Why would authentication even come into play here???

[gurlcat]

I'm usually a jewelry person but I have this matching scarf and jewelry case by Patricia Nash that I just tried listing as a lot together.  I figured it was worth paying 25 cents to include the appropriate categories for both (er, well, 'wallets' was the closest I could find for the leather jewelry case).  Anyway, after doing all the work to create this listing, it hits me with this dumb notification:



Okay, two things.  1. I DID select 'Clothing, Shoes & Accessories' as the main category for both items.  Look:


2. Why do either of these items even require authentication??  -I have a Patricia Nash purse and yes it's a decent quality brand.  But to my understanding, it is just 'middle' tier, at most.  I mean if we were to compare dollars to dollars, a Patricia Nash bag is FAR closer to one from Walmart than to an actual luxury brand bag like Chanel.   And I'm only listing this NWT combo for $48.  Is it seriously going to have to make a stop at an authenticator????  Like if I eliminate the second category or choose one that makes the red bar go away, does this dumb jewelry case still going to need authentication?  

EDIT: I just did an eBay search for 'Patricia Nash.'  Even the highest price listing is not an Authenticity Guarantee item.  So why the heck is the listing tool giving me this annoying bullsh?  

[u2_vintage]

To learn more, see our detailed Authenticity Guarantee - opens in new window or tab pages for sellers:

https://pages.ebay.com/authenticity-guarantee-seller/

[gurlcat]

Thanks.  It says it's for items $500 or more.  Obviously my listing is nowhere near that.  

[gurlcat]

Also it lists the brands.  I don't see Patricia Nash in there, but maybe I'm blind.

[u2_vintage]

Yes, according to the alert notice, the second element is not eligible.

[gurlcat]

Yes ... that is what I read.  I feel like you might not understand my question. 

Even the FIRST category is not eligible.  Patricia Nash is not on the list of eligible brands, nor is my price in the eligible amount.  I don't want this listing to REQUIRE authentication, and it shouldn't according to the policy page which you shared, and I highlighted the details of.     

[gurlcat]

I found my workaround this way:



So that's fine I guess.  I still don't understand why I got that block when neither of my previous categories should have triggered it because the items are NOT luxury.  This just makes me so glad I'm not primarily in these categories.  What a nightmare.  

[wastingtime101]

Not sure what triggered the Authenticity Guarantee warning without further examination, but I'd ignore it since the "wallets" category wasn't the right one to begin with.

I agree it's tough to find an appropriate category for that type of item. The 2 most relevant categories are:

Travel > Travel Accessories > Other Travel Accessories

Jewelry & Watches > Jewelry Care, Design & Repair > Jewelry Boxes, Organizers & Packaging

I'd lean towards the first category since that item is more of a travel piece, but that comment is made before doing any kind of research.

This brings me back around to the Product Research (formerly Terapeak) tool. This is a great example kyle@ebay to support feedback you passed along earlier this year (link). I will re-post my request here with hopes you can pass it along again with this use case.

Gurlcat is already using the second category since it's bundled lot with a scarf, which means with 2 relevant categories for the jewelry item, it's important to use the best-performing category. Currently Product Research makes it difficult to find that category.

I would like [the Product Research team] to add a column that identifies category(ies) where items are listed.

There are many times when multiple categories are relevant to an item, and having that data visible in Product Research will show sellers which categories are performing best for those items. In addition, listings older than 90 days usually cannot be accessed, so we don't have visibility to the category through that path.

I do realize there is a category filter and I use it, but it's not the same experience to filter categories one by one and compare data as it is to see the category in a column next to every item when "all categories" is selected. The data is there, but it's not in an easily readable/accessible format for research purposes. The entire point of Product Research is to use it as a research tool and I'd like to see this change make things more efficient for sellers.

I'd also like to renew this feedback:

At the bottom of the results page it just says "page 1" or "page 2", but it would be helpful it it said "page 1 of X" or if it gave some indicator of how many results were pulled.

Ideally, at the top it would say the number of results just like it does in regular eBay search.

Use case: A seller searched for a competitor's item but couldn't find it in Product Research so they asked me for assistance. When I viewed the same search I found the item appeared on page 3 of results, but it wasn't intuitive for that seller to realize there was more than 1 page of results.

In total, there were 6 pages of results - 295 items. You could only determine that by clicking the arrows forward until you got to the last page and the arrow grayed out.

If Product Research gave a better indicator of how many results were pulled upfront, it would help sellers to determine when they should try different key words or filters when the results are numerous, or when they needed to view multiple pages of results.

[gurlcat]

Thank you.  Yeah it is admittedly a weird sort of item in the first place.  I would call it a solution without a problem, but then I'm trashy so to me the the fancy version of 'travel jewelry case' is the Ziplocs WITH a slider zipper as opposed to the kind you have to pinch until you get the teeth to grab.  

I actually went with Jewelry & Watches > Jewelry Care, Design & Repair > Jewelry Boxes, Organizers & Packaging.  I figure some people might use it even at home, also the one starting with 'Travel' doesn't have any jewelry-specific sub-category, and I don't know for some reason I'm squeamish about settling for any category refinement called 'Other ....' .    

And look, the nice thing about the Jewelry Boxes one is it DOES include Travel Jewelry Case as an item specific, for 'Type.'  


