File Exchange photo URL's

[danli-3564]

Hello,

Looking into doing listings using file exchange.  It's unclear to me whether or not the photos must be hosted on a secure server or not.  http vs https

If a security certificate is required, what is the cheapest webhost to get one from.

Thank you.

[shipscript · Accepted solution]

eBay's File Exchange has been moved to Seller Hub.

eBay wants https, but I've used http successfully and just now tested it again and http still works. However, the reason eBay wants https is that if your upload fails because your server is too slow to respond, then the original URL of your hosted image will be provided in the listing instead of eBay's rehosted URL. There may be a browser rejection of the listing page if it contains mixed resources.

To overcome that situation on a private server or smaller image host, make sure your images are not too large (under 1000 pixels on the long side and reasonably compressed) and that there are not too many pictures in each upload project (perhaps a few hundred or so). Your own testing might determine your limits.

Most major image hosting sites will use https, and most web hosting services either provide it as a default or offer it as an upgrade. I have my own website and have had the free open source "LetsEncrypt.org" SSL added to it by my service provider (for an installation fee of course). 

[danli-3564]

Thanks for the information.

I've gone ahead and signed up with Dreamhost, and they provided and installed the Let'sEncrypt SSL key for free.

With a combination of some google sheets templates, GIMP with a batch image manipulation plug-in, and Bulk file rename utility I was able to successfully do my first SCV upload of about 30 listings.

I take the default eBay provided spreadsheet templates and add new sheets to them, to create an easier interface for data entry.  I just fill in the custom label fields, along with price and small description and it automatically imports the info into the default template, creating the item description, photo URLs and such, automatically.  I spent less than one minute on each listing.

I plan on creating an "EZ template" for each category that I plan to list in.