ebay's Misleading Advertising

DrSaver

Time and again on ebay I find a product at the right price BUT, when I click on the link to buy it, I get either something very different from that advertised or a smaller quantity.

For example:
99% 1L-20L PURE ACETONE Acrylic Nail Remover/Nail Polish Remover from PureChem Brand new £6.95 to £99.99

Pretty clear. So if I want the minimum amount of 1L it will cost me £6.95 right?

Click on to the link and 1L will cost you £9.95. £6.95 will only get you half of this. The seller refuses to alter this ad. implying that it is their deliberate attempt to mislead.

I get this all the time when I follow links on ebay.

Is anyone else tired of wasting time on these deliberately misleading ads?

Is there anything that can be done about it?

Hasbeen

DrSaver wrote: »

Time and again on ebay I find a product at the right price BUT, when I click on the link to buy it, I get either something very different from that advertised or a smaller quantity.

For example:
99% 1L-20L PURE ACETONE Acrylic Nail Remover/Nail Polish Remover from PureChem Brand new £6.95 to £99.99

Pretty clear. So if I want the minimum amount of 1L it will cost me £6.95 right?

Click on to the link and 1L will cost you £9.95. £6.95 will only get you half of this. The seller refuses to alter this ad. implying that it is their deliberate attempt to mislead.

I get this all the time when I follow links on ebay.

Is anyone else tired of wasting time on these deliberately misleading ads?

Is there anything that can be done about it?

Yes you can purchase elsewhere? 2 x 250 mm bottles £6:95?

Like all advertising it draws the gullible in.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/99-8-1L-20L-PURE-ACETONE-Acrylic-Nail-Remover-Nail-Polish-Remover/232381355105?hash=item361b021461:m:mHly1Hb5yDXU5noj6HPrt6g:rk:1:pf:0

Takmon

It is annoying when there are multiple sizes or even different types of items in one listing because it does take a little bit longer to sort through them to find the one at the actual cheapest price. I would much prefer if eBay didn't allow different quantities/types of products to be sold on one listing.

Things like different sized clothing or colors of items is acceptable but when it's a set of completely different items or like you say different volumes of the item it doesn't really help the consumer to find the best price.

hollydays

Also annoying when there are different items within the listing eg a sample of fabric and the actual fabric and often the lower priced item isn't even in stock .
This gets them to the top of the list on price .
Ebay don't care.

twhitehousescat

hollydays wrote: »

Also annoying when there are different items within the listing eg a sample of fabric and the actual fabric and often the lower priced item isn't even in stock .
This gets them to the top of the list on price .
Ebay don't care.

gosh ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

forgotmyname

Lots of listings like that. Where sellers list an item and put a low price then you get drawn in knowing its too cheap and find the low price is for something totally different like a cable.

Best option choose another seller. Not always easy when there are only x number selling that item and they all appear to be the same seller under various names.

Bought my acetone from home bargains, cheaper than that. Tried local shops?

mattyprice4004

Takmon wrote: »

It is annoying when there are multiple sizes or even different types of items in one listing because it does take a little bit longer to sort through them to find the one at the actual cheapest price. I would much prefer if eBay didn't allow different quantities/types of products to be sold on one listing.

Things like different sized clothing or colors of items is acceptable but when it's a set of completely different items or like you say different volumes of the item it doesn't really help the consumer to find the best price.

I've highlighted the important parts
eBay aren't going to stop a practice that nets them more final value fees - by helping people find the lowest price, they'd get less in final value fees per item sold.

dantendo

Here's a youtube video of a guy having a rant about the manipulation. Warning: Video contains strong language. Ebay should sort this out.

Ebay browse manipulation when 99p isnt 99p

Takmon

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

I've highlighted the important parts
eBay aren't going to stop a practice that nets them more final value fees - by helping people find the lowest price, they'd get less in final value fees per item sold.

That may be true but they will also want to avoid consumers finding it more time consuming when buying things, they don't want to be loosing potential customers to other sites.

pmduk

The thread title needs changing, it's not eBay's advertising that's misleading, but the sellers.

EBay just doesn't care about it

kangoora

Agreed, they only do it to get to the top of the search engine when sorted by price.

I was looking for something the other week, generally selling for £25+ and had a host of listings starting from £4.99 on a multi listing. Then you open each multi-listing and find the £4.99 item is a piece of trash and the 'real' prices inside are, as expected, £25+. Wastes a lot of your time as with multi-listings you have to open each listing then look for the specific item inside to see if the price is any good.

To be honest, I think this backfires a bit (with me anyway) as I often skim over the multiple listings and only look at ones listing the single item I'm interested in now. In my experience, most of the multi-listing sellers are very rarely the best value deal.

My other pet hate is those sellers that list the same item multiple times by changing one item on the description. I was looking for a camcorder battery last year and several sellers had over 50 separate listings for the same battery because they changed the description to list each camcorder model that the battery fit - and it was a lot of models!