variation listing issues

[rainbow71113]

Hello People,

I've just started using variation listings more lately, I agree it's great to save on listing fees however I like to cram as much as possible into a title for searching  and it's not possible with the variations.  However, I have had 2 customers now, - the first asked if ALL the books in that listing were for $7.99 and they are $7.99 each.  The second had asked me about totals for the last couple of days.  I couldn't figure out exactly which books she was referring to and today she accuses me of increasing my prices.  I think she didn't know to go to each drop down to see the individual prices.  Is anyone else having issues with buyers not understanding the procedures in variation listings?

[dmil8030 · Accepted solution]

If 'variations' are causing you grief you may have to ponder whether the savings are really worth it. As a seller on ebay you spend a huge portion of your life fussing over the minutiae of ebay listings. For most everyone else in the world, ebay is not their life. Those sorts of 'multi-selection' listings can seem confusing.

Moreover, when a listing is set to read "1.99 + shipping" at first glance, - let's use 150887751082 as an example, - the buyer sees that, it looks great, and when she clicks on the listing, it shows the picture and the 1.99. She is invited to 'select', and discovers the very first one is not 1.99 but 5.99. When she is enticed with 2 bucks but discovers the real price is 6 bucks, that could seem like trickery. Only two titles out of the lot are actually 1.99.

In all honesty, I don't feel the buyers are the problem. 'Variations' listings are fine for people who do a fair bit of bidding and buying, but your clientelle may have loads of other things, people, issues, jobs, kids, pets, homes, you-name-it occupying their time, and they only show up on ebay occasionally to buy something. Such a person may find that type of listing deceptive. If even one person gets put off and goes somewhere else, - how much have you 'saved'?

Is there any way to split them up and group 'like' items together according to price? Could you add a phrase in the description such as "Price is for one book only"? I know you have the phrase about it being "YOUR choice", but I don't really see the need for CAPS, - who else's choice would it be? 🙂

Try the 'variations' thing for a while if you like, but if you get a significant number (how many is up to you) of buyers indicating a dissatisfaction with the listings, then you may want to reconsider whether using that style is truly cost-effective for you.

[rainbow71113]

Interesting points, I don't list the cheapest one first it seems to default to that when the listing appears- the first one listed is actually $5.99.  I didn't think about that, will have to review those listings and see why that happens.  I guess it will be a call to ebay.  And the caps were an error, I don't usually use caps, didn't catch that in the listing, thanks will change that...and I also just changed them all to the same price until I can figure out if I want to remove those 2 or not.