eBay

vip-marketplace · ‎08-15-2015

Hey guys!

This is my second 7 days suspension in 2 months.

All my other metrics are excellent and have 100% positive feedback.

Should I be extra careful from there? Could a 3rd suspension be permanent?

I find it a little annoying that eBay isn't a little more tolerant with sellers with higher amount of listings.

I mean, if a seller has 10 listings but manage to have a duplicate, well that's definitely more of a problem than a seller with>1000 listings with a duplicate!

Especially with all the changes they made recently with UPC/EAN. I had a lot of programing to do to have to have my whole inventory relisted and if I managed to do all that but created 1 duplicate by mistake, I think I did a VERY GREAT JOB!

But eBay thinks I should be suspended for it, the good-for-nothing criminal I am.

Anyway... point is I wish their suspension criteria were "proportional" to the selling volume of sellers since 1 duplicate over 1,000 definitely isn't a sign of bad faith and trying to violate eBay rules. In my case I believe it was an item that was automatically relisted and after an automatic unpaid case was closed.

So... do you think I'm on the edge of permanent suspension here? Should I go over all my listings and make 100% sure there aren't any other unwanted dups?

Thanks!

pierrelebel · ‎08-15-2015

" Should I go over all my listings and make 100% sure there aren't any other unwanted dups?"

I do that regularly. It only takes a few minutes (and I used to have 3,000 to 4,000 items listed in my eBay store prior to my retirement).

How?

Using your Selling Manager Active listings (200 listings per page), click on Title. This will organize the list alphabetically, Go down the list to spot duplicate listings. Once done, revert to your usual sorting.

That method will work as long as you consistently use the same format to list your products.

"do you think I'm on the edge of permanent suspension here?"

If you do it again, I suspect the next level of suspension will be 30 days.

I also noticed that your "sell through" rate is very low. More than 1,400 listings ended in the last three months with less than 100 sales. At that rate, it will take a year and half on average for one of your listings to sell. While reviewing your listings, you may want to take a few minutes and review pricing on your items. Why don't they sell? It may be that if your competitors price an item at $50 and you price your identical item at $100 (EP-87Y comes to mind) odds are it will "stay on the shelf" for a very long time.

Another major problem is that your listings read "ship to Canada" only. As such, they will not be seen on eBay.com, the largest marketplace where Canadians shop.

momcqueen · ‎08-15-2015

If it were me, I would take pierre's advice to heart and make every effort to immediately remove any Duplicate listings that might be found. If ebay is actually issuing suspensions, it means you are on their radar and not in a good way. Your other metrics might look okay to you but none of us really know what factors play into Best Match search results and I would suspect 'account in good standing' would be among them. Plus, I recall reading somewhere (and don't remember where exactly to pull quotes from it) that if ebay finds duplicates among the listings, they bury ALL listings in search results from that seller, no matter the item or category. But perhaps that was mere conjecture.

No matter, it is better not to run afoul of the law here and ebay sets the law for us so we had best play by their rules. Go through your stuff with a finetooth comb. Or your alternative may be to take a month-long unscheduled vacation in the not-too-distant future.

mr.elmwood · ‎08-15-2015

@pierrelebel wrote:
" Should I go over all my listings and make 100% sure there aren't any other unwanted dups?"

I do that regularly. It only takes a few minutes (and I used to have 3,000 to 4,000 items listed in my eBay store prior to my retirement).

How?

Using your Selling Manager Active listings (200 listings per page), click on Title. This will organize the list alphabetically, Go down the list to spot duplicate listings. Once done, revert to your usual sorting.

That method will work as long as you consistently use the same format to list your products.

"do you think I'm on the edge of permanent suspension here?"

If you do it again, I suspect the next level of suspension will be 30 days.

I also noticed that your "sell through" rate is very low. More than 1,400 listings ended in the last three months with less than 100 sales. At that rate, it will take a year and half on average for one of your listings to sell. While reviewing your listings, you may want to take a few minutes and review pricing on your items. Why don't they sell? It may be that if your competitors price an item at $50 and you price your identical item at $100 (EP-87Y comes to mind) odds are it will "stay on the shelf" for a very long time.

