I received a nice email from ebay this morning  "MC999 Listing Policy Violation alert: Keyword Spamming" for putting "Not a Pre-order" in my Sandcrawler Minifig listings.  I have done this before especially when most if not all of the other listings are Pre-orders.

 

The email states that I added keywords that are unrelated to the item and that they need to be relisted.

 

Any advice?

Take out "not a pre order" ;)

Take out "not a pre order"

 

Or replace it with "In hand".

Or replace it with "In hand".

The Bear speaks the truth

We are a week into the release of the sand crawler so I doubt not a pre order or in hand even needs to be in the description.

We are a week into the release of the sand crawler so I doubt not a pre order or in hand even needs to be in the description.

 

Yeah, I created the listings on Saturday after I purchased the Sandcrawler at the Lego Store, so at that time it was pertinent information. Only 5 minifigs left and they all say "in hand" as ebay was kind enough to remove the "Not a Pre-Order" from the listing title for me. So for future reference when I turbo flip the new summer release SW minifigs I will put in hand in the title and perhaps not a pre-order in the description.

You can't advertise an item as "not a" or "just like" or similar qualifiers, especially in the title, or the bots may find it and decide you're trying to manipulate search. In this case your intentions were innocent, but besides eBay's concerns you might also lose experienced searchers who subtract "preorder" from their search strings.