Mobile App for Vintage Sellers
Summary: imagerevival expressed challenges with the new photo-driven listing process on the eBay mobile app for selling rare historical items, as it fails to accurately describe unique inventory. They sought input from other sellers of antiques and collectibles about adapting to the changes, emphasizing the importance of accurate descriptions for unique items. onefootflipper suggested not using a phone for listings, but imagerevival preferred it due to flexibility. dhbookds mentioned listing options should be based on individual preference, with imagerevival emphasizing the difficulties introduced by recent changes to the app when listing unique items.
This year was the year I decided to get serious about building and scaling my eBay business. I found a niche that has worked well for me: rare historical documents, photographs, and other one-of-a-kind collectibles. In a relatively short time, I’ve even had the privilege of selling pieces to two museums.
My biggest limitation until now has simply been time. I have a substantial backlog of material waiting to be researched, photographed, and listed, so improving my listing speed has been a major priority.
Today, however, I tried to use the mobile app with what has been my normal listing workflow and encountered the new photo-driven/listing-generation process. For the type of material I sell, the generated results were consistently inaccurate. These aren't standardized products where a photograph can reliably identify the item. They are historical photographs, documents, ephemera, and other pieces that often require research and careful descriptions.
After attempting roughly 50 items, I eventually gave up. A workflow where I could previously create around 20 listings per hour resulted in me spending approximately five hours without successfully getting a single item listed.
That experience caused me to reconsider how aggressively I want to grow my store. For now, I have reduced my active inventory to 53 items, turned off promoted listings and off-site advertising, increased my handling time, discontinued free shipping, and stopped pursuing Top Rated Seller status. I also disabled offers and am simply listing items at the price I believe they are worth.
I don't mention those changes as a protest or threat. They are adjustments I felt I needed to make because my previous business model depended heavily on being able to list unique inventory efficiently.
I understand why AI-assisted and photo-generated listings could be extremely useful for sellers of standardized products. My concern is what happens to sellers whose inventory is genuinely unique and cannot be accurately identified or described from a photograph alone.
I have approximately 5,000 curated collector pieces that I had hoped to gradually bring to eBay. Many require research, and some are scarce enough that there may be little or no comparable sales history. For that kind of inventory, accurate descriptions and seller control over the listing process are essential.
I'm interested in hearing from other sellers of antiques, historical material, photographs, documents, ephemera, art, and other one-of-a-kind items. Have you found an efficient way to work with the new listing process? Is there a workflow I'm overlooking?
I'd genuinely like to find a way forward because eBay has demonstrated that there is a market for this material. I just need a listing workflow that allows sellers of unusual inventory to provide the expertise and information that a photograph or automated system cannot.
dhbookds
·1 month agoThe better half uses a phone to list........I don't.........Neither of us use AI. I think people have to choose what works for them....... While the "hype" may be about one or the other, it still a choice of which to use and that's up to the individual......
If you can list 20 items in an hr, not using the phone, I think that's a very productive number........and don't understand why you just don't go back to that.
imagerevival
OP1 month agoI can't do the volume anymore since they changed the format for the mobile app. Where i use to create my title and specifics and add the photos later has changed. The mobile app now asks for photos first and creates the listing for you, if your selling common items it's great, if your selling rare one-of-a-kind items you have to change everything because it's mostly incorrect. Thank you for your imput.
onefootflipper
·1 month ago · EditedMessage erased, leaving forum due to threatening forum member following me around on the internet.
imagerevival
OP1 month agoWe all have different workflows and preferences, mine is my phone and it worked great for me until today. Its the right fit for what I do and the flexibility is hard to beat. Everyone has their own way and this was mine.
onefootflipper
·1 month ago · EditedMessage erased, leaving forum due to threatening forum member following me around on the internet.
imagerevival
OP1 month agoWell to be honest mine was my own AI prompt and a Ebay Developers account to where I could do about twenty professional listings an hour, my photos were not as good as some but in my short time this year I have over 300 sales (part-time) and my feedback has been good. It took me a while through experimenting to define what items I enjoyed and what profit margin was comfortable to me. Thanks for the conversation and the info.