Ebay Concealing Auction Items Until Bids Made For Identical Later Ending Ones

[norm2500]

I listed two identical items for auction on Ebay. One ended Friday, the other two days later on Sunday.  Ebay put a message on the Friday item saying it would be concealed from buyers until someone bid on the Sunday item! Just crazy! At the time I had one watcher on the Friday item and two watchers on the Sunday item. The Friday item could expire with no bids before anyone bids on the Sunday item. Can anyone explain how smothering legitimate auction listings helps sellers or makes money for Ebay? (not to mention PayPal!)

[lyndal1838]

That makes no sense whatsoever and I have never heard of it happening.   I doubt if anyone here will be able to help you.

Have you rung ebay about it? 

[stampingpaws]

You are not allowed duplicate listings.

I had a similar problem of selling similar products a while ago. I sell Stamp Albums on CD for different countries, and EBay determined they were duplicate listings (different country, different description and different photos). I got around the problem by adding a number in front of the description eg A132 - Australia...  B567 New Zealand... This seemed to do the trick

Hope it helps

[2011.narelle]

What stamping paws said about duplicate listings & while you are here,why the pricing on the cables?

Do they weigh over 500g ?

Buyers are stingy with postage & may look at that & buy elsewhere.

[jensmanchester-australia]

Yes it comes under the duplicate listing policy.

You can only have a duplicate auction listing showing if the first one listed has a bid on it. Once a bid is placed on the first one listed ebay then the second one is able to be seen by buyers.

My guess is that the one you listed first is the one finishing on Sunday.

[norm2500]

Thanks for your reply, and all other responses. I can see now how the policy works, but can't see the justification. My criticism still stands, I think. The best policy would be to let both auctions run, so that bidders who think the earlier item is getting a bit overpriced could turn their attention to the later one.

If Ebay wants people to focus on just one auction at a time, then surely it seems more sensible to let the earlier-ending auction run its course, and suppress the later-ending listing until the earlier one has received bids. As things stand, unless someone bids on my later-ending item before the earlier one expires, my earlier-ending auction will just go down the gurgler unnoticed with no bids. (Thank you Ebay!).

[norm2500]

Thanks for taking notice of my earlier whingeing. I've posted a general reply.

The Cat 5e cables weigh 1.9 Kg unwrapped. I agree postage is a problem. I've seen longer cables listed as pickup-only, presumably for this reason. I may try splitting them up if they won't sell in bulk.

[go-tazz]

They brought that policy into place so that all items had a "fairer" go as sellers would put multiple amount of the

same item up.

When searching,items couldn't be found as it was all cluttered up with the listings that were the same.

Now most of those sellers simply vary the title so it looks like another listing,(when reported and if they are

removed the seller will get sanctioned).

[norm2500]

Hi lyndal1838,

Thanks for your input. I did email Ebay about it on Wednesday 12th inst. at 11.53 am Queensland time.

Apparently they don't like people ringing because of a high volume of calls.

As at today Friday 14th at 3,35 pm I still haven't received any message in reply from Ebay.

My invisible-to-buyers auction finishes in four hours,

Cheers, Norm 

[norm2500]

Hi,

I can see why more than one auction for the same item is timewasting and spacewasting, but what's the matter with an auction listing for each of a number of identical items with the respective auctions ending on different days? If the seller has a number of identical items, it's in everyone's interest for all items to be sold. Ebay don't seem worried about clutter-up for "Buy-it-Now" listings, (eg. laptop keyboard replacements in the Wholesale category).