External Ebay html site hosting - more than just photos on https: --- Ideas??

[bluestskiestradingpost]

Hello!

On our Ebay listings, I do understand that they now require https: sites for hosting photos and other external links - to avoid that very annoying [See Full Item Description] button that you need to click to see the listing.

What I would like to do, is host our listings on an outside server (an https link, not http) and have it fully populate the listing without any other clicks.

How do you code in a link to do that?  Or is there a guide, online service or imbedded app that can do that? 

I'd like to do something like that where I can host our own template, business logo, maybe a video and all that to make listings easier and more effective.

Is anyone here doing something like that, and how do you do it?

Thanks!

Tom --- BluestSkiesTradingPost

[shipscript]

@bluestskiestradingpost

Your question contains some abiguity, so lets start with the "fully populate the listing" part.  Do you mean listing creation or listing viewing?

For listing creation, it is possible to fully populate a listing through a File Exchange or eBay API upload that can be initiated from a file on your desktop or through a transfer from your server.

Contrarily, for listing viewing, it is not possible to fully populate your listing from an outsite link. That is not allowed. However, the images that appear within your description and the styles that format your description can be hosted externally. And that aspect matches your question about one-click-away.

For listing viewing, you would have two choices for externally loaded content (images, videos, stylesheets):

1) For just images, use one of the third party image hosting sites that support https, like Photobucket. Unfortunately, most no longer offer free service for volume users, but in some cases, it looks like Photobucket may still be offering a free service for small users. You might check with them, or visit their forums, to find out the current status.

or

2) Obtain your own domain name and website, and add an SSL certificate to the website so that you can support transfers over a secure channel. With your own server, you can host images, videos, and stylesheets and have room to grow should you expand to your own ecommerce site.  I've explained the basics in the first two posts of this thread:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Replacing-Active-Content/Move-description-graphics-to-a-secure-server-...

[bluestskiestradingpost]

I was mainly thinking of "viewing" listings where I could basically create my own web template and link to the Ebay listing so it shows up as the listing. I can see now that could create some conflicts with Ebay policy. I did want to embed YouTube videos demonstrating some of the items we sell as part of the description, but it seems that isn't an option anymore in Ebay listings....it used to work until recently.
I did find an HTTPS site that hosts photos for free (on a small scale). -- www.ebayphotogallery.com Which I've mainly used so far for my background images for each of our store categories - just a decorative thing.
Thanks for the info, I'll probably just keep doing as I am and work on a template that can be pasted into Ebay with external photos if that's the way we'll go.
Tom