'Misleading' eBay prices ad banned

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A poster advertising the popular online marketplace read: "Guess what? 25% cheaper than the high street on brand new items."

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint that the ad was misleading because it did not make the basis of the comparison - carried out for eBay by a third party company - clear enough.

eBay said that for each of 288 new products, the average price from recent eBay sales - including postal charges - were compared with an average of prices in stores such as Debenhams and John Lewis.

However readers, the ASA said, would take the poster to be an absolute claim that eBay was cheaper than all main high street stores for all new items, although there was not enough evidence to support this.

A spokesman said: "Because an average had been taken of all the stores' prices, it was possible that one store could have been regularly cheaper than eBay, or regularly much closer in price to eBay.

"Although it might be the case that eBay was cheaper than some high street stores for some new products, the evidence was not sufficient to support such an absolute claim that eBay was cheaper than all high street stores for all new products."

In addition, certain items such as furniture, garden goods, luggage, desktop computers and toys and games were not been included in the comparison, but the advert did not make that clear.

Although small print explained the basis of the ad's claim, the ASA said it was not big enough to avoid being overlooked and contradicted the main message of the headline.

The watchdog ruled that the ad was likely to mislead and must not appear again in its current form.