eBay have listened to sellers and are introducing a new consequence of hiding listings rather than simply ending all their listings and imposing a suspension. At the same time eBay are simplifying eBay policies.
New hide all listings consequence
The new enforcement measure called ‘Hide all listings’ will temporarily hide all of your fixed price listings in buyers’ eBay search results and browse while you correct a breach of eBay Policies, rather than end your listings or suspend your account. After this temporary period, your listings will be visible in search and browse again, and you won’t lose any of your item’s sales history. While you’re listings are hidden, you’ll still be able to fulfill orders and manage your after-sales and buyers who’ve watched, bid on or added your items to their cart will still be able to complete their purchases.
Ending listings wrecks a business who then don’t have a record of what they had listed or indeed for some even which listings they had live. Images can be lost and the work to recreate listings is punitive. Even worse, when eBay end listings for policy breaches they tend to email all past buyers, both those who have paid and happily received their items as well as those who may not yet have received their item, telling them that they don’t have to pay or can ask for a refund if they don’t receive their items. This won’t happen with the new Hide all listings consequence.
It’s worth noting that any specific listing that breaches eBay Policies will still be ended. eBay will also continue to suspend accounts for certain critical policy breaches, such as counterfeits or prohibited items.
The Hide all listings consequence will also save those sellers who simply don’t read emails from eBay thus avoiding more serious sanctions. A seller may well miss an email from eBay asking them to amend their listings, but they’re unlikely to notice the fact they’ve suddenly had no sales for several days and will go looking to discover what’s gone wrong.
Simplifying eBay policies
From the 1st of October eBay will be simplifying eBay Policies. They are not making policy changes as to what behaviour is or isn’t allowed on eBay, but attempting to make them easier to read and comprehend.
Helping you understand policy breaches
eBay are rewording emails you will receive if you fall foul of a policy breach to make them more succinct. They will clearly set out:
- The policy
- How you’ve breached it
- The actions you need to take
- The consequences if you don’t
There will be a grace period for you to resolve the issue and a new standardised consequence process including the new Hide all listings consequence.
One Response
I am 100% in favour of hiding rather than ending.
About 6 months ago , one of my best sellers, a fishing spoon, complete with line, hooks, swivels etc was ended by eBay because some idiot working at eBay, decided that the spoon could be used for taking drugs, FFS!!!!
I appealed and the suspension was removed by someone with a brain.
Six months on, my sales of this item are still only running at around 10% of pre-suspension volumes, so it has effectively been killed off by an idiot, probably high on something himself.
Well done and thank you eBay!