AI description tool.. Use it? Lose it? Success? Failures?
A fellow reseller in the midst of some texts yesterday asked me if I used the AI description tool... which went onto a discourse.
We're in the electronics/vintage/housewares/instasell category of sellers.. basically primarily bin sourcers... so we both agreed real descriptions are the way to go.
I'm curious as to any real metric results aside from time saved people have experienced using this tool..
30 comments
shopshow26
·4 months agoI've had good success with it. I just always make sure to double check, but I thinks it's very good 90% of the time.
kandf_vintage_finds
·4 months agoAI = Fluff useless descriptions.
Buyers want to know Condition, Size, Dimensions etc...
Rare?
Hard to Find?
Add to your Collection?
No Thanks!
mmadigan
·4 months agoIf I was a collector I might be interested more about the artist you are selling and AI provided overkill but some useful info
Stephen Fellerman is a renowned American glass artist born in 1951, known for his mastery of iridescent finishes and his ability to channel the classic Art Nouveau aesthetic through modern studio glass techniques.
His work is highly regarded for its technical complexity and is held in prestigious collections, including the Corning Museum of Glass, the Chrysler Museum of Art, and the White House Art Collection.
Artistic Style and Techniques
Fellerman's work often draws comparisons to legendary makers like Louis Comfort Tiffany and Steuben. His signature style includes:
Iridescence (Favrile/Aurene Style): He is famous for treating molten glass with metallic oxides to create a lustrous, rainbow-like surface.
Pulled Feather and Swirl Patterns: Many of his vases feature "pulled" designs—a technique where contrasting colors of glass are combed or dragged across the surface to create organic, vine-like, or flame-like motifs.
Collaborative Sculptures: In later decades, particularly the 1990s and 2000s, he collaborated frequently with artist Clair Raabe. Together, they produced distinct abstract glass sculptures, often depicting stylized human heads or "scepters" with vibrant, mottled glass hair and whimsical accents.
Career Background
Fellerman's journey into glass was a pivot from his family's restaurant equipment business.
Early Beginnings: He first discovered his passion for tactile art through a ceramics class at the Pratt Institute.
The Move to Glass: He began glassblowing around 1968. In 1972, he moved to Sausalito, California—then a major hub for the American Studio Glass movement—where he honed his skills by observing local artisans.
Establishing a Legacy: He eventually returned to the East Coast, setting up one of its few glass-blowing studios in Kent, Connecticut.
Current Work: In 2007, he moved to Hawaii, where he has continued his practice and served as a teaching artist at the Hui No’eau Visual Arts Center.
For Collectors
If you are researching his pieces for a database or collection:
Signatures: His works are typically hand-signed on the bottom, often with "Fellerman" and the year (e.g., "Fellerman 86"). Collaborative pieces are usually signed "Fellerman Raabe."
Value: His vintage vases from the 1970s and 80s are particularly sought after by fans of the "Contemporary Art Nouveau" movement. Smaller decorative pieces and scepters often appear at auction with prices ranging from $150 to $500, depending on the complexity of the glasswork.
dhbookds
·4 months agoI would never use EBAY"S poor excuse for AI.............as @my-cottage-books-and-antiques states, there's a whole 'nuther world out there in AI. I urge anyone who hasn't tried putting a question in Google's search bar to try it........the answers are by some AI entity and are impressive. I use it all the time in researching.
grann-4629
·4 months agoI did a search for me using google and got the AI response. I never realized how important I am and what an amazing career I have had, including saving a few lives along the way.
Nice to finally get some recognition for all those years 😎
chapeau-noir
·4 months agoDouble check that research - overall accuracy is about 90% (sorry, can't find the study right now, but it was comparative), and I've already had it incorrectly cite one of my publications (wrong author).
meme6253
·4 months agoYou know your merchandise better than A.I. does, You know any flaws or defects etc., Which is very important in making a listing with a proper description, It's no doubt a time saver, but it is not a problem saver so keep that in mind.
tobaccocardyahoo
·4 months agoActually, many sellers do not. And Ebay knows that, which is part of why it is encouraging the use of AI.
inhawaii
·4 months agoI hate it and will never use it ... but that's just my humble opinion.
chapeau-noir
·4 months agoI can write descriptions a great deal faster than using ai and then going back to fix them - ai is a big waste of time.
tobaccocardyahoo
·4 months agoThanks to this forum, I look at many more listings than I do as either a buyer or a seller.
