Labor Day Deals Or Discount Deception? eBay’s 30th Anniversary Sale Departs From Founding Principles
UPDATE 9-3-25
Speaking of deception - CEO Jamie Iannone is making some pretty bold claims about authentication and AI capabilities while making the media rounds for eBay's 30th anniversary today, but can he back them up?
Liz Morton
eBay founder Pierre Omidyar launched the ecommerce marketplace, then known as AuctionWeb over Labor Day weekend in 1995 as a site "dedicated to bringing together buyers and sellers in an honest and open marketplace" based on the premise that "people are basically good" - but 30 years later, shady strikethrough pricing and fake discount deals are openly encouraged and promoted by the company as part of their Labor Day weekend sale.
The sale event is directly tied to eBay's 30th anniversary, promoting 20% off select items with the coupon code HAPPY30TH.
As usual, the terms and conditions come with a laundry list of "events" for qualifying items, indicating the discount is likely being funded at least in part by participating sellers.
However many of these sellers have special agreements with eBay to participate in Daily Deals and other promotional programs. With those deals, eBay will often subsidize part of the discount being offered and the terms are often protected with non-disclosure agreements, so it's difficult to say exactly where funding for these discounts is really coming from.
Participation in these sale events also often requires agreeing to confusing terms which may cause the seller to pay full Final Value Fees on the pre-discount amount and allow eBay to count the full price without discount in their Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) calculations on earnings reports.
Liz Morton
Also as usual, fake strikethrough pricing to present the false appearance of deeper discounts is rampant.
For example, this Samsung monitor shows a current price of $1,999.99, supposedly 20% off of the list price of $2,499.99, plus another 20% off for a final price of $1,599.99 - a supposed savings of $900.00!
Samsung
However, the sales history for this item shows it has not previously been sold anywhere near that list price and in fact has been priced at $1,599.99 for over a month with no coupon needed.
This Samsonite luggage set is shown at a current price of $169.99, marked down from list price of $279.99 plus an extra 20% off for a final price of $135.99 - a supposed $144.00 savings.
But again, looking at the history for this item reveals no recent sales at that list price and the item was selling for $139.99 just a month before this fake discount sale started.
And this Dooney & Bourke handbag is currently advertised at $199.20, marked down from a list price of $498.00, plus an extra 20% off for a total of $159.36 - a supposed $338.64 savings.
Yet again, the history for this item shows the highest actual price for this item in the last few months was $225.00 and it could have been purchased for $149.00 before this fake discount promotion.
This strikethrough price manipulation is nothing new on eBay of course - it has been absolutely rampant on the platform for years and eBay willingly turns a blind eye.
In fact, rather than taking action to combat these consumer harming business practices, eBay has actually made a concerted effort to mask and enable them by removing the link to sold history from the View Item page in 2023, making it harder to determine if "deals" on the site actually represent legitimate savings.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
eBay no longer links to the sales history directly, but it can still be found with a bit of a workaround - for now.
If you use the URL https://www.ebay.com/bin/purchaseHistory?item=xxxxx and replace the xs with the specific item number of the listing you want to view, you can still access the sold history, but you have to be logged in to an eBay account to see it.
eBay's corporate Business Ethics policy has a whole section on "avoiding conflicts of interest" and "acting with integrity" that would seem to apply here, not to mention the section about advertising honestly and not making false or misleading claims.
Their Code of Business Conduct and Ethics for Third Parties also makes it clear they expect companies with which they do business or have agreements to follow ethical guidelines as well.
Perhaps Chief Risk & Compliance Officer Ryan Jones, Chief Ethics Officer Aaron Johnson and Chief Legal Officer Samantha Wellington should look into the longstanding serious conflicts of interest and unethical behavior by both eBay and the sellers who continue to flout the FTC's very clear guidance that shows misleading strikethrough pricing is considered a deceptive business practice.
eBay has shown that they can take effective action to stop these unethical business practices where laws and regulations are actually enforced, like in Australia where eBay was forced to introduce a comparative pricing policy to curb these misleading strikethrough pricing claims.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
Consequences for violating the eBay Australia Comparative Pricing policy can be stiff:
eBay may, in appropriate circumstances and in accordance with the terms of the User Agreement, suspend or terminate a seller's account, or impose other consequences (such as removal of eBay Top Rated seller status at an account level) if you fail to provide substantiation, or if eBay or a regulatory body determines that the comparative price is false or otherwise misleading or deceptive.
It's clear that eBay absolutely can set policies and take action to make sure sellers are not manipulating strike through pricing and misleading buyers, but they simply choose not to do so unless outside pressure forces them to do so.
Unfortunately, eBay has shown time and time again that consumers cannot rely on them to simply do the right thing. As long as eBay and these sellers are allowed to get away with it, consumers will continue to be harmed by these deceptive discount promotions.
It's time for the FTC to get serious about protecting consumers from misleading discount offers and holding marketplaces accountable for the false advertising they allow to proliferate on their platforms.
If you see fake discounts being presented on eBay or anywhere else, here's how you can report it:
Do you trust that you are getting a fair deal when you shop on eBay? Let us know in the comments below!
