08-01-2005, 07:47 PM
There is a long thread on OTWA started by Toy Ranch which discusses the manipulation of a loophole in eBay's listing revision policy that is being used by 250 PESA members to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other sellers..
Below is a copy of one of my posts from the eBay Stores board about this tool:.
Below is a copy of one of my posts from the eBay Stores board about this tool:.
Quote:Ethical 2004 has come up with an auction management tool called the "Sell Through Tool". The tool is being used by 250 members of PESA (and ethical has limited its use to just 250 sellers).
What the tool does is use a loophole in eBay listing policy in order to play with the listing durations of auction listings and keep them on the heavily trafficed 'ending soon' pages for the majority of their duration--thereby giving these 250 sellers an advantage over all other eBay sellers. Sellers who have used this tool have reported sales increases of 25%-50%.
The tool also allows these sellers to in effect evade ebay fees by listing an item initially for 1-day, but through revisions of the duration keep it running for 7 days and on the "ending soon" page for 4 of those 7 days. By contrast, these 250 sellers' competitors (you and I) would have to pay 4 listing fees in order to achieve the same 4-day "ending soon" traffic boost that these sellers are getting from one listing fee.
To see how this tool manipulates listing durations, look at the below from one PESA member's listing (with the first listing duration revision coming 11 hours after the item was listed). This item spent 4 of its 7 days on the high traffic "ending soon" page as a result of this manipulation of listing durations:
revisions:
Jul-21-05 21:10:17 PDT Listing Duration
Jul-23-05 21:10:17 PDT Listing Duration
Jul-25-05 21:10:10 PDT Listing Duration
So,
A. Is this tool fair to the thousands/millions of eBay sellers who are put at an unfair competitive advantage by the use of this tool by 250 PESA members?
B. Is it perhaps time for eBay to close this loophole which is giving these 250 PESA members who have access to this tool an unfair competitive advantage over eBay's other sellers?