AI descriptions contain just as much information as some sellers provide - pitifully little. They do have fewer spelling and grammatical error.
I general put my condition information in the condition notes, so that the absence of condition information in my item descriptions is not an issue.
Many of my item descriptions contain historical and related content to better understand why this item is significant. Part of my value added strategy for selling. I have a few competitors who use similar strategy for how we list, and as a group we are priced higher than our lower priced competitors. I have an above average number of repeat customers and a base of buyers who follow my store. These competitors also have good bases of followers. Most of my items are single quantity items which I might never have again.
shado-x
·4 months agoAI called me a mindless philosopher. You know how I responded, right?
annadryl
·4 months agoI don't use it and usually back out of listings that do, it says the seller didn't even try. It works for some though to use it as a starting point, delete all the corny stuff and add some specifics, especially for used items. I get it that it saves time but to be thorough and honest in work you have to take some time.
christworks
·4 months agoI am in the bucket with @ten_o_nine. I do not use eBay's AI descriptions because it simply restates what you have in the item specifics and adds fluffy but non-useful words.
I use two AI tools. I use a program to bulk list, but I do not use its flowerly descriptions. It handles item specifics very well. I provide the condition statement, which I then can apply to the description. I use the same condition for each item. This works because I am listing similar items that are in similar condition.
Here is how this process might work. Let's say I pick up a box of 100 cassette tapes for $10. I have a low cost of goods and I know I'm going to make money. If I net $5 on each cassette, that's $500 on a $10 buy, which is excellent - especially if my time investment in listing is kept in check. This is a big area where these AI listers can come in handy. I do not need to squeeze every single dollar out of that buy.
To list all of this in an hour, I'll do a quick run through and pull out anything that is in poor or acceptable condition. I'll also pull out anything I know or think is worth than $10. I will research those items but do so very quickly. I take the photos of all 100 cassettes. I keep it to 3 images a cassette. In the AI lister, I preset my cassette template to rate each cassette as Good. Some will be better than that, but the goal is to not spend time changing a bunch of stuff as that will eat away at my $500 net profit, which is my goal. I then set the price to $9.95 and apply the appropiate shipping policy. From there I upload all 300 images. Because I use the same number of images per listing, the AI lister uses that to determine how many listings need to be created. The AI does a dang good job at nailing all the information for the item specifics. The titles are great, too. This stuff has gotten better even since I started using in last November. Rarely do I need to add or change any title. Any cassette that I know is worth more than $10, I will adjust the price up. That's all my edits. The AI applies my generic condition statement to every cassette. Again, some will be in better condition and that's fine. Those buyers will win out on me and that's okay. Keep in mind if I did not have the AI lister, I probably would not have purchased these cassettes or I could have donated anything worth less than $10. Once I've done all of that, I hit submit and 100 listings go live. Start to finish I've spent maybe 90 minutes on it, and most of that is simply taking the photographs.
That process does not work well for one-off items. What I generally do for those is dictate to ChatGPT what I have and the condition. I might have a pile of 20 one-offs, a variety of items. Because ChatGPT has learned about me and I have given it instructions months ago on the process it should follow when I list, I don't have to go through all of that again. It knows, when I say, let's crank out some eBay listings, it knows to generate a title and a condition statement. When I create the listing, it is a copy/paste job for me. I normally base my listing off a like or similar item, so I'm mostly just reviewing the item specifics to make sure they are correct. I do not do fancy descriptions. I do a simple copy/paste of my condition statement. eBay does not priortize descriptions, which is why if you are spending more than a couple of minutes on them, you are already spending too much time. Of course, everything is relative. If we are talking a $500 item, I might spend more time beyond just copy/pasting my condition.
I have also used photographs and had ChatGPT come up with a description, but I normally do not do that as it takes a little more time.
AI can either be a time sucker when listing or it can be an effective tool that saves time and helps you work more efficiently when used properly.
dhbookds
·4 months ago@christworks would you be willing to share the name of your bulk lister, The one you use with the cassettes?
