Variations Not Available in All Categories
I have several magazines to sell, and I wanted to group them together by year and make it a "choose your issue" fixed price listing. After googling and watching a few youtube videos, I realized that the magazine category does not support variations. Why can't I do this?? I have a friend who has the same type of listing for candles. They're not all the same. She has them grouped by brand. I want to group these magazines by year (they are all the same brand of magazine). It should be an easy thing to do so I don't have to list them separately.
7 comments
dhbookds
·5 months agoI see variations available in Mag category.
christworks
·5 months ago@allfour96 Do yourself a favor and do not worry about this. You will sell your magazines faster by listing them seperately. Buyers often find variation listings confusing, and it is easier to open yourself up to an INAD. For instance, let's say you were doing to list this:
Vintage Good Housekeeping Magainzes Years 1970-1979 You Pick Year
Now, imagine a someone who has never used eBay. They have no idea what a variation listing is. They see your title and they understand that you are selling years 1970 through 1979. Now, you have in the title, "You Pick Year." What does that mean to the buyer who has never used eBay? They will think to themselves they are picking years 1970-1979. They click into the listing and whatever is the default choice for your variation will be what they order. Then, when they get it, they will be upset because they thought they were getting each year. It is also difficult to clearly communicate the condition when you have a bunch of choices of "used" items. Variations work better for new items...things with tags, in the box, etc.
It really takes little time to list them as seperate listings. Just make a master listing, then copy it. Swap out the relevant info....wash, rinse, repeat.
iamalwaysright
·5 months agoNot to mention what to use for a gallery photo. If you plan on having one of them "collage" style photos with a bunch of issues shown, it can be misleading to a buyer as well thinking they will receive all of them.
christworks
·5 months agoVery true.
Ask me how I know what a mistake it is to do variations on something where it does not make sense for the buyer. I was trying to sell DVD seasons to a TV series. I struggled to any sales on that listing. When I did, I often had cancellations. Then I got a message from a buyer confused as to why they did not get all the seasons. They were very polite and I heard them out. I refunded them without having them return the season they got, and I ditched the variation listing. I listed each season as stand alone. Those things started selling left and right. I had another variation listing that was parts to a toy. That also struggled to get any sales. I ditched it, too, and quickly sold off all those toy parts as stand-alone listings.
krazzykats
·5 months agoeBay Multi-variation listing feature categories list
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iamalwaysright
·5 months agoIt’s likely because grouping them in the way that you want isn’t what eBay would typically allow. Multi variation listings are highly abused by many sellers. From the sound of it, your candle selling friend is probably one of the many abusers of this function.
inhawaii
·5 months agoThat's not what variations listings are for.
Variations listings are for the SAME ITEM with different variations.
T-shirt: White/Red/Blue/Green/Black
Shoes: Size 9/Size 10/Size 11/Size 12
Candy: Pineapple/Strawberry/Grape/Lemon
Not for different issues of magazines or different movie titles or different trading cards or different comic books.