eBay

blackbird*singing · ‎04-07-2016

A lot of people still have questions on this topic (http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/sprupd16/view-item.html) and a handful of you asked me to create a dedicated thread, so here goes...

For a while now eBay has been optimizing item descriptions for small mobile screens by showing small portions of the full descriptions based on keywords - the full description is still viewable but the link can be hard to find.

With the new changes (which I think are good) eBay is giving options for sellers to optimize their own descriptions for mobile listings and they are also making the link to view full description much more prominent.

Here's how it works:

eBay, based on keywords, will automatically select a limit of 250 characters (not words) from your description to show on mobile view. This is something they have been doing for a while now. In the example they provided via the Seller Update, that description was just 139 characters. They could have included the second sentence in the provided example and still only hit 230 characters, but the bots only picked up keywords in the first sentence so only 139 characters were displayed. So again, they will show UP TO 250 characters.

Mobile view is also being enhanced by including a prominent "Read more" link at the bottom so buyers can easily click through to view the full description. here is a screenshot as provided by an eBay Blue:

If your full item description is less than 800 characters (I am reading that as 799 or less) and uses HTML, CSS, or text-only then eBay will, by default, show the entire description of up to 799 characters instead of pulling out text to fit within the 250 limit.

Some people have asked if eBay can pull 800 characters for mobile why are they defaulting to a limit of 250 if your description is more than 800? Faster load time would be my guess.

You don't need to do anything and eBay will optimize your descriptions as noted above by default. Again, for a while now eBay has already been pulling summaries of up to 250 for mobile, but now the link to view full description is going to be more clear and if your description is less than 800 characters they will show the full description by default. More info about how to optimize your listings without customizing text here: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/sprupd16/view-item.html#tab=what-you-need-to-do

eBay is adding the option for you to choose your own text for optimized mobile views. If you DO want to customize then keep reading.

If your listing is 800 or more characters you have the option of using html tagging to choose which part of the description is optimized for mobile but the text needs to be consecutive - like you can't choose a sentence from the top of the description and another from the bottom. If you choose to do this, the html that can be used is shown on the FAQ page. http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/sprupd16/view-item.html#tab=faqs&faq=faq-vi-q09

General html tags (like tagging for a bold font) do not apply towards the character count. HTML tags that use up space (like a space between characters or a line break) do count in the 800 character count. A line break counts as 50 characters since that's about how many characters will display across a line on the mobile view. If you are using something like a Word document to count characters for you (no word yet on whether eBay will provide a character counter), please keep in mind how many characters a line break takes up.

If you tag more than 800 characters, eBay "will truncate the selection to below 800 characters. We will remove whole words to get below 800 characters, not partial words."

The official roll-out is this summer (I believe May 1st), but if you start html tagging now there will be "no visible impact on your listings". So if you want to start tagging now you can, it just won't go into effect yet. Do keep in mind that eBay has said they are going to provide some tools to help with this. They have not said what those tools will be yet. I made a suggestion that eBay implement these types of tools (and I hope they will take it under consideration): http://community.ebay.com/t5/2016-Spring-Seller-Update/Suggestion-for-Mobile-Optimized-Descriptions/...

I honestly do think this is a good change. It's enhancing the way mobile is currently handled and it's also giving sellers the option of customization if they so choose. Now, if only they would fix that "free shipping" glitch... 🙂

blackbird*singing · ‎05-16-2016

Thanks. I put the URL in my browser and added the http in front but it took me to a page no longer available. Oh - now I see. It is .html not .htm so it was just a bit truncated. No big deal. I'll give the page a review - thanks!

At first glance, I like this part:

For sellers without eBay Stores, eBay recommends using eBay's upcoming merchandising widget that will allow sellers to cross-sell related items without tying them to a discount. The availability for this widget will be announced in the 2016 Fall Seller Update.

pocomocomputing · ‎05-18-2016

@prefontained wrote:
@shipscript That is a great find, thanks!

So for bulleted lists you're essentially including an additional 53 characters for each line (50 for the line break and 3 for the bullet point).

That first URL is no longer available (guessing that's why you didn't hyperlink it).

@tree*fern Were you the one who initially asked about bulleted lists? If so, this seems to be your answer.
@llllady You had asked about tags. Looks like they may not be used inside of the span tags for mobile optimized. You can instead use two line breaks and that would count as 100 characters.