Another major problem is that your listings read "ship to Canada" only. As such, they will not be seen on eBay.com, the largest marketplace where Canadians shop.

I "think" that eBay hands out suspensions based on performance more so than the actual "crime". If you are experiencing duplicate listings without having sufficient sales to assuage eBay, well, they do not like that. I agree, the next step is 30 days.

Get a 30 day suspension and you are pretty much on life support.

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tobyshitzu · ‎08-15-2015

They started a bug crackdown on duplicates a couple months back. Seller on com ps baord with lots of lsitings and sales reported being suspended for very few dupes. I got a removal and warning for a dupe between different ids, whcih has always been agaisnt the rules but they didn't seem to have any way to detect it. They do now

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-15-2015

Apparently this duplicate scanning tool works quite well.

http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/DuplicateListings.htm

snoopwiz · ‎08-15-2015

Apparently this duplicate scanning tool works quite well.

http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/DuplicateListings.htm

I had used that scanning tool some months ago and it did fine 3 or 4 dupes I was not aware of. Use it in conjunction with Pierre's idea and you should be ok.

Agreed that a slip up of one or two accidental dupes with 1000+ listings should not be grounds for suspension however, theirs is an automated system, powered by bots, not logic.

reallynicestamps · ‎08-15-2015

While pierre's advice is most useful, I have also taken to adding the date of the listing as a Note.

You can see Notes, but your customer's can't.

I also Note when an item has been Relisted from auction to fixed price.

Are you using Good Til Cancelled?

I've had problems with duplicate listings when switching from auction to fixed price since the auction item stays on my Unsolds until I delete it.

But with GTC , the relists are automatic and I am much less likely to relist the same item twice.

rose-dee · ‎08-15-2015

Is my memory failing (not impossible), or didn't eBay used to throw up a warning message when one was about to list a duplicate, or near-duplicate item? I found this very helpful at times, even though eBay was sometimes wrong. At least it was a heads up that would make me double check what I was about to do.

If the eBay bots can pick up duplicates once they're listed, why can't they warn sellers/flag them as soon as they go up instead of punishing us for an inadvertent oversight? Yes, I realize there are sellers deliberately listing duplicates, but everybody else makes an honest mistake once in a while.

'femmefan' -- Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're describing, but I don't quite understand how a listing date in the Note section is alone sufficient to help spot duplicates that may have been relisted unbeknownst the seller, as in the situation the OP describes. It certainly can't hurt to have that information recorded, but I think it would need to be used in conjunction with Pierre's method of sorting by title in order to spot certain types of duplicates. This kind of thing happened to me once or twice when I accidentally hit the "Post to eBay" button twice on Auctiva, and only realized a day later to my surprise (and fright) that I had two identical listings.

I appreciate 'pj' posting that link to the duplicates tool -- hopefully it's 100% reliable and accurate, because anything less is obviously unacceptable to eBay these days. I think I'd still personally prefer to review my listings manually as Pierre suggests.

mr.elmwood · ‎08-15-2015

Rose, I had a duplicate in July and one in June. Re-listing from unsold, when I was in a hurry, had a martini in my hand, not my fault. Did not get a duplicate warning.

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rose-dee · ‎08-15-2015

pierre lebel wrote:

Using your Selling Manager Active listings (200 listings per page), click on Title. This will organize the list alphabetically, Go down the list to spot duplicate listings. Once done, revert to your usual sorting.

That method will work as long as you consistently use the same format to list your products.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Can you elaborate on this please? Do you mean it will not work if you have a mix of Fixed Price and Auction formats, or if you have a mix of different types of Fixed Price formats (GTC/30-day, 10-day, etc.)?

I've had nothing but FP listings for some time now, and sorting by "Title" seems to capture them all.

Anonymous · ‎08-15-2015

I had one item removed last week due to "duplicate listing" which was absurd. It is true that I have 2 items that has same picture but one is in container and one is in a regular container and each has different title from the other one, yet eBay removed it!! Whoever that idiot needs to read the title more carefully or need a new pair of eyeglasses!

