes I am put off by blatant feral behaviour by some. Especially on a local crime report page. And on some of the FB selling sites, you'll often get people who have absolutely no interest in the item someone is selling, but just have to jump in and tell people that their product is rubbish or they are asking far too much for it etc

I had just been looking at one of those sites when i made the earlier post and was shocked that people had to be so nasty to the seller (all unknown people to me, I was just scrolling through, having a look).

I have sold a few things myself on local FB selling sites. Most people will not offer the asking amount and some seem to think an offer of 1/3 asking price will thrill you. In between them are some reasonable people.

Last year I had 3 charcoal coloured hallway runners to sell, all fairly new, and had well over 20 offers in 24 hours on facebook and only one or two half hearted queries on gumtree, so my conclusion is FB is more popular. 

As a seller though I found people expect you on your phone or computer 24/7 which i found stressful and bothersome with the mats, to be honest.

Ebay is a more peaceful selling venue.