Why 53 characters for bulleted lists? It says 3 characters for a <li> element and you do not need a specific inside as the line break is included in the <li> element. Confused here as to the 53.

blackbird*singing · ‎05-18-2016

@pocomocomputing wrote:
@prefontained wrote:
@shipscript That is a great find, thanks!

So for bulleted lists you're essentially including an additional 53 characters for each line (50 for the line break and 3 for the bullet point).

That first URL is no longer available (guessing that's why you didn't hyperlink it).

@tree*fern Were you the one who initially asked about bulleted lists? If so, this seems to be your answer.
@llllady You had asked about tags. Looks like they may not be used inside of the span tags for mobile optimized. You can instead use two line breaks and that would count as 100 characters.
Why 53 characters for bulleted lists? It says 3 characters for a <li> element and you do not need a specific inside as the line break is included in the <li> element. Confused here as to the 53.

Maybe I'm wrong. I am assuming that since a line break is created by the <li> tag that it would count another 50, but as there is no specific tag, just an <li> tag then you may be correct that it is only an additional 3 characters.

blackbird*singing · ‎05-18-2016

@pocomocomputing Just to add what my thinking was behind it:

The mobile view can display approximately 50 characters per line. A 250 char description is approx 5 lines and an 800 char description is approx 16 lines.

If a bullet pointed list did not include the additional 50 char for each line and just the 3 char for the bullet point tag, then the description could go way longer than the 5 or 16 lines, especially if the text for each bullet point is very short. Maybe the system would allow that and users would have to scroll further for those descriptions. Since this is about optiization and shorter/smaller mobile views I made the assumption that since a line break is created (even though no separate tag for it) that it would factor as an additional 50 char.

Either way we can test it out when the feature goes live, which I think is sometime in June.

@tree*fern Keeping you in the loop here.

pocomocomputing · ‎05-18-2016

@prefontained wrote:
@pocomocomputing wrote:
@prefontained wrote:
@shipscript That is a great find, thanks!

So for bulleted lists you're essentially including an additional 53 characters for each line (50 for the line break and 3 for the bullet point).

That first URL is no longer available (guessing that's why you didn't hyperlink it).

@tree*fern Were you the one who initially asked about bulleted lists? If so, this seems to be your answer.
@llllady You had asked about tags. Looks like they may not be used inside of the span tags for mobile optimized. You can instead use two line breaks and that would count as 100 characters.
Why 53 characters for bulleted lists? It says 3 characters for a <li> element and you do not need a specific inside as the line break is included in the <li> element. Confused here as to the 53.
Maybe I'm wrong. I am assuming that since a line break is created by the <li> tag that it would count another 50, but as there is no specific tag, just an <li> tag then you may be correct that it is only an additional 3 characters.

I think you may be right but I am hoping that my interpretation is right. LOL.

billscards · ‎05-23-2016

I read most of these messages, and I think I understand what is going on ... however, I have one question which doesn't seem to be addressed here at all.

Will there be a "Preview what it will look like on a Mobile Device" button ???

This would be EXTREMELY helpful so I can see what it will look like BEFORE I publish it.

Does anyone know if this feature will be included??

blackbird*singing · ‎05-23-2016

Bill - I think it was mentioned in this thread. eBay will be providing tools to accompany the new feature, but as they are still finalizing things we don't know what those tools will be yet. A preview option is one of the things that was suggested to eBay by users like us, but we don't yet know if that will be implemented.

We should have more info when things go live "this summer" - likely some time in June. You can bookmark this thread and I (or someone else) will post updates here once we have further info from eBay and/or when features go live.

billscards · ‎05-23-2016

Thanks.

crazylister_create_awesome_listings · ‎06-14-2016

ebay is trying to show the description in an optimized way but the way they do it is far from ideal.

There's actually a new way to control how your listings will look on mobile, a few days ago Crazylister announced a release of a new game changing feature that will alow ebay sellers to control how they listings will look on mobile.

If you create a listing with crazylister you will notice a new view option in the editor mode, it's the "mobile view" where you can edit the way your description appears on mobile.

This is the first time ebay sellers are given the power to edit their mobile listings and will definitely enhance the quality of listings on mobile.

blackbird*singing · ‎06-24-2016

Just a quick update: I e-mailed Griff yesterday regarding the mobile updates. We were supposed to have new tools "sometime in May" according to him and it's now almost July. So yesterday I asked him to find out when the tools for mobile optimization will be released. Will post when I have an update!!

photo-quest · ‎07-10-2016

Did Griff ever respond to you?

blackbird*singing · ‎07-13-2016

@photo-quest Right now he's saying there is no set date when the mobile customization feature will go live or when the tool will be available. At this point, my guess is we won't see anything before the Fall Seller Update... or possibly even the Spring Update for next year since that's when the active script changes will go into effect. No idea though. I am hoping the delay means they decided to make a more functional tool than previously planned.

