cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

For the FileExchange PicURL field, what do I enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."?
Then, where do I upload my pictures?

 

Secondly, is it more dependable to use EPS hosting or use my own? 

 

Thanks!

 

This is from page 84 of the FE Advanced Instructions:

 

URL of the picture to add to your listing. If a Gallery upgrade is specified (Plus or Featured), the image will be used for the search preview image. For best results, use an image that is in JPEG format and is at least 1000 pixels wide.


Pictures can be self-hosted, hosted by a third party, or hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS). To add up to 12 pictures, separate the URL with a pipe " | " character.


Pictures for a listing can either self-hosted, or hosted by a third party, but not both. <<<<<<

http://hostedpics.com/images/item1.jpg|
http://hostedpics.com/images/item2.jpg

Message 1 of 19
latest reply
1 BEST ANSWER

Accepted Solutions

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

When you add photos through File Exchange, you must provide the URL of an externally hosted online photo (from your own website, webspace, or picture hosting service).  Your hosting source should provide a secure https protocol in the URL. Currently, you can get away with uploading images over the older http protocol, but there is a caveat I will explain.

 

https://example.com/image1.jpg|https://example.com/image2.jpg

During the upload process, eBay will fetch the images from the hosting site and will rehost them on eBay. At that point, they become EPS hosted photos.

 

If the image hosting server can not deliver all the images within a reasonably quick period, eBay will not keep trying, and those photos will simply use the original URL for the listing. If that occurs, the original external server will be delivering the images to the eBay listing and the zoom feature will not be available. Additionally, this is where the https protocol is mandatory and where you might see a problem if the externally-hosted photo protocol (http) does not match eBay's page protocol (https).

 

Incomplete photo uploads will usually occur if your server is overloaded because the batch is too large and/or has too many images that are very large. The problem can often be resolved by uploading smaller batches and/or resizing and compressing photos ahead of time.

 

If an upload results in eBay displaying some photos directly from the original server, those can be resubmitted to eBay for another try. However, the image names must be changed a tad or File Exchange will not consider them new images. The easiest way to change the URL is to add ? to the end, which has no adverse affect on most image requests:

 

 https://example.com/image1.jpg?

 

If any in that batch fail, then drop the ? and you'll again have a different image name that doesn't match the prior upload.  It is important to remove all the external hosting and get all your images to transload to eBay so that eBay can provide all the image features that are necessary for destop and mobile viewing.

 

It is possible, but unwise, to actually upload an EPS photo that is already hosted somewhere else on eBay. If you do so, eBay will not rehost that photo or assign a new image name. Instead, eBay will use the original image name, and if the original listing linked to that image ends, the EPS photo in your listing will purge 90 days after the original listing ends. So re-submitting existing EPS photo URLs is not a good idea.

 

Finally, the comment about mixing hosting sources is becoming less relevant.

This statement is erroneous:

"self-hosted, or hosted by a third party, but not both."

It was probably supposed to say that images could be third-party hosted or eBay hosted, but not both.

Or perhaps it was referring to the older one-picture external hosting vs the newer multi-picture external hosting.

 

There are tool dependencies involved that relate to the older "self-hosting" (only one photo transload allowed) versus the newer "web hosted" (multiple photo transloads allowed) uploaders, and some dependency on whether transloading was successful.  As it relates to File Exchange, last year I had a listing where all but one photo transloaded, and thus I had a mix of EPS and non-EPS photos display within one listing, which was previously considered not possible.

 

ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.

View Best Answer in original post

Message 3 of 19
latest reply
18 REPLIES 18

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

@huntfor 

 

EPS is the most dependable. If you use the PicURL field, the images will be hosted by eBay (EPS). If you include images in your description, you will also have to host your own.

 

Note that the AdvancedInstructions are a bit misleading...the PicURL field (for multiple images), should look like...

