The sellers primarily abusing the listing with variations option are Chinese eBay sellers.
Chinese eBay sellers are governed by the policies and application of those policies of eBay.cn, which are a direct result of China's own views about the Chinese selling internationally.
Oh, you can report these sellers to eBay Australia, and the report will vanish into the eBay equivalent of the potent and destructive belly of a black hole consuming the very heart of a star. You can phone eBay CS reps, and they will speak soothingly and sympathetically to you until you get off the phone, with nothing ever actioned.
Even if eBay Australia's CS reps tried to contact eBay China with such reports, the result would be the nothingness of infinite silence.
eBay China don't care, won't care, can't act, won't act. eBay survives in China only because it has specifically adapted its rules and functions and offers for the Chinese market, and that involves a lot of compromise from eBay.
There's only ONE way in which we would ever see this practice stop - and that's if the very very great majority of Australian eBay buyers stopped buying from sellers who abuse the listing with variations option. The practice continues because Australian buyers continue to buy from these sellers. To quote from a recent story in the news:
❝Australian consumers are notorious, and known overseas, for caring a lot about price and not caring about quality, and when that happens you get the cheaper product. And the cheaper product is not the better-performing product.❞
– Dr Michelle McCann, CEO PV Lab
