Multiple items in one listing - withdrawn

That seems strange as an awful lot of book listings are done that way. 

Kia Ora Damian,

Did TM offer you a 'How to List' explanation with that?

Refer to the Listing policies

 - reply to your email if you can for confirmation or contact a staff member via their 'Live Chat' facility if you require confirmation - Cheers.

There are literally hundreds of books listed in a similar fashion, so I have no idea why yours was withdrawn. Did you have 'Pick One' in the auction title, I usually do that so there is no confusion and then repeat it in the auction description. 

Listed as $10 each, yeah but i sold 2 other times before the withdrawal. Some new members were asking silly/ inappropriate questions like "did i win the auction" when they didnt even do the buynow. No real explanation from trademe, just a $10 credit to shut me up.

Well, at least you got something out of it. ;)

Auctions where you can pick one, are generally disliked by Trade Me,

as this is where sellers can avoid fees, and sell more to buyer outside Trade Me, avoiding paying success fees,

If you want to do it this way, you need to make it a multi quantity listing, so buyer can select the number of books they want,

and seller then get charges the correct success fees on those books,

so if buyer wants 3 out of the 10 books, they enter quantity 3, and correct fees come out of sellers account, for each book at $10,

also if you are offering more within your listing that is a no no, as straight out avoiding fees, and likely to be withdrawn by Trade Me, if some one community watches it, as breaches the Trade Me Terms and conditions,

Hi Damian. We don't allow sellers to list multiple items for sale on one listing when the price doesn’t indicate the total cost. This can be confusing for buyers (as indicated by the comments you've had in your Q&A) and could even lead to a dispute if a buyer thought they'd bought all the items for that one price.

You have a couple of options though. As Flossy has described, you can start a multiple quantity listing where you can sell multiple items to multiple buyers without the risk of confusion.

The other option is to sell as a bulk lot. Work out the price that you’re happy to sell everything for and list all as one!

Or finally, you can list the books individually. 

flossy63, 

Thank you for your Comment confirming Listing path - I get to MQL & MVL, select the Links and am presented with "Tips for Professional Sellers" - this is confusing for casual Sellers who are Not Professional Sellers! - It would be great to have addressed All types of Sellers here out ruling any confusion within Listings - the inclusion of all Sellers is most important! 

Experience holds the knowledge here - Much appreciated 😊👍

I can feel Damian's rage here. Having Listings withdrawn is very frustrating. ( But like its been pointed out, this type of listing is not allowed).

So they withdraw your listing, you ask why? You get an answer, - Then ask them again, What about the 57 other listings that have the same issue you are accusing me of? They then say to you "If you see a listing that is not right, use the community watch button located at the bottom of every listing and report it, we will take appropriate action" So then you go through and report the 57 other listings that were the same as yours ... and guess what happens? NOTHING! They don't get taken down! Just your one! 

This really grinds my gears when they do this.

In this situation of Damian's how hard would it have been for someone on staff, after reviewing his listing and deciding it should be taken down, to then go "Hmmm I wonder if there are other listings like this?" And then type in "Pick one" into the search bar, and spotted all the others that are the same and taken them down? At least that way my poor mans Damian here would feel singled out, and if a rule is being broken, then all listings breaking that rule need to be taken down, not just his one.

What would solve this problem would be for TradeMe to implement their own "pickone" system within a single auction. ebay now offers this. The programming is already in place for this to occur here. With listing tools a seller can now for example allow a buyer to chose colours of items. It would be completely possible to extend this to make the drop-down field editable for the seller to insert their own limited text. You could even only allow it in certain categories where this already is occurring now unofficially. Books, CDs, DVDs, crafts, model cars, etc etc etc.

You would want to limit it to items that should be grouped together in whichever category they belong to of course. So, if it's fiction books they would have to be by the same author for example. 

Here is an example of how it looks over on eBay: