eBay is rolling back its Identical Listing policy for fixed price listings. eBay's Jeff King said the policy was intended to fix problems with some sellers dominating certain queries and preventing buyers from seeing the variety and nice mix of items on the site, but said it's no longer necessary. eBay had already rolled back the policy for auction format listings.
From my conversation with Jeff, it sounds like eBay is rolling back the policy for fixed-price listings now because of the success of its new 30-day fixed-price format that rewards recent sales. This issue was raised at the recent Top Seller webinar and basically, there is no reason for a seller to list the same item in more than one listing (eBay can't seem to emphasize that enough), plus it's cheaper.
eBay wants sellers to focus on the longer duration fixed-price strategy and eliminate some confusion about the identical items policy. (Reading between the lines, perhaps some sellers were trying to list identical items with variations in Title/description in order to get exposure, while in fact the new Recent Sales factor in Best Match actually rewards the opposite behavior.)
The webinar explains this concept and discusses how to take advantage of eBay's changes to finding in order to rank higher and search results - and when to list in auction format. The presentation is both audio and slides.
Note that the policy that limits sellers to 10 listings per page on search results pages remains in effect. Here is a link to the original Identical Listings policy announcement.
On another, though related, topic: We're hearing from sellers that eBay has launched a Seller Strategies Team focused on delving into current and emerging issues that Top Sellers are facing and working together to discover potential solutions and offer actionable suggestions. They are reportedly going to begin making outbound calls starting November 18th focused on helping sellers optimize for eBay Search and Holiday Best Practices.
