eBay has a massive number of rules. Indeed the array of regulations and and guidelines can seem quite dizzying. In particular, eBay takes a dim rule on listings that have titles that have misleading brand names in the title (keyword spamming).
In the past eBay has simply removed listings that might break its rules and left it to sellers to relist and correct the offending listings. That is an inconvenience for such sellers but does give them control to make amends. And, of course, some of the infractions may well have been unintentional.
However, according to reports, it now seems that eBay isn’t ending listings it considers to be breaking the rules but is rather editing the seller generated Item Titles so they comply with the eBay listing policies.
eBay is informing sellers that the Item Titles have been amended and this is the text of one email to a seller that we’ve seen reported online: “We’re reaching out to you because one or more of your listings didn’t follow our guidelines. Because you’re a valued member of our community, your listing was edited so that it now meets our guidelines. It’s still live on our site. You can find a list of what was edited further down in this email.”
How do you feel about this? On one level, it can easily be appreciated that such an action is better than having a listing ended by eBay. But equally, letting eBay amend your listings is a big deal. And it is by no means certain that a) they’ll do it properly or b) they’re interpretation of the eBay rules means they’re right to do so.
What do you think?
10 Responses
Good luck to them , not enough humans available or processing power in nasa computers to correct them all,and it keeps the ebay vigilantes busy
I don’t mind as long as I get an up to date list of changes – a big gripe with amazons changing/merging of titles & products is the reports are too slow to catch any incorrect changes.
No doubt its self financing ,
Its fees ebay will be concerned about not correctness
Great news. eBay’s rules — we all want to comply with them, but they are labyrinthine. Any seller with a lot of SKUs is bound to get caught out from time to time. What decent people want is help complying with the rules, not a large stick threatening them for occasional minor infractions.
Of course I wonder what happens when the listing change is picked-up by Linnworks or other similar listing software. Will it spot that there’s been an unauthorised change and simply flip the listing back?
Watch this space for sellers getting told off for unamending the errors…
This should only happen to listings which are only slightly non-compliant.
Listings which are taking the piss should be canceled as they were deliberately badly listed.
So ebay now admit that policy breaking threats really are idle which will result in the opposite effect to that desired creating even more work for the ebay police. An idea of an empire building department head honcho maybe? Wouldn’t it be easier to simply have a search that gives buyers the result they want rather than one that ebay thinks they want? Then there would be less incentive to try and beat the system.
Are they putting ‘L@@K’ in the revised titles?