'http://hostedpics.com/images/item1.jpg|http://hostedpics.com/images/item2.jpg' (tics excluded).

eBay is continually updating this site. Some advice given may have changed. Please reply to this thread, to let us know if this advice works for you. The links on the bottom of any eBay page can help you deal with most eBay issues. Contact eBay Customer Service on Facebook.com/eBay or Twitter.com/AskeBay
Message 2 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

When you add photos through File Exchange, you must provide the URL of an externally hosted online photo (from your own website, webspace, or picture hosting service).  Your hosting source should provide a secure https protocol in the URL. Currently, you can get away with uploading images over the older http protocol, but there is a caveat I will explain.

 

https://example.com/image1.jpg|https://example.com/image2.jpg

During the upload process, eBay will fetch the images from the hosting site and will rehost them on eBay. At that point, they become EPS hosted photos.

 

If the image hosting server can not deliver all the images within a reasonably quick period, eBay will not keep trying, and those photos will simply use the original URL for the listing. If that occurs, the original external server will be delivering the images to the eBay listing and the zoom feature will not be available. Additionally, this is where the https protocol is mandatory and where you might see a problem if the externally-hosted photo protocol (http) does not match eBay's page protocol (https).

 

Incomplete photo uploads will usually occur if your server is overloaded because the batch is too large and/or has too many images that are very large. The problem can often be resolved by uploading smaller batches and/or resizing and compressing photos ahead of time.

 

If an upload results in eBay displaying some photos directly from the original server, those can be resubmitted to eBay for another try. However, the image names must be changed a tad or File Exchange will not consider them new images. The easiest way to change the URL is to add ? to the end, which has no adverse affect on most image requests:

 

 https://example.com/image1.jpg?

 

If any in that batch fail, then drop the ? and you'll again have a different image name that doesn't match the prior upload.  It is important to remove all the external hosting and get all your images to transload to eBay so that eBay can provide all the image features that are necessary for destop and mobile viewing.

 

It is possible, but unwise, to actually upload an EPS photo that is already hosted somewhere else on eBay. If you do so, eBay will not rehost that photo or assign a new image name. Instead, eBay will use the original image name, and if the original listing linked to that image ends, the EPS photo in your listing will purge 90 days after the original listing ends. So re-submitting existing EPS photo URLs is not a good idea.

 

Finally, the comment about mixing hosting sources is becoming less relevant.

This statement is erroneous:

"self-hosted, or hosted by a third party, but not both."

It was probably supposed to say that images could be third-party hosted or eBay hosted, but not both.

Or perhaps it was referring to the older one-picture external hosting vs the newer multi-picture external hosting.

 

There are tool dependencies involved that relate to the older "self-hosting" (only one photo transload allowed) versus the newer "web hosted" (multiple photo transloads allowed) uploaders, and some dependency on whether transloading was successful.  As it relates to File Exchange, last year I had a listing where all but one photo transloaded, and thus I had a mix of EPS and non-EPS photos display within one listing, which was previously considered not possible.

 

ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
Message 3 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

 I did separate the image URLs  with a pipe and no spaces but my upload still failed. 

 

 I don't know where to upload images for  eBay hosting unless I'm supposed to upload the spreadsheet and leave the PicURL blank and then add them manually?   Am I close to the right track? 

Thanks!

Message 4 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

Thank you for clarifying these details. I now realize that I will host the images on my own website because this particular wholesaler allows you to use their image URLs but others are most likely using them.  That means there will be duplicates and like you explained,  I'd have to change the names of the images. That will take just as much work as if I just put them on my own site. In addition, the   Supplier spreadsheet doesn't have either protocol. The images just begin with www. My entire website is HTTPS.

 

I am going to try again to upload my  file exchange spreadsheet after I use my FTP software to get the images on my site.

 

 I hope that was the only problem with my spreadsheet which is in CSV format and I only had one product with nine images.   I'm hoping to perfect it before I go ahead and add hundreds of listings! 🙂

 

 Thank you very much for this help. I'll  let you know my results. 

Message 5 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

@huntfor 

 

Sorry, the PicURL field values I listed earlier are indeed incorrect. They should be ...

