How eBay could FIX this seller misrepresentation, but probably won't...

[exotictreazuresonline]

I (along with every other eBay user I know of) really hate those listings with the one super cheap item that shows up as the price of the item you're searching for in search results. For example, a search for fidget spinners shows many for $1 or so. Click on any of these and you get to select a colour - at which point the price jumps to $6.99 or $9.99 or $15.99 or whatever. The $1 price is attached to an EMPTY BOX...

So this ridiculous listing practice makes a price based search for almost anything absolutely useless and you have to check every listing til you find a reasonable price, but it could be fixed very simply - make the price that shows up in search results for a multi-option listing an AVERAGE of all available options, not just the lowest. So a seller with 9 different items at $10 and 1 at $1 gets a price shown of $9.10 and a seller with 4 items at $25 and 1 at $1 gets an indicated price of $20.20 instead of $1.

This would make the search results way more accurate and help buyers out a heap, and hurt the dishonest sellers who I am sure make at least some money of people who don't notice the price for their selected 'colour choice' just went up by 10 times what it was.

Will eBay help us out though?

[*tippy*toes*]

It's been an ongoing issue for years and eBay refuse to do anything about it. Most of the offenders are Chinese. The Chinese are the untouchables. They can do whatever they like with impunity. Usually it's suggested that if you know the item you want would never sell for under, say $10, put $10 into the refinements on the left, which will stop anything under $10 being shown. The other way to weed out the Chinese sellers (who don't misrepresent their location) is to change your postcode at the top of your search results to 5731 (Innamincka). That's roughly the middle of the country. Then set the distance refinement to 2,000km. You'll miss a few areas, but you'll weed out a lot of the Chinese.

[exotictreazuresonline]

Thanks for the tips. I know the majority (maybe all) of the abusers of this feature are Chinese, but there are some decent Chinese sellers as well. I actually tend to buy quite a bit of cheap Chinese stuff as not all of it is junk and there are some bargains to be had (cutters for my milling machine is just one example) and this problem affects me a lot. When you're searching for an item in the $1-$5 per item range it can be very difficult, without checking each individual listing, to work out the legitimate prices and the 'clickbait' ones.

Another deceptive practice I've noticed lately is the 8-10 week delivery 'estimates' that some Chinese sellers are being allowed to put in. When one of these items fails to arrive you cannot start a dispute until the entire delivery period estimate has elapsed, by which time the sellers hope you've forgotten about the item and won't pursue it. I don't know if it's related or not, but recently I've been having undelivered or 'lost' items in maybe 10% of purchases, whereas they used to be extremely rare. I'm wondering if this is a new scamming technique where you sell something low valued with a long delivery estimate, never send it, then hope the buyer forgets about the item before the delivery window has finished - free money...

[go-tazz]

Just do what I do and scroll straight past the sellers that use this practise as they are the more expensive

option and list that low price item so that members look at their items.

If everyone just ignores them then their sales will be non existant and you'll get the items cheaper from the

other sellers,

[digital*ghost]

In my search results, I see a price range for listings like this. eg if one shows up that has an item for $1, and other options for up to $15, the results will show $1 - $15 as the display price, before I click on the listing. (I know not everyone sees this, but I'm mentioning it in case it has something to do with my search settings, which I set to show more than the default info - basically everything except the item number and whether or not they accept PayPal, as neither are necessary). 

Best way to eliminate the $1 bait prices from showing in search results is to start the search with a minimum value of $2.

BTW, I'm not saying eBay shouldn't do something about this practice, I really wish they would (without taking away the variation listing format) because it annoys a high number of people and can put them off the site all together, just that there's a couple of things you may be able to do to minimise the instances of being annoyed by it. 

[mark.wooba]

Does anyone know if this same problem exists on other auctions sites like aliexpress? And what about Amazon?

[exotictreazuresonline]

Last time I used Amazon they didn't have this issue. For example, a search for a 1/2" 4 flute HSS milling cutter would return results with a price (let's say $2.50 as an example). You then click on the item and get taken to a page with multiple cutter sizes available from the drop-down box. However, the 1/2" one you searched for would be $2.50 as the search results indicated, the larger sizes more expensive and the smaller ones cheaper - just like it should be.

Now on eBay, search for a used iPad and get a search result at $200 - click on that and find the iPad is $700 but the $200 is for a screen protector and a stylus...

[tazzieterror]

I completely agree with the OP - this problem is frustrating, could easily be eliminated by eBay, but sadly there is no financial incentive for them to do so.

As eBay earns revenue from advertising on its site, more people clicking through to view an item means potentially more revenue from ad views/clicks, so displaying a listing with as low a price as possible is in eBay's interests. Not to mention, if a buyer clicks through on a listing expecting to spend $1 but ends up spending $10, eBay earns more commission as well.

Averaging the prices of the options seems a sensible solution, but then there's likely to be a significant proportion of buyers who would click through with the price displayed as $1, that would skip the listing if the average price of $9.10 is displayed instead.

It should at least be a reportable infringement (especially if the cheap price is for a blank option in the drop-down list), but in my experience eBay has rarely actioned any of the listing violations I've reported to them.