How to play safe with competitor? and win?

[lucy]

I mananged to get hold of job lot of a great product for a very good price, lets call the product ABC.

Only two sellers on ebay selling ABC, unfortunately both are Powersellers and they have been selling ABC successfully for a while.

He sells it on average for £4 - £6 BIN. Now, I could easily sell ABC for £4 BIN and still make a very small profit. If I try to sell it for £6 I probably won't any sales.

My eby account is not powerseller and the competitor has got a better shop and better feedback and is a powerseller.

I dont have an ebay shop (cant afford it) just using auctivia

I'd like to increase the sales of ABC, but whatever I do, for whichever price I sell it, I fear, that the competitor will report me to ebay for whatever stupid reason and will try to get me suspended...


Any advice maybe how to play safe with this competitor?

i did get a mc warning about copyright or text description, which i know is from the competitor - so i changed the title and auction descpription, but the picture is the same

i got a MC019 warning i know the competitor did it - are these warnings as a result of a report to ebay or does a bot do it automatically by looking if titles in auctions are the same?

[oompaloompa]

both these sound like the competitor or another ebayer reporting, by how you describe it ie. if the email hasnt got the vero owners company name on

you mention text and copyright in same sentence, they are different, the text thing is easier to deal with....however if it is a copyrighted product whether genuine or not, you could be vunerable, competitor may be authorised by rights owner, or even a staff member, if they are not...then they are on your level on the playing field and you can start exploring how to play them at their own game...or even reporting them right back, using different account.....inevitably though the fact that their reports have been upheld by ebay, is testiment to how ebay views you and your product..

Im sure ive seen threads about similar problems on the forum before..........

[bode]

How do you know they are from the competitor?

The usual way to beat a competitor is to sell your item for 5p cheaper. Personally I prefer to match a competitors price to avoid selling wars but instead to have a better looking desciption page.

[riversnew]

How about opening another account and selling at very low price. This way you competitor's attention might be drawn away from your real account. If he lowers price, do likewise. Eventually he might give up and leave you alone.

[oompaloompa]

^^ thats a good idea....though Im sure they can manage to report both accounts!!

It could be the rights owner or a competitor covertly reporting ie. not an official company report or not from competitors main account but from another stealth account - competition does it all the time....

either way these things are tricky........it may not be a price thing, it may be that they dont want you selling that product, full stop.

We need to know if there is a rights ownership issue on this particular product

[riversnew]

Originally Posted by bode

How do you know they are from the competitor?

The usual way to beat a competitor is to sell your item for 5p cheaper. Personally I prefer to match a competitors price to avoid selling wars but instead to have a better looking desciption page.

Ebay is too big to police itself. They'll investigate if you report it, whether they are going to do something about it is entirely different matter. Power Sellers get a break because people assume that ebay won't do anything about reported violations.

And they are correct. For every MC019 item that ebay removes, there are Power Sellers selling hundreds of identical items with same descriptions.

[lucy]

Originally Posted by oompaloompa

both these sound like the competitor or another ebayer reporting, by how you describe it ie. if the email hasnt got the vero owners company name on

you mention text and copyright in same sentence, they are different, the text thing is easier to deal with....however if it is a copyrighted product whether genuine or not, you could be vunerable, competitor may be authorised by rights owner, or even a staff member, if they are not...then they are on your level on the playing field and you can start exploring how to play them at their own game...or even reporting them right back, using different account.....inevitably though the fact that their reports have been upheld by ebay, is testiment to how ebay views you and your product..

Im sure ive seen threads about similar problems on the forum before..........

It was an email through ebay, i;ll try to dig it up and post what it said, it only had ebay email address, no other email was on it

Its not even a copyrighted product or a vero product, there is no company name at all on this product, several powersellers are selling this product and cornered the market and have a stranglehold so to speak on the product, i think they must have reported me for either using the same pictures in the listing or some lines of the same description?

I think they dont want anyone else selling the same product!


the powersellers are using stock pictures which they have changed around with 'free postage or a description and their user name next to the product' in jpg format

so they don't even own the pictures themselves

is it wise selling the product or just wait 4 weeks to cool off?

[lucy]

Originally Posted by bode

How do you know they are from the competitor?

The usual way to beat a competitor is to sell your item for 5p cheaper. Personally I prefer to match a competitors price to avoid selling wars but instead to have a better looking desciption page.

because only a few sellers are selling the product they kind of have a stranglehold for that product, whats funny though is that i had the product in different sizes listed and they only reported a particular size, which was removed but all the rest were not reported, doesnt make sense?

[lucy]

Originally Posted by oompaloompa

^^ thats a good idea....though Im sure they can manage to report both accounts!!

It could be the rights owner or a competitor covertly reporting ie. not an official company report or not from competitors main account but from another stealth account - competition does it all the time....

either way these things are tricky........it may not be a price thing, it may be that they dont want you selling that product, full stop.

