eBay.com scrap choice and multiple listing policies

May 19, 2008

This post was written in May 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

eBay.com have just announced that with immediate effect the choice policy is to be scrapped. This means sellers will be able to offer a choice of size, colour and configuration on a single listing.

This should result in significant cost savings for sellers who up until now have had to use multiple listings to offer choices to their buyers. It should be noted that if a choice is offered failure to supply will be considered a violation of the Seller Non-Performance Policy.

Also in June the multiple items listing policy will be relaxed to allow sellers to list an unlimited quantity of identical items, previously the limit was 15 identical items.

Although a seller can list larger numbers of identical listings eBay’s new Finding will limit the number of listings presented to buyers from a single seller. No more than 10 identical listings from a single seller will appear on a search page, however this is sure to please sellers who routinely list multiple listings so that their product always appears in Ending Soonest sort.

It’s not known when these two changes will become official UK policy so sellers this side of the pond should wait for an official announcement to avoid listing infringements. As Best Match hasn’t fully rolled out in the UK it may be some time before the policies are introduced.

In the same announcement Mystery Auctions are banned, a new Search & Browse Manipulation Policy is announced, and a new Links Policy is to come into force in July.

Finally the new expanded Seller Dashboard is to go live in the US next week and sellers with 4.7 and above on all 4 DSRs over the last 30 days will start to be advantaged in search. This will be tested in a few categories before being rolled out across the site.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Featured | 10 Comments