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·4 months ago@householdrecycle I don't use the ebay AI description tool. I have seen real AI tools----such as ChatGPT---produce more informative descriptions, but even so, they usually need some tweaking. A real AI tool takes direction---you can tell it to write in a certain style, or to use bullet points, etc, etc....and can instruct it to make changes if you aren't happy with what it produces as a first draft. ebay's AI description tool is really a dumbed down version of this.
BUT---that said---it is obvious that MANY sellers are using it, and it doesn't seem to be hurting their sales. Of course, this could be because so few buyers actually read any descriptions.
ten_o_nine
·4 months ago@householdrecycle
I will give you an example of AI description of one of your items and then decide for yourself if you should use AI.
Your item title "Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery Camp Chef 13" Cast Iron Skillet"
Your description "13" wide with 12" interior surface. Looks as if it has been cooked on a couple times without seasoning.
AI title "Vintage Camp Chef Lewis & Clark Commemorative 12" Cast Iron Skillet"
AI description
This is a heavy-duty, 12-inch cast iron skillet from Camp Chef, specially released to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Lewis & Clark "Corps of Discovery" expedition. The bottom features a detailed embossed design showing the explorers in a canoe, along with the commemorative dates 1803-2003.
Describe the condition here
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·4 months ago@ten_o_nine Just to be clear, the AI example you provided is NOT ebay's AI description, right? You used ChatGPT or some other AI tool?
I do think some sellers here do not fully realize the huge difference between actual AI (using a third party tool), and ebay's description AI.
ten_o_nine
·4 months ago@my-cottage-books-and-antiques
Yes, that was Goggle AI. eBay doesn’t really have a comparable tool yet, and actually I am better off not using eBay AI. My main point was that AI can be a great assistant for drafting descriptions.
chapeau-noir
·4 months agoTrue dat.
eBay's AI is more Madlibs and I'm not sure I'd even call it "AI"...maybe it's "A1", like the sauce.
ten_o_nine
·4 months agoI am hybrid, I use AI for the first draft to save time, then manually add condition notes.
AI can't see the scratches or smell the vintage, that’s where the human touch is a must.
jonathanbrightlight
·4 months agoThe AI generated descriptions I’ve seen or tested with the items I was listing were basic fluff, but they only really describe the item in a general sense. They have no real description of the condition of what I’m listing or why my item is worth buying. I don’t use them and if I see them in a listing, I assume the condition or even the actual item might not be what is advertised.
funfactorychannel
·4 months agoThe AI used here isn't smart enough yet to do unique items. Or spot errors from images.
Maybe more learning they will be able to do it better. Im waiting for Day AI replace us all. Then the world be a better place!☠️ skynet lives
rugerskick
·4 months agoI would prefer ebay to stop spending on AI and drop it, and put that money towards fixing the ever-growing platform problems. And better seller customer support.
slippinjimmy
·4 months agoeBay probably has data comparing sell thru rates of AI generated listings vs organic created. I doubt they will ever reveal any of that data.
From what I have seen when browsing listing, there is no way I would want that slop in my listings.
Although I have no done any experimenting I pretty sure there are other AI providers that could do a much better job but for either it classic GIGO, if you can't properly tell your AI what you want you are likely to get a bad result.
kibble-net
·4 months agoAI can't accurately describe any flaws or blemishes to the buyer.
AI can't count the pieces and inform the buyer if the item is complete or not.
AI can't determine all of the measurements, specs, and other useful information about what you are selling.
AI can do one thing and one thing only - write a useless fluff-filled word salad that tangentially relates to whatever you are trying to sell.
As a fellow reseller, I would highly recommend you write your descriptions manually.
mattva
·4 months ago"This is a must have reply that will illuminate any post and fit perfectly with any thread by adding a hint of sophistication and candor. Don't let it get away. It could be yours today"
AI
roccotacodad54
·4 months agoLOL.....Well said.....................
kath.layn
·4 months agoYou are hilarious! I love that!
grann-4629
·4 months agoIt works nicely with listings for movies and tv episodes as it includes the plot info etc. that the seller doesn't have to type out manually. You can edit out the 'you need this for your collection' junk before listing. Saves a lot of time.