We need to know if there is a rights ownership issue on this particular product

the product is not vero so i think its one of the powersellers not wanting me to sell the product, so what do i do

i'll check the mc019 email again

[oompaloompa]

I would challenge through ebay, if the MC019 is a copyright one and you are sure that there isnt an ownership issue, its improbable, although even a product that doesnt have an overt brand written on it, ( pm me with an item number for it if you like and I can give it a once over)...may have a rights owner. Again, Ive seen various threads on challenges on the forum. Tabberones site had expert knowledge.

I think you are probably right re competitor being a sneak. There isnt an easy answer, either challenge it, if email says copyright issues or if its a description pictures issue, take your own pics of product and totally revamp description and that still isnt enough - again, challenge it.....

wasting your energies and risking linking accounts for the sake of reporting these sellers back is an option, but Id try the above first...Id be miffed, if it were me

[lucy]

i relisted the same product on a 3 day listing and not even 1 sold, whereas the powersellers are really shifting in vast numbers, am i missing something here?

the only thing different, is they are using 'featured plus', i cant use that as i not a powerseller

[slapped]

This happened to me a few years back with a very unique fingerprint recognition firearms inwall safe. It was at the time a VERO issue for me, I contacted the Company provided the Photos of the serial Number they wanted, and they verified that I indeed had an account and bought the safe from them.

They inturn Notified Ebay that I was authorized to sell the safe, they even sent me an "Authorized Dealer" logo that I could paste onto my listings, with that ebay cleared my account.

I then sent Ebay an E-Mail telling them of my suspicions that the "Trusted member of the Ebay Community" who reported my item initially, was actually my competitor, and that "in the sprit of providing the Ebay community with all choices of qulified sellers" that Ebay should investigate this matter.

I NEVER had another problem.

If your product is indeed "CLEAN" and everything else on the account is good (at least for the last few months) I would send a similar E-Mail to Ebay.

[lucy]

the item is CLEAN and NON vero, so what do i say to ebay in the message i send to them?

[slapped]

Simple, Just tell them that you firmly believe that the "Trusted member of the Ebay Community" who reported the item is actually your competitor, and that you are quite sure that this type of action is Against Ebay policy and that in the interests of fairness, Ebay should look into the matter.

[lucy]

Originally Posted by slapped

Simple, Just tell them that you firmly believe that the "Trusted member of the Ebay Community" who reported the item is actually your competitor, and that you are quite sure that this type of action is Against Ebay policy and that in the interests of fairness, Ebay should look into the matter.

right, i will give this a go and let you know what happens

[slapped]

Im Glad I really do want to know what happens, PM Me after you post so I can read it when you know

[GreenBean]

Originally Posted by lucy

the item is CLEAN and NON vero, so what do i say to ebay in the message i send to them?

Have you read this thread,lucy?
http://www.aspkin.com/forums/vero/97...hallenged.html
You've every right to challenge. Just need to word the email well.

[lucy]

Originally Posted by GreenBean

Have you read this thread,lucy?
http://www.aspkin.com/forums/vero/97...hallenged.html
You've every right to challenge. Just need to word the email well.

thats a very good thread greenbean

the only thing that is the same is the picture in the listing, but that is a stock picture as all the powersellers are using the same picture but with their own watermark and a picture border around the image to make it look different.

lets say your title is the same as a powersellers, but you put a '!' at the end of the title will the bots notice and will ebay ignore the title because of the '!'

[teedon]

If your price is pretty,your product is perfect and your service is amazing,you will win sooner or later,it is just the time not come yet,but it will be soon.

[paypalpains]

Originally Posted by teedon

If your price is pretty,your product is perfect and your service is amazing,you will win sooner or later,it is just the time not come yet,but it will be soon.

words of wisdom there Yoda

[lucy]

here is a copy of the mc019 notice, i got from ebay, what do you think?

"Why did we remove your listing?

Members are not permitted to use another member's listing's text or images without that member's permission. Using another member's listing's image or item description may violate copyright laws. Images and text used in another member's listing may be protected by copyright law.

Therefore, you should not copy an image or text from another member's listing without obtaining permission to use that content. We encourage members to write their own item description and take their own photographs"

i used a picture which all the powersellers are using in someway, they may have modified it, but essentially they are using the same picture

I think my title might have been word for word the same as a powersellers, does this make a big difference if titles are the same?

[oompaloompa]

If its not a copyrighted product that the competitor owns, I do not see how they could own an auction title either - but still to be on safe side, play their game and tweak title, as for picture, I would take a picture of the real thing not stock photo, If assume you arent due to dropshipping, Id get a sample sent to you to photograph...I do not see how you can have further trouble legitimately after youve done all that