Watermarks & Logos

[karensgoodbuy]

This may be a ridiculous question but I can not seem to find the answer.  I understand in March any Watermarks on listings may be banned---my question is will a logo in the photo also be banned or is that considered a watermark? Will my logo on my photo listings be banned below is an example of my photos;

[thatsallfolks]

Yes. A watermark is simply an identifier; so is a logo.

[karensgoodbuy]

So you are saying I will no longer be able to put my Logo on my photos and I will have to redo all my photos.

[thatsallfolks]

If they decide to enforce the policy, yes.

[reddfred409]

There was an announcement back on 11/29/17  about the watermarks, Ebay is NOT going to inforce the watermark issue. see belows announcement from Ebay

However, we have received significant feedback about our upcoming enforcement and for this and other business reasons have decided that we will not enforce the removal of watermarks in March 2018 as originally planned. We know this is a crucial time of year, and we want you to be able to focus completely on selling.

[collectiblehaven]

Ridiculous !!  Ebay just wants to make it easier for underhanded sellers to steal our pictures!

[thatsallfolks]

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@reddfred409 wrote:

There was an announcement back on 11/29/17  about the watermarks, Ebay is NOT going to inforce the watermark issue. see belows announcement from Ebay

However, we have received significant feedback about our upcoming enforcement and for this and other business reasons have decided that we will not enforce the removal of watermarks in March 2018 as originally planned. We know this is a crucial time of year, and we want you to be able to focus completely on selling.

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That only says they’re not going to enforce it in March, not that they never will.

[d-k_treasures]

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@karensgoodbuy wrote:

So you are saying I will no longer be able to put my Logo on my photos and I will have to redo all my photos.

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If that's the company who manufactures them, why not put it in the title and in your item specifics? 

If someone was searching for that brand, they won't find it in a search if it's only in the photos.

[d-k_treasures]

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@thatsallfolks wrote:

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@reddfred409 wrote:

There was an announcement back on 11/29/17  about the watermarks, Ebay is NOT going to inforce the watermark issue. see belows announcement from Ebay

However, we have received significant feedback about our upcoming enforcement and for this and other business reasons have decided that we will not enforce the removal of watermarks in March 2018 as originally planned. We know this is a crucial time of year, and we want you to be able to focus completely on selling.

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That only says they’re not going to enforce it in March, not that they never will.

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"Soon".

[reddfred409]

If you go to Ebays announcement from 11/29/17 it will talk about the watermarks.

[jason_incognito]

So the basic concept isthis. eBay wants to use your photos as part of their library. 

There will esentially only be one listing per item, then a list of sellers willing to fulfill that item. Think how amazon does it.

[bigchief2472000]

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@jason_incognito wrote:

So the basic concept isthis. eBay wants to use your photos as part of their library. 

There will esentially only be one listing per item, then a list of sellers willing to fulfill that item. Think how amazon does it.

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I've personally never been a fan of the way they do that either.  If I buy something from an actual retailer that gets their merchandise directly from the manufacturer, or from a distributor that got it from the manufacturer, I don't mind seeing a stock photo.  When I'm buying from random individuals that get merchandise from random places, I'd prefer to see a picture of the actual item, that way I can make a better determination for myself if the item is in the condition I'm expecting it to be in.  Of course there are exceptions for many inexpensive items that I wouldn't be concerned about, but most of the stuff I buy online doesn't fall into that category.

[cuttingsnl]

I can't understand this policy (or still intention) of ebay to have images without watermarks/logos. Most of the people when searching for something will go to the Google images.

If they find there our listed item with our logo and the ebay logo this is automatically a potential new buyer, that means money for ebay...

Plus, no images will be stolen again from us....

[futuretomorrow]

1. I've told eBay numerous times via the phone that as soon as they do something about Chinese sellers stealing my photos I'd be more than happy to remove the watermarks. Until then, they're not going anywhere. I've had pretty bad experiences with people stealing my photos, videos and other work from my job and selling platforms.

2. I did have someone from senior management call once for us to discuss something not at all related and in looking at my account she pointed out I had gone overboard and should remove the ones that had my personal store URL. She was right. I removed those.

3. You're going to want to drop that logo in the center and you should read up on how sophisticated some of the tools are for removing watermarks. If they're going to steal your photos, at least make them work or just try harder to discourage them.

4. eBay backpeddled on enforcing this due to overwhelming pushback BUT and I cannot stress the BUT...I would consider an alternative plan of action because there will come a day when eBay forces this on sellers if they are trying to create a cleaner, generic catalog. You can already see signs of this in how the new catalog, sell similar works. I literally just last week had to call them on behalf of someone here and my own interests to understand what they were doing.

5. Be wary of any watermark or logo that has a URL. Business name is fine if it's part of the logo (see some of my listings) but if you've purposely put your URL in there and eBay calls you up for promoting sales outside their system that may not end well for you.

6. Since a watermark or logo is applied after, always keep what's called the non destructive easily editable version of the artwork. That way if eBay changes it's policy or enforces it you don't need to reshoot. Simply open the file (I use Adobe Photoshop), turn off the logo/watermark layer and then reoutput the file.

It's only when working with a destructive editing method you'd need to reshoot photos because you're working on a single layer instead of using multiple that can be turned on and off as needed. Layers rule.