 

https://hostedpics.com/images/item1.jpg|https://hostedpics.com/images/item2.jpg

 

Note the change from http to https.

eBay is continually updating this site. Some advice given may have changed. Please reply to this thread, to let us know if this advice works for you. The links on the bottom of any eBay page can help you deal with most eBay issues. Contact eBay Customer Service on Facebook.com/eBay or Twitter.com/AskeBay
Message 6 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

@dollybeauty  that's fine. I got the gist of it especially after reading the responses from both you and shipscript.

 

I now know how to enter the images that I'm going to host on my own site. 

 

 The questions about my CSV are the column headings are only on the first row.

 

The first row,  first column has "Action"  and the second row first column has the word "add"  both without quotes. 

( i'm on my iPhone right now, not my desktop which is why I probably can't read where to reply to the other post. I'll try to fix that when I get back on the desktop.). 

Message 7 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

@huntfor 

 

'add' will not work! It must be 'Add'! Spelling and capitalization are important in FileExchange.

eBay is continually updating this site. Some advice given may have changed. Please reply to this thread, to let us know if this advice works for you. The links on the bottom of any eBay page can help you deal with most eBay issues. Contact eBay Customer Service on Facebook.com/eBay or Twitter.com/AskeBay
Message 8 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

It does have "Add".
I'm on an iPhone SE which is 4 1/2 inches and so I'm just using Siri to reply. Thank you.

I thought I posted both of my questions in the community rather than in the knowledge base.
Message 9 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

The image renaming issue is only on a per-listing basis when you try to revise the photos in that listing. It's a revision issue where File Exchange will not attempt to again upload an image of the same name that has already been uploaded to that listing. So when trying to again upload photos to your own listing, where you want a different outcome, the photo URL should not look like the URL previously uploaded.  It doesn't matter if others use the same photos or even if you use the same photos for different  listings.

 

If File Exchange rejected your upload, there will be an explanation in the  "Upload Results Report". That report will explain any errors.

 

 

I see now that you have another discussion on the knowledge base Q&A forum, and @dollybeauty  is addressing the FE errors over there.

 

ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
Message 10 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

 It's too late for me to update my reply so I just want to say please ignore the part about where to upload the images.

 

That was cleared up in your earlier posts @shipscript @dollybeauty 

Message 11 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

@shipscript  it's good to know about how Ebay is hosting the images but now thanks to you I will know what to do if it rejects images I host on my own website. 

 

 I downloaded that file twice and it was empty. There were no error codes.  It immediately  displayed abandoned and all the rest was blank.   It's probably an image problem so I hope I can get it up and running as soon as possible tomorrow morning. Thank you. 

 

@dollybeauty Thank you for the link to the error codes which I created a PDF for and emailed it to myself.  

Message 12 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

 I definitely did not intend to post questions in both the forum and the knowledge base. 

 

 Since I'm not the admin and I can't move my messages or edit them now. I'm sorry for the trouble. Both of you are helping me tremendously!

Message 13 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

Don't worry about the concurrent threads, it happens. @dollybeauty  will help you with the CSV structure and I'll help with the image issues.

 

I don't think images are an issue in your upload.  The fact that you didn't even get a report indicates the problem is linefeeds in your CSV file, possibly in your description text.  If you copied any headings from eBay File Exchange documentation, it has been my experience that copying headers or attributes from their document will introduce a line break at the end of the copied field.  I think it's just the nature of copying from a PDF.

 

ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
Message 14 of 19
latest reply

Re: FileExchange PicURL field - What to enter for "hosted by eBay Picture Services (EPS)."

@shipscript and @dollybeauty   Thank you. That sounds like a wonderful plan. I noticed when I was going to paste something from the PDF manual that sometimes it asked me about the language so instead of doing that I just used a plain text editor and pasted it into that and copied and pasted into the csv or I just typed it in manually.  That was long winded! 

 

 I'll fix everything, will then upload and let you both know the results. In one of my posts I had added the screenshot for the results of the failed upload  and noticed there were a lot of fields in it that are not in the template I downloaded, but I decided to keep away from that for now. It was mostly about fees and gifts etc. 

 

Thank you so much!

Message 15 of 19
latest reply