TOS in Description Question

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

For many years, ebay sellers have been including their "TOS" (Terms of Service) within the description field. 

Is this wording routinely excised from Mobile when the buyer is shown the "full" description? (I don't have a mobile device, so I can't check).

Does ebay today recommend scrapping the TOS entirely? After all, the basic information is contained in the tabbed Shipping page.

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

For many years, ebay sellers have been including their "TOS" (Terms of Service) within the description field. 

Is this wording routinely excised from Mobile when the buyer is shown the "full" description? (I don't have a mobile device, so I can't check).

Does ebay today recommend scrapping the TOS entirely? After all, the basic information is contained in the tabbed Shipping page.

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We recommend using the structured fields whenever possible. For example, if you have a restocking fee, include it in the returns info. A separate TOS is rarely needed. The info we pull into the 250 character summary is based on the item, not the terms of service. Some sellers who use Javascript inhibit our ability ot pull the most important information into the item summary - another reason to limit the use of active content.

Thanks

Brian

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks brian.

I do understand that the ebay generated summary ignores the TOS. 

But Mobile does provide the buyer with the option to see the full description. What I'm asking is, if my description page on a PC includes description plus TOS wording, does the TOS carry over into the Mobile "Full description" or does ebay strip it out for display on Mobile?

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

Thanks brian.

I do understand that the ebay generated summary ignores the TOS. 

But Mobile does provide the buyer with the option to see the full description. What I'm asking is, if my description page on a PC includes description plus TOS wording, does the TOS carry over into the Mobile "Full description" or does ebay strip it out for display on Mobile?

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my-cottage, 

eBay generated summary does not ignore TOS - if the only text on the page was the TOS or return policy, that's what we would show. 

Best practice is to only use text, keep the description below 800 characters. If your TOS is text and the description is less than 800 characters we will include it. One way to prevent this is to have a break between the content - each page break counts as 50 characters.

Brian 

[shipscript]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
But Mobile does provide the buyer with the option to see the full description. What I'm asking is, if my description page on a PC includes description plus TOS wording, does the TOS carry over into the Mobile "Full description" or does ebay strip it out for display on Mobile?

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiquesEverything you currently see in your desktop description page carries over to the mobile full-description page -- it is a separate page that is tinier with the ability of the user to pinch-or-zoom in or out.  Non-description verbiage like terms and pictures will still display on both platforms. 

As you are now aware, the mobile screen first has the necessary details with a short summary description and a link to the full description page.  To reiterate, the full description content has been the same across all devices.  

This is a very old screen shot from a couple of years ago, but I think it will show the general idea of two screens.  The summary will be on the initial screen, on the left.  You will see the seller's full template is displayed in the separate description window, on the right. In this case, the Auctiva Flash gallery did not display because the iPhone does not support Flash. But that is Apple's decision and not eBay's.  Next year, it will be eBay's choice as well.

Many of us have worked on "responsive" designs using CSS to reflow the desktop full description to a better presentation on the tiny mobile screen. This sort of CSS reflow will be allowed in the new plan.  For instance, in the screen above, the thick borders would go away on the tiny screen, and the photos would be made full width.