And yes, changing the first category completely eliminated the AG red bar.  Which I still don't understand why it popped up at all.  -Does it just do that if you try to list ANY kind of wallet, regardless of brand or price?  

[valueaddedresource · Accepted solution]

@gurlcat my guess on this one would be eBay has some "tiered" logic in place when it comes to authenticity guarantee and different things may be triggered at different tiers/points in the listing and/or purchase process.

The different programs all have their own qualifying criteria, be that price point, brand, model etc. and some even appear to be using dynamic models to adjust on the fly, likely due at least in part to demand and supply - for example in sneakers they say eligibility "starts at $75" but different models/colors of the same shoe may have higher thresholds at different times to qualify for authentication.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/No-Authenticity-Guarantee-Option-Unless-Price-Higher/m-p/34327... 

That being said, the first "tier" any item would have to meet for eligibility for any of the programs would be category.

Women's wallets are one of the categories included in the handbag authentication program and I think the use of "eligible" rather than "qualify" may be important here - just because a category is eligible for the program, doesn't mean every item in that category will ultimately qualify to be included, if that makes sense.

So even though as you pointed out there are many other reasons further down the line of why this item would not qualify, the category selection is enough to trigger potential eligibility - and it would appear that eBay has built in logic to avoid conflicts where an item is listed in two categories but only one is eligible for authentication.

I can also see it being a mechanism to fight fraud too - anyone remember the rash of fraud a couple years ago that was listing items in specialty services or business and industrial categories to void buyer protections?

If I remember correctly, some of those scammers would list in multiple categories, with one being a category that wasn't covered by eMBG...so I could definitely see part of combating that may have been to put logic in place in the programming to detect and maybe even prevent the use of two categories that would have different levels of protection or different policies applied, possibly even including eligibility for authentication, whether or not the item would ultimately actually meet all the criteria to qualify.

[wastingtime101]

Another consideration is whether you could list in wallets, publish listing and wait until it indexes, then revise and add another category like scarves because eBay has already indexed the listing and determined it's ineligible for AG. I don't know if that would work, but I suppose it's worth testing if this situation were to come up again. Not really relevant to the OP since wallets wasn't the correct category to begin with. 🤷

[gurlcat]

BRILLIANT explanation, even better than I hoped for when I asked.  -One thing that didn't occur to me is that the 'bot' couldn't know that my listing actually included 2 items (I didn't even use a term like 'Lot' or 'Bundle' in the title) and that's the reason why I decided to list in 2 categories.  

On the other hand, there are single items that are hard to narrow down to one category, like this artist-made parure.  Obviously it's jewelry but made of ceramic and the artist was more famous for his art pottery, so I used 2 categories.  


So when it came to this Patricia Nash duo, for all the bot knew, I was trying to list one wallet using 2 categories that didn't make sense (how could it be a wallet AND a scarf?) so it couldn't even begin to decide whether it qualified for AG before knowing whether its' categories made it eligible -I totally appreciate your differentiating those considerations.  Makes absolute sense, THANK YOU.  

Really though, they need to make the warning/block reasoning more accurate.  Like I said, it was telling me to make the second category a 'Clothing/accessories' one, which it WAS.  

[gurlcat]

One last little thing to add or it will bug me all day, ha: If I had just picked up this jewelry case with no clue about the brand, 'wallet' wouldn't have even been a category consideration.  -The brand just happens to be mainly handbags .....



.... and the only reason I'm so keenly aware of that is because I happen to have the biggest Patricia Nash addict in the world for an aunt.  🤣. Seriously every couple months it's, "Audrey you HAVE to see my new bag!"  and it just goes without saying that it will be a P.N. bag.  She even convinced me to get one, and I have to say I don't regret it, although I hated the 'faded denim' color it was, and dyed it teal.  -Never dyed leather before, wow it was shockingly EASY!



And these two little 'non-bag' P.N. items -they were gifts from my Aunt, to keep or sell, she doesn't care.  I'm pretty sure she got them for free or pert-near free, for being such a loyal customer.  So anyway, I just went straight to 'handbags' and from there, 'wallets' seemed the closest.  Seems a very silly choice now though.  

[albertabrightalberta]

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@gurlcat wrote:

And yes, changing the first category completely eliminated the AG red bar.  Which I still don't understand why it popped up at all.  -Does it just do that if you try to list ANY kind of wallet, regardless of brand or price?  

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I sell a lot of handbags and wallets and most are not brands that are part of the AG program. But even for the minimal number items (Gucci, LV) that are of the brands that are part of the program, I've never seen the red bar. (I did purposely list my items at $499 - just under the program pricepoint.)

[albertabrightalberta]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

Another consideration is whether you could list in wallets, publish listing and wait until it indexes, then revise and add another category like scarves because eBay has already indexed the listing and determined it's ineligible for AG. I don't know if that would work, but I suppose it's worth testing if this situation were to come up again. Not really relevant to the OP since wallets wasn't the correct category to begin with. 🤷

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I don't know the answer to my question; just thinking out loud. But wouldn't this workaround be a way that dishonest sellers could list items that would normally be part of the AG program but knowing that their items are counterfeit, this is a way they could "unload" disallowed/illegal items?