@blue*nile wrote:
Just a New Rule, that the Gallery Photo HAS to be the item that MATCHES the price being shown & the ACTUAL item.
Sellers would then just upload one gallery photo, or create a superflous variation to avoid variation images being shown in search results (the reason why that would prevent your idea from working is detailed below).
eBay sort of used to do something like you suggest. I'm a seller who has been using variation listings (correctly and within policies 😄 ) since they were first introduced, and at first if you created a listing for something and had different photos uploaded to different variations, that variation's photo would show in search results if the keywords from that specific variation were used in search (the main gallery photo would display if only keywords from the main title matched, though).
For example, say I had some t-shirts, all the same brand but available in different sizes and colours, then uploaded a pic for each colour. Someone searching for a blue t shirt would have seen the blue pic, even if it wasn't the main gallery image. But it hasn't worked like that for a good couple of years now. Either the functionality wasn't worth the upkeep, or the rampant abuse of the format caused other problems for them to continue with that idea.
I suspect part of the reason why is because you can have multiple variations, but can only upload images for one variation, which is selected during the listing stage (you can set it to only show the main gallery images no matter what selections are available, or you can choose to have one aspect represented by different images, so in the t-shirt example you can upload pics that will change according to size selection, or pics that will change according to colour selection). Let's say I not only have these t-shirts in different colours and sizes, but there's a range of graphics available for each colour / size. It's impossible for me to upload a photo to show each available combination.
When you translate these techincal limitations to someone misusing the format, it ultimately means it's easier to misuse.
Another alternative would be to limit price variations, which would put an end to sellers being able to have a $1 item in a listing where everything else is $20+, but it would also put an end to quantity variation listings, which eBay's own store uses (the packaging supplies one, where you can buy something like 20, 50, 100, or 200 envelopes or somesuch).
The ideal solution would be for ebay to actually enforcfe their own policies surrounding these listings, end the ones who are clearly in breach of those policies, and impose account restrictions on repeat offenders.
They don't do that, though. And if you ask them why not, they usually claim the majority of sellers doing it are in other countries and eBay AU has no jurisdiction over sites in other countries. (It boggles the mind how they expect that logic to hold up to scrutiny, but there it is).