I see one US sellers are posting many items with the same titles for 5 weeks now and yet the eBay system don't defect it?? Whenever I tried to re-list, the warning came up before I submit, so why didn't that seller get the same thing??

Something wrong with the eBay system in that area.

pierrelebel · ‎08-15-2015

"Can you elaborate on this please?"

Auction style listings and identical fixed price listings are OK. That's never a problem. Two identical auction style listings are OK. eBay will charge you listing fees for both but will only show the first one until a bid is received.

What I mean refers specifically to fixed price listings where the duplication problem arises.

For example, I consistently list:

" BELGIUM 1914 Red Cross Semi-Postal Set of 3 Stamps Mint Free Shipping"

Now if I were to list

Free Shipping BELGIUM Semi-Postal Set of 3 Stamps Mint Red Cross 1914

it would be a violation of the duplicate policy (if I use the same image and description) but I could miss the fact I have a duplicate listing because the presentation of the title is not consistent.

Sorting by title will work in most cases - more so if you only include fixed price listings

rose-dee · ‎08-15-2015

Yes, thank you, I do understand the eBay duplicate listing policy completely.

So if I understand what you were saying earlier, when checking for duplicates by sorting, one has to keep aware of the instances where duplicates are allowed (if there are listings in mixed formats).

That does make the sorting by title process a bit more problematic for sellers with allowable duplicates -- at least it means being more vigilant not to mistake a verboten duplicate for an allowable duplicate.

momcqueen · ‎08-15-2015

I have seen that duplicate listing warning crop up a handful of times in the past but it was always when I had taken a single listing and manipulated it. I don't think the red flag/text warning presents itself with a Bulk Edit action. But that is my suspicion only: I could be mistaken. I think for me those times with the red text were as a result of accidentally hitting 'relist' instead of 'sell similar' when I was trying to revise too many individual listings in a row or when I had multiple quantities and one split to 'send to auction' but didn't sell and then when I tried to relist it as a fixed price again bumped up against its own sibling fixed price from where it came.

I believe that product identifiers have made it easier for ebay to isolate duplicate listings. They would be able to first sort by UPC and then MPN (in my category anyway) and send the bots out to look for overlap among the ranks.

I do worry about being unfairly targeted. Some of my items might appear to be quite similar. The card (and the region it was printed for production) might be the only thing that is different but of course that is reflected in the actual title, individual photographs, item specifics and description. To a layperson, they might look like the same item but to a collector, they are very different. A collector who wants only unilingual USA-market packages will flip out if a seller sends them a multilingual international one and vice versa. It is a very big deal to people who collect sealed cardbacks.

There are also the gremlins that seem to spontaneously relist items that are out-of-stock that can contribute to this kind of problem but that has happened to me only once or twice that I can recall and I caught them fairly quickly. I do sympathize with a seller that might be penalized for duplicate listings that have arisen as a result of a technical glitch beyond their control because eBay is not likely to buy that excuse.

jt-libra · ‎08-16-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
Apparently this duplicate scanning tool works quite well.

http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/DuplicateListings.htm

Thanks for this link. I didn't know such a tool was available.

vip-marketplace · ‎08-16-2015

Thanks guys!

I will continue to be extra careful and will use the tool suggested as an added precaution.

Unfortunately I do not have to patience to go through all my items and try spotting duplicates. These kinds of pita tasks give me headaches and I'd rather quit eBay if it comes to this.

I still believe however that it's absurd to even consider suspending a 1,000+ listings seller for 1 dup. That is just ridiculous and it should be very simple for eBay to program their violation bots to take # of listings in consideration.

Thanks again! 🙂

momcqueen · ‎08-17-2015

You must remember this is ebay's sandbox in which we play. They have the right to set the rules and expect us to follow them. Duplicate listings aren't only about hogging the search results. If you have only a single item and accidentally list it twice and both listings sell simultanousely, you are going to have one disappointed buyer. Disappointed buyers leave ebay and this is something ebay wants to avoid. Plus, you would get a big, fat defect for having to cancel the transaction for being out-of-stock. It is really in your own best interest to purge your listings for duplicates. Unless you truly don't care about it.