Any way I can discourage another seller from copying my titles and item specifics word-for-word?

[momcqueen]

I realize that 'Sell One Like This' serves a true and necessary purpose but is there anything that I can do to dissuade a specific seller from chronically copying my titles word-for-word? He/she also uses my custom-created item specifics (again word-for-word) to undercut me on identical products selling simultaneously in the same format and geographic market. I also realize that titles and item specifics are not copyright but this is happening with this seller on a regular basis. (As in it's not accidental.) Is it within the realm of good manners for me to message them to ask them not to do this anymore? Insight from sellers with more experience in this field would be greatly appreciated as I'm a little worried about doing so because I can see the seller has at least one 'sister' account and I don't want to open the doors to reactive/unwelcome buying from the person in the event they are offended that I am offended. Thank you for your advice.

Respectfully,

Maureen 

[rosscd57]

Put them on your blocked list and then buy some of their stuff - then do what ya gota do.

.

[pattern-bookstar]

I just put you on my BBL.

Why would you advise someone to buy some of their stuff and then do what ya gota do (implying giving them bad feedback or other nasty things)    

You definitely have some issues.  

[pattern-bookstar]

Hi Maureen, I would just be honest and send the seller a polite email explaining that you have noticed that they have copied a lot of your listing without your permission and that you would appreciate in future if the would not use your info.  Depending upon how many listings they have, it would be really hard for them to revise all of them.  

If they chose to ignore you, I would not do what rosscd57 said to do. 

[rose-dee]

I'm afraid I have to disagree with all of the advice given above.  I have some experience in this area, and from my perspective what you describe is a deliberate act on the part of this "pirate" seller.  They are well aware of what they're doing.  You are, by definition, not dealing with an honest, forthright person.  

Sending a polite note, in my view, is not only futile, but could actually have the opposite effect -- it might inflame that seller to retaliate in some way.  A person who is intentionally pirating your titles and item specifics and then undercutting you is unlikely to respond in a reasonable way to a courteous request to desist.  And it should almost go without saying that buying something from that seller in order to retaliate is an even worse idea fraught with consequences that could come back on you (both from the pirating seller and from eBay) -- don't even consider it. 

My suggestion would be to contact eBay and make a complaint against the seller.  Make sure you have the pirated item numbers handy to report.  I have a feeling this is a much bigger problem on eBay than many sellers realize and eBay may have a means of dealing with it.  Not only that, but you have no way of knowing whether other sellers might have complained about this person in the past, which could lend weight to your own report. 

[pierrelebel]

The first thing to determine is:

is there really a seller copying your titles and listing description?

or

are some of your listings for items with a large marketplace and many sellers offering identical items?

For example, I searched for  LEGO 71005 THE SIMPSONS Minifigures 

and found 25 listings on eBay.ca : http://www.ebay.ca/sch/m.html?_odkw=&_ssn=mjwl2006&_armrs=1&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2046732.m57...

and over 800 listings on eBay.com : http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p5508.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.A0.H0.XLEGO+71005+THE+SIM...

I would not be too quick in jumping to conclusions of wrongdoing by anyone else.

[pocomocomputing]

What is there to complain about? Title and Item Specifics are not copyright as the OP said. Nothing to really do about it as long as the description is not copied in whole or in part. Then you might have a case to complain about to eBay.

Contacting the other seller might help but they are not doing anything wrong. All they are doing is selling the same item and pricing under their competition (the OP). Unethical selling practice or smart marketing against the competition?

If anything is at fault it is the eBay system in allowing the Sell It Yourself option in a listing to copy directly the title and all item specifics including the OP custom ones. The custom IS should not be copied. For this, all I can suggest is making a complaint about the eBay system to the Wed weekly session board. I doubt it will ever be changed.

[holdmygold2]

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@rosscd57 wrote:

Put them on your blocked list and then buy some of their stuff - then do what ya gota do.

.

---

That's an interesting comment.

I'd like to ask you to be more specific.  After committing to buy the other seller's items, what then?

Pay for them?

Refuse to pay?

"Mess" with the other seller how?

Just wondering.

Also, in réponse to the original question about how to get someone to stop copying listings verbatim.

A comment:

Over the years I've found that other's who list in my very narrow category have "copied" the way I list.

They use the same title words and focus on the same details in their descriptions, sometimes verbatim.

Since I am the leader in my little pond I can't blame them and when I see that others have followed my lead and used my descriptions as a learning tool and "borrowed" my words I can be annoyed or flattered.

I choose the latter option.

