Bots creating descriptions???

[di25535]

Will ebay sellers be held responsible for the errors in description summarizations done by eBay bots?   

I have little faith that a bot can accurately represent, for example, an 1825 antique lead mold with ruffled edges......in 250 characters.

I'm not selling on Twitter....

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@di25535 wrote:

Will ebay sellers be held responsible for the errors in description summarizations done by eBay bots?   

I have little faith that a bot can accurately represent, for example, an 1825 antique lead mold with ruffled edges......in 250 characters.

I'm not selling on Twitter....

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di25535,

Thanks for the question. The item description summary is pulled verbatim from the seller's description. So, the information is from the seller, not created by eBay. The summaries have been available on many listings in North America for over a year. Starting in summer, sellers who wish, can tag the specific content they want included or, better yet, if the item description is less than 800 charcters and text only (some basic HTML allowed) we will show the complete description -so, sellers have more control.

Thanks for selling on eBay.

Brian

[sharonlpk]

Does Ebay have an editing tool that counts characters?

[jeromyismoving]

My instinct is telling me this is ebay's nice way of telling all those sellers with crazy long descriptions containing paragraphs of nonsense, to cut it out.

No body wants to read the seller's life story when all they want to know is the condition of the item,  especially on a mobile device.

IMO ebay is too nice but they still want to collect the fees from those crazy sellers too, so they do stuff like this.

[readabouthorses]

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@brianbse wrote:

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@di25535 wrote:

Will ebay sellers be held responsible for the errors in description summarizations done by eBay bots?   

I have little faith that a bot can accurately represent, for example, an 1825 antique lead mold with ruffled edges......in 250 characters.

I'm not selling on Twitter....

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di25535,

Thanks for the question. The item description summary is pulled verbatim from the seller's description. So, the information is from the seller, not created by eBay. The summaries have been available on many listings in North America for over a year. Starting in summer, sellers who wish, can tag the specific content they want included or, better yet, if the item description is less than 800 charcters and text only (some basic HTML allowed) we will show the complete description -so, sellers have more control.

Thanks for selling on eBay.

Brian

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But how will eBay determine which information they pull from the seller's description? 250 characters isn't a lot of information.

[shipscript]

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@readabouthorses wrote:

But how will eBay determine which information they pull from the seller's description? 250 characters isn't a lot of information.

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eBay has already been pulling nonsense out of the middle of seller descriptions to display on the mobile front page (the full description is still available, just a click away).

eBay claims to use keywords to select the best text, but currently, I usually see something like shipping terms displayed.

To solve that "guesswork" problem, it appears eBay will finally use a specific HTML tag to surround the block of text that you feel is most important. Just waiting to see what that tag will be so we can get a head start on it.

So my question is What is that HTML tag or marker for the description summary.

[sharonlpk]

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@sharonlpk wrote:

Does Ebay have an editing tool that counts characters?

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Guess I should also question whether or not spaces are going to be counted as characters? Just did a cut/paste of one of my descriptions into Word and was advised that there was almost a 100-count difference including spaces as characters.

[shipscript]

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@sharonlpk wrote:

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@sharonlpk wrote:

Does Ebay have an editing tool that counts characters?

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Guess I should also question whether or not spaces are going to be counted as characters? Just did a cut/paste of one of my descriptions into Word and was advised that there was almost a 100-count difference including spaces as characters.

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From what I have seen elsewhere (like item titles), spaces will count. To a computer or bot, all characters, including punctuation and spaces, are "characters".

[clarkphilatelics]

Please be more specific about "some basic HTML allowed". I use in-line CSS to keep the HTML formatting simple. Will that work? Also, what happens to wrappers added by various eCommerce vendors. Will custom Item Specifics help? Is the condition description included in the 800 character count? I currently generate listings from a simple template and item specifics using regular expressions to fix some formatting issues. My other concern is, never having seen an "Item Descrioption Summary" of any of my listings, so I have no idea of how this would play out with existing and future lisitngs. Will it be possible to see the summary before committing a listing? Like many sellers who list frequently, would the summary be available to third party listing tools before the listing is submitted?

Is a white paper or technical specification available to sellers?

[ramonv-majorleaguepins]

"The item description summary is pulled verbatim from the seller's description. So, the information is from the seller, not created by eBay."

So ebay bots will pull FULL sentences, and not just key words? Because if you just pull words out of context, the description is created by ebay, not the seller.

[sundayvisit]

I write very detailed descriptions, particularly when there are flaws I want to be sure bidders see before bidding. I don't trust the eBay bots at ALL to summarize my descriptions to just 800 characters. And often the info that MUST be read will not fit in 800 characters, so telling me to highlight the "important" parts is ridiculous. My buyers appreciate my detail! If the bots leave out essential info, and the buyer is upset, gee -- do you think eBay will take the hit? Or will I? I think we all know the answer. Sellers will be called LIARS by bidders who used mobile devices to buy, because eBay cropped out most of the description. NOT an improvement, eBay!

[shipscript]

Here is the example with tags from the FAQ page

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/sprupd16/view-item.html#tab=faqs&faq=faq-vi-q09

<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Product"><span property="description">This paragraph contains almost 800 characters of text to be displayed in the mobile item description. And the text in this paragraph through this sentence contains 250 characters, which is the amount we will display without any actions on your part. When you tag this paragraph with these simple HTML breaks, the content will be displayed to shoppers looking at your item. This will allow the shopper to see the key information you want to display, without them having to click through to the complete description. If your complete description is 800 characters or less and uses basic HTML we will display the entire description without any action by you—so the best practice is to keep it within 800 characters. If you have a long description, make it easy for your buyers by using this option. </span></div>

<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Product"><span property="description"> ... </span></div>

[siangone]

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@shipscript wrote:

Here is the example with tags from the FAQ page

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/sprupd16/view-item.html#tab=faqs&faq=faq-vi-q09

<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Product"><span property="description">This paragraph contains almost 800 characters of text to be displayed in the mobile item description. And the text in this paragraph through this sentence contains 250 characters, which is the amount we will display without any actions on your part. When you tag this paragraph with these simple HTML breaks, the content will be displayed to shoppers looking at your item. This will allow the shopper to see the key information you want to display, without them having to click through to the complete description. If your complete description is 800 characters or less and uses basic HTML we will display the entire description without any action by you—so the best practice is to keep it within 800 characters. If you have a long description, make it easy for your buyers by using this option. </span></div>

<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Product"><span property="description"> ... </span></div>

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@shipscript Any chance you'll be adding a tool for this, to your already formidable list of tools you provide? I have no experience with HTML so even basic explanations don't do much for me.

  Thanks by the way for all the work you do, you've made my life (and I'm sure countless others) much easier.

All my best,

Barbara

[bholmes2015]

Is eBay paying the bots a salary or just using it as an excuse to take more money from selles

[Anonymous]

Hi sharonlpk,

eBay listing tools do not currently display character count.  However, we will provide the capability to preview your description summary before the feature launches this Summer.

Thanks for selling on eBay!

Justin