eBay's "Item Description" obstacle course (website)
Doing some shopping/buying here on eBay over the past couple days.
I shop on the desktop -- so this comment is about the website, not the app.
In order to read an Item Description, I now have to scroll past not only "Similar items," but also "Inspired by your recent views."
I know this general topic has been discussed here before, but in the past I saw only "Similar items" above the description -- which was bad enough -- but now I am also seeing "Inspired by..." . Another obstacle added.
Why is eBay both trying to distract buyers away from items they are already interested in and also putting obstacles in the way of Buyers reading Item Descriptions?
Have they ever explained the strategy behind this and how this has affected sales and returns?
gurlcat
·10 months agoIf you recall from one of the conversations in valueaddedresource's Winter Seller Check In thread (page 4):
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Winter-2025-Seller-Check-In/m-p/35325104/highlight/true#M2627538
apparently eBay no longer has a zero tolerance policy against any kind of text in photos. -You still can't have things like url to other websites, phone numbers, etc. but the wholesale prohibition of words is over. The reason I bring that up is, sometimes eBay feels like a series of evolutionary adaptations and counter-adaptations, where you have to make a change to handle some change they made.
In this case, that would be top-loading your Description info to your photos as much as possible. I had already been doing this all along, just never got busted for it because (as I suspected) their real goal was to avoid sellers trying to take business off-site. If I have an item with a flaw, I not only show a close-up of it, but use editing tools to circle it, write "crack" or whatever, and draw an arrow to it, so buyers can't avoid knowing about it just because they didn't read my item description. And I have even seen sellers with "photos" that were actually screens of text about their shipping/return/etc. policies. In other words their photo gallery looked almost like a Power Point presentation, and honestly it doesn't look too bad as long as the text is limited to a few brief bullet points.
Could a seller over-do this? Absolutely. But if you do it right, could it serve as a counter-measure against eBay hiding your item descriptions? Absolutely!
adamcartwright
OP10 months ago@gurlcat
You know, I've seen that and have thought of doing that.
Might experiment a bit.
broto_64
·10 months agoThe worst part to me is how irrelevant those extra results are.
At least as a buyer I could care less if they were highly relevant, but they're not, in most cases it's not even close.
Just a total distraction, it's ridiculous.
And then, affiliate links to sites outside ebay!
That...
Omg, I just can't.
adamcartwright
OP10 months ago@broto_64
Talking about irrelevant:
I looked at one of my own listings not long ago -- a listing for a men's jacket.
And on my listing, eBay suggested a listing for a vulgar painting of a nude woman.
I'm not sure how that vulgar painting was somehow a good suggestion for someone looking for a jacket.
Maybe because they figured a man looking for a jacket might also want a naked painting? 😂
mam98031
·10 months agoThat is far better than having them relevant. Showing things similar to what you are looking at would be far more harmful to the seller of the item you are looking at.
sassykzt
·10 months agoI completely understand your frustration! I only shop on my tablet or laptop. Last week I was shopping for some sneakers my nephews want for Christmas. Even with the search engine being what it is I was able to find them. I found all the extraneous stuff on the page to be NOT helping my buyer experience! They were showing me women's shoes that had nothing to do w/ a men's size 13 Nike shoe! By the time I scrolled down to the info that I really needed, I was about to give up.
As a seller, when I pay for a store AND promote, I find it maddening to have all this other sh*t and another promoted store on my listing page! I know, I know, eBay's sandbox & this is what I signed up for, but it's too much! We have a general population that is barely willing to read -- with all the added ( and mostly unhelpful) distractions it's a mess!
dhbookds
·10 months agoNO seller like this.........but nothing we can do about it..........
broto_64
·10 months agoCorporate think tank.
Don't try to figure it out, you'd just lose brain cells.
Every corporation is like that.
The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
How they even manage to stay in business, that is the most amazing part.
chapeau-noir
·10 months agoMore clutter, and above the fold.
Pretty soon the listing will be all adverts for other items with a small link to the item you originally wanted to view.
mam98031
·10 months agoThose listings represent part of the Promoted Listings by sellers. They don't just raise them in the searches. They clutter up are pages where we have our own items listed. They have been doing this for years.
adamcartwright
OP10 months ago@mam98031
I never noticed the "Similar items..." ones there. That was new for me.
Then I suppose it works or they wouldn't be doing it, but it doesn't work for the way I shop.