[rose-dee]

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@pocomocomputing wrote:

What is there to complain about? Title and Item Specifics are not copyright as the OP said. Nothing to really do about it as long as the description is not copied in whole or in part. Then you might have a case to complain about to eBay.

---

I have to disagree.  Strictly speaking, a seller's title (assuming it was actually made up by the seller and not copied from elsewhere) is copyright.  Some titles are important parts of a seller's marketing strategy and can be highly original.  The fact that it isn't in the description section isn't relevant, at least from a purely legal standpoint.  It may be a little more difficult to claim copyright or trademark ownership over item specifics, unless your company happens to be called Dior or Microsoft and those specifics include trademarked words or phrases.

I do agree though that eBay has created this problem by allowing anybody and his dog to use the "Sell Similar" feature.  You may be right that bringing this up at the Wed. board session could be useful.  

As I said, I suspect this is a much more widespread issue than most sellers know, and I would still not hesitate to report it if it's clearly blatant copying (in that respect Pierre is correct that a seller must be certain his/her titles are being copied and not merely imitated). 

[mr.elmwood]

My ex got into my line as a way of keeping tabs on me. She copies what I do and gets it wrong. I have sold, in a day, what takes her six weeks to sell. Another guy I know could sell ten times as much if he copied me better.

Another fellow, sells the same stuff I do, in the same way, and we support each other. He is a personal friend. Him I give asked for advise on how to do better, sell more, make more money. I love it when he does better than me. There are millions of buyers, c'mon, there is enough to share.

The other two? They stand out in the cold knocking at the door.

I have seen my title "style" replicated over and over by many sellers. They are still not doing it right.

[2014sportsterguy]

Well are they baking any EBay rules is the answer, there is no copyright on title is there?
What happens on EBay is not like LasVegas, your welcome. I really think you should work around this and no contact with the other perceived wrong doer.

[rosscd57]

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@lidpen2 wrote:

I just put you on my BBL.

Why would you advise someone to buy some of their stuff and then do what ya gota do (implying giving them bad feedback or other nasty things)    

You definitely have some issues.  

---

Exactly my point. All I did was make a vauge implication, you fell for it and reacted - well perhaps overreacted. Implications are just words -meaningless without follow through, but effective non the less.

[momcqueen]

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this discussion. My apologies for the tardiness of my reply. I have no child care this week so I have not been able to attend to other matters until now. Please allow me to answer some follow-up questions and shed some additional light on my situation.

No, pierrelebel, it's not the lego minifigs. Those are a drop in the puddle. A good portion of my sales for which I am grateful, yes, but I'm talking about the 1:55 scale Disney Cars. There is a very limited market within Canada for those and I am usually able to sell characters for double and/or triple what other sellers get due to my superlative level of service. I don't mean that in an egotistical way, either. I go the extra mile for buyers and then some. To paraphrase Sally Field: Buyers like me. They really like me. Competitor sellers do not.

The following are two of the current examples. There have been others and always with this particular seller. Both examples cited below are Cars characters which are in very limited supply. Please look past the copied-every-character title and delve into the Item Specifics. 

These are mine:

(a) Item number 331376220171 title Disney Planes 2 FIRE & RESCUE Cad Spinner OL' JAMMER FUSEL LODGE FIRE ALARM 4PK

(b) Item number 331348383750 title Disney PIXAR Cars SHAWN KRASH & SAL MACHIANI ALLINOL BLOWOUT diecast 2014 4&5/9

These are theirs:

(a) Item number 221603938555 title Disney Planes 2 FIRE & RESCUE Cad Spinner OL' JAMMER FUSEL LODGE FIRE ALARM 4PK

(b) Item number 221599351771 title Disney PIXAR Cars SHAWN KRASH & SAL MACHIANI ALLINOL BLOWOUT diecast 2014 4&5/9

These are the usual listings from other sellers. Selected at random. Again, please investigate the Item Specifics:

(a) Item number 271661929252 title Disney Pixar Planes Fire and Rescue- Ol' Jammer, Cad Spinner, and Maru diecast

(b) Item number 40080529005 title Disney Pixar Cars 2 Pack Sal Machiani & Shawn Krash Newly Released

Do you see the nature of my complaint?

Furthermore, I can see that this seller has at least one ‘sister’ account with a similar name right down to its previous ID. They have bought from each other at least once before, according to what I can glean from even the new more-private feedback. My worry is that by making direct contact, I'd be inviting a great deal of trouble into my house. I took the advice given by rosscd57 to be tongue-in-cheek. I wasn't planning to send Knuckles over just yet.

