Ebay Limits

Seriously, eBay should have listing limits. Not total number of listings but consecutive listings. I like to browse certain stamp categories each day looking for good deals. Today all I could see for pages and pages was MALLACKS! I'm sure this MALLACKS character is a good person but out of the thousands of listings I think I saw maybe three that people actually bid on.

I have a great idea, make the consecutive listing limit say 50 listings within a 14 day period. Purely arbitrary numbers I pulled out of the sky.

Ebay recently had two free listing days last week - the limit was 50,000 items. Browsing will get you many repeats from the same dealers for stretches. I would suggest keyword searches. You'll see the numbers drop off by this weekend. As for 50 listings in 14 days, barely anyone would use the system. Think of it as a stamp show, how many stamps and covers does the average dealer have?

Malack doesn't even compare to this one idiot that keeps listing hundreds of US Tiffany lamp stamps for 1 cent each and then shill bids them. At least Malack has some decent items to look at even though his prices are ridiculous and no one bids on them.

Like a lot of things..stamps on ebay ain't what it used to be !!

Since EBAY makes money from the sales, I would find it NOT likely that they will ever limit sales.

Ah, but the point is that these repeat listings don't bring sales. They just cost eBay hosting fees, AND prevent sales by tuning people off and blocking there viewing of stuff they might really want to buy.

They already do.

I find it upsetting also. In Canadian stamps a seller puts sometimes 50 pages of ads.

Yes I agree with 99.9% of stamps but just a few stamps work very well listed in numbers.

There is only one Australian stamp that I would list one stamp many times and that is the Aust KGV 1d red. It is an extremely popular stamp as I have just proven with many viewers and watches per stamp and have listed 200 and a 100 a couple of times. Also the perf "OS" 1d red in numbers works very well also. So far I have only listed 50 at a time.

Friday is a good day to list these stamps as I find it a slow day for selling but not with my 1d red KGVs.

I have never considered that these listings would upset some people. For me to find these stamps when doing a search I have to be very specific to get the listings in mass.

Interesting.

Just filter out the sellers you don't like. There is a tool for that in the advanced search.

John KGV, your listings do not come close to this idea. Yours are different pictures of different versions of the same original stamp. but now used with cancels and varieties in the printing. Plus the title is different because you have an ID number for each stamp, I know for your own organization, but it is required by eBay also as per the guidelines link posted by Bobby above.

You are not doing the spamming of listings that is being talked about at all.

Thank you very much Puzzler!

Yes! That is very sad indeed.
I have never come across it but it would upset me.

I understand eBay will never limit a seller in total listings. I was just suggesting that they be limited in the number they can list all at the same time. Just like the guy mentioned above that lists the Tiffany Lamp stamp several hundred times at once with the same ending time. I usually do a general US Stamp search with the results as "ending soonest". That way I catch any last minute deals in any United States category. But then I run the risk of having to go through several pages of one seller/stamp to get to the individual listings.

So a limit of how many you can do at one time would seem reasonable. Like the "50" listings every "14" minutes. would at least build in a gap where you could see some of the stuff your looking for.

I know it will never happen as rules are rules. Someone sets them and its not ours to understand them just abide by them.

What a strange thing to do with listing stamps.
One would think it would turn people off from
buying anything from such a person.

eBay will probably never go with this idea because it limits, even in a small way, how many separate items get listed per second on their sites. Yes, that's seconds.

Some of the strategy of a lot of sellers (but not all) is to list at certain times of the day and certain days of the week that seem to get more traffic and thus more views and thus more potential bidders.

Some sellers use programs supplied by eBay to 'dump' all of their listings at one time onto the system, thus increasing their piece of the pie hopefully.

I have read of views supporting this idea and views that do not lend it much credence. Depends on what it is that's selling too.

But, if a large portion of my target audience was known or suspected to be online between certain hours of the day, then I would surely like some of my items to be listed during those 'peak' periods.

I think though that this 'time period makes a difference' idea is changing or has changed over the years as more people have access to the internet during work hours or even while travelling.

I remember one seller who listed all her items (all 10-20) at 1:00 PM in the afternoon (lunch hour for many workers) and was successful at it, having a 90% sell through rate.

I, too, wish there was a button (I have looked for it many times) on eBay or other online auction sites, that one could quickly screen out listings by an annoying seller. It is nice that there is an advanced search option for this but why not an easier way to do it? Probably because it limits sales and eBay revenues. Period. Business is business.

Load up your favorite browse/search. Click on Specify Sellers, then the box will pop up. Add the sellers you wish to hide. Then use the "Save Search" link and name your search. It will be saved permanently in your "My eBay"