EBay draws advertising watchdog's ire

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 22 Apr 2009 at 11:51

EBay has been rebuked by the Advertising Standards Authority for claiming it's "25% cheaper than the high street".

The claim formed part of a poster campaign launched by eBay which led with the line: "Guess what? 25% cheaper than the high street on brand new items".

The poster provoked one complaint which claimed that, as eBay didn't make it clear what the basis of the comparison was, the ad was misleading.

EBay refuted the accusation. It argued the advert was substantiated by the small print beneath that referred to market research conducted by Frontier Economics, comparing 288 new products on eBay.co.uk with prices on the high street. For each product, the firm claimed to have taken an average of the price in six different shops to use as a comparison.

In turn the eBay comparison price was derived from an average of 30 transactions on the site. Indeed, eBay was so confident of its numbers it went on to argue that if the price of the lowest transaction had been used instead of the average, it could have used a number significantly higher than 25%.

This argument didn't wash with the ASA. The watchdog found that customers believed the "25% cheaper than the high street" to be definitive across all products and high-street shops.

The advert, it found, didn't allow for the possibility that a single high-street shop could be regularly cheaper than the site, and failed to point out that the market research didn't cover a vast swathe of products including toys and games.

The ASA has told eBay not to use the advert again.

EBay exposed: fat fees, hidden costs and sellers in revolt - read the feature in this month's PC Pro, on sale now