I realize that titles and item specifics are not considered intellectual property, pocomocomputing. And in my opinion, that's too bad. I spend a LOT of time creating my listings. Photo theft by other sellers on eBay all-but stopped once I added the snarky bit about swiping pics but I'm still finding my photographs used without permission on That-Big-River-in-South-America by a seller from California and on kijiji Montreal by some other guy. I'm hoping this will stop when you-know-who tries to 'Sell One Like This' from my next listing of a short-supply, high-demand character. I'm fed up. I'm not opposed to someone improving on what I've done but this is word-for-word over and over again.

So the consensus is... board hour? How far in advance can one pose a question? I'd need to be at my computer during the specified time next week, right? Would it be Trust and Safety, rose-dee, if I made the call directly to ebay? Again, thank you all very much for your considerable time and expertise. 

[tobyshitzu]

They won't see anything wrong with that and certainly won't do anything.

IF they had cut and paste your entire VERY LONG description then you might have gotten somewhere.  The titles are just words from  the product

Move on

[momcqueen]

It's not merely the titles. It is the Item Specifics, word-for-word as well. I shouldn't be concerned the other seller is using the fruits of my labour, in part, to sell exactly what I am selling to exactly the same buyers at the exact same time? He/she and I have the only two of one particular product available on ebay anywhere in the world right now. I created the title and all the Item Specifics with considerable thought, and listed it first. Then he/she came along, used 'Sell One Like This' on two of my current listings... and dozens of others in the past. It seems poor etiquette, to say the least. Nothing will change my mind about that. 

[tobyshitzu]

The only thing that you could have a claim to as unique in your item specifics is putting the age to '103" (which is no advantage to anyone).  Everyone selling a mattel item is going to have "mattel" etc.  The point of item specifics is to help buyers narrow results to what they want.  Identical items should have the same specifics.   Being only the top 6 specifics" show in the sidebar without expansion, if your specific isn't in the top 6 used by sellers within those results, no one will see it.  Worse, as soon as someone picks one of the displayed ones, other listings are excluded.  Ebay knew what it was doing when they started populating the specifics with the sell similar from another listing

[momcqueen]

Okay. I understand what everyone is saying here. It sounds like I should just untwist my knickers. 

Thank you all for your time, thought and advice.

[mr.elmwood]

Or? Keep twisting until ya cut off all blood supply to yer brain.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,: The courage to change the things I can,: And the wisdom to know the difference."

[ricarmic]

Hi Mjw! My personal opinion is that if it is your superlative customer service that makes the difference, and you are able to maintain your supply source, don't worry about the other guys, they'll eventually lose their source and/or their customers.

In my world I know that I am not usually the cheapest guy for the material if you only look at the price, but I too try to provide superior customer service. Generally 50-66% of my monthly sales by $$ are to repeat customers.

I also have had "copiers" in various ways over the years. To be honest I don't know if they're still out there and doing it, but I do know that I am still here!

Have a great weekend and keep on listing!

[rose-dee]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

"My worry is that by making direct contact, I'd be inviting a great deal of trouble into my house."

In my opinion, contacting the other sellers to try to "work it out" is pointless, as I said earlier.  Your comment above is exactly the potential outcome. 

"I realize that titles and item specifics are not considered intellectual property." 

Please see my earlier post.  While some may have other opinions on this subject, I do have some 'real world' experience in the area of trademarks and intellectual property.  Now granted, your titles appear to be more a collection of technical keywords than creative headline titles (and content can determine how egregious a violation may be), but the principle remains.  I'd still report it, particularly since it appears to be a character-for-character copying. 

"Would it be Trust and Safety, rose-dee, if I made the call directly to ebay?" 

That's probably where I'd start.  

You know, I appreciate the point of view expressed by some others that this is an irrelevant issue, that you should just make your experience and customer service stand out and ignore the copying, etc.  There is a lot of merit in that approach -- i.e. the sincerest form of flattery theory.

The problem is that imitation (or in this case copying) isn't entirely without benefit for the copier.  He/she is saving time and effort by riding on your coattails.  If you're selling something unusual, unique, rare, or very sought after, I think this is a problem worth complaining about.  

Whether eBay cares is another matter, but you never know how big a source of discontent it might have become and whether your complaint may be adding to others, which might eventually move eBay to make some changes.  But then I'm a squeaky wheel believer.  You may prefer to just try and outperform your competitors in other ways and ignore this particular issue.