EBay's '25% cheaper' claim banned

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Online auction site eBay has been banned by the advertising watchdog from claiming its prices are a quarter cheaper than those on the High Street.

The web marketplace's poster campaign read: "Guess what? 25% cheaper than the High Street on brand new items."

But the Advertising Standards Authority ruled the advert was misleading because it was not clear the comparison only related to a few High Street stores.

EBay said the 25% figure was derived from independent research in 2008.

A third party company took 288 new products and calculated the average price from eBay sales, including postal charges, the auction site said.

They were then compared with the average price in High Street stores, such as Debenhams and John Lewis.

The evidence was not sufficient to support such an absolute claim that eBay was cheaper than all high street stores for all new products Advertising Standards Authority

But the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said consumers reading the poster would take its wording to mean eBay was cheaper than all main High Street stores for all new items, despite there not being enough evidence to support the claim.

"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," a spokesman said.

"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."

Small print

The watchdog also ruled that it had not been made clear enough that furniture, garden goods, luggage, desktop computers and toys and games had not been included in the comparison.

Although the advert's small print did explain the basis of the 25% claim, the ASA said it was not large enough to avoid being overlooked and contradicted by the poster's main message.

Consequently, the watchdog ruled the advert was likely to mislead and banned it from appearing again in its current form.

An eBay spokesman later defended the website's campaign.

"The single complaint received by the ASA regarding our Christmas 2008 '25% cheaper than the High Street' advertising campaign stands in stark contrast to the 15 million shoppers who return to eBay.co.uk every month knowing they'll get exactly those kind of deals," he said.

"The 25% figure is a site-wide average of like-for-like, new items, derived from independent research conducted in 2008."