@shipscript If you get an update on this at some point, would you let us know? 🙂

shipscript · ‎07-14-2016

I will post something if I hear.

eBay is working with a UK company to provide an analysis of eBay listings for mobile compatibility and Active content compliance, along with a quick mobile preview, but the listings must already be on the site. So the tool is for existing listings and appears to be only for the euro market at the moment.

For "Active content", which has not been part of this discussion, I can easily create a tool to show what code will look like using eBay's 2017 rules as they are currently planned, but eBay may be looking at further modifications to the spec and that might be the reason for the delay. At the moment, eBay is planning to follow the iframe "sandbox" specification of HTML. That specification controls the appearance of code displayed in an iframe. eBay already places item descriptions in an iframe to control the code's ability to affect other content. Turning on Sandbox mode in an iframe will further limit the content, corresponding to eBays ban on active content. That protocol is described here and will allow HTML coders to design around the new limitations:

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_iframe_sandbox.asp

When the sandbox attribute is present, and it will:

treat the content as being from a unique origin
block form submission
block script execution
disable APIs
prevent links from targeting other browsing contexts
prevent content from using plugins (through <embed>, <object>, <applet>, or other)
prevent the content to navigate its top-level browsing context
block automatically triggered features (such as automatically playing a video or automatically focusing a form control)

As to the Mobile item description, it does not yet appear to be active. I have recently enrolled in the new seller hub and have found that the description "inserts" feature on the Seller hub works better than the inserts on SYI. I created and saved an insert for the mobile code and was able to type my mobile summary within that area when I used the insert. The mobile insert created on seller hub also worked just fine on SYI when I added the insert. Inserts are also available on the Quick Lister and in Turbo Lister. Here is my insert:

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

The insert I created was a duplication of eBay's mobile tags I posted previously, with the prompt "add mobile description" placed appropriately within the code. Then I just typed over the "add mobile description" text after I loaded the insert. While this is easy enough for those of us who code, it would surely be easier for non-coders to just have a textbox to edit on the listing form, as prefontained requested.

Keep in mind that only important features need to be added inside the mobile insert. The rest of the description can appear before or after the insert.

@blackbird*singingplease ping me occasionally back to this thread 🙂

ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.

photo-quest · ‎07-15-2016

In view of the fact that Ebay claims that around half of purchases happen on mobile, I decided to get serious about seeing if I could control the content of Item Description on a mobile device. I am creating the listing on a desktop and checking the content on a Samsung (Android). I wanted to see if I could substitute my wording for what the bot selects. I also wanted the wording I used to be unique to the mobile (not extracted from the desktop description).

My tests are done using "Sell a similar item", but posted to Everything Else > Test Auctions > General. If you want to try this with one of your listings be sure to make a statement like THIS IS A TEST ONLY, both in the title and the description. Also I set a very high price so no one would be tempted to try to buy. (I have the item at its real price in a regular listing.)

The following worked for my purposes.

Step-by-Step (I suggest doing this from a desktop. You need a mobile device to check the results.)

1) Select a listing and look at it on the mobile device. Note the exact first few words where the Ebay bot starts the Item Description.

2) From the desktop, click on Sell a similar item. Make the changes to category, title, description, (and price if you so choose), as noted above.

3) In the HTML tab, use CTRL F (or your version of Find) to locate the first words that the bot is using. This is not case sensitive.

4) Insert just before that point: Your mobile description goes here. Character limit, NOT including the span tags, is about 190.

You can compose your custom mobile description at charactercountonline, so that you'll know where the 190 limit is. Then add the opening and closing span tags. Preview the listing to make sure the custom description is not visible on the desktop.

5) Create the listing. Note the Listing ID.

6) You can search Ebay.com on the mobile device using the Listing ID. Check if the Item Description is what you entered in the span tags.

blackbird*singing · ‎07-15-2016

Thanks for sharing, Photo Quest. So far both eBay and users/testers have said that mobile customization code, while it can be applied to your listing, is not yet active, including ShipScript who tested it just yesterday per their above post.

I don't have a mobile device to compare your original and your test listings, but maybe another user can take a look to verify that it's working for your listing.