04-26-2019 09:29 AM
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
Solved! Go to Best Answer
04-26-2019 05:35 PM
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.
04-26-2019 05:34 PM
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).
04-26-2019 05:35 PM
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.
04-26-2019 06:21 PM
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!
04-26-2019 06:35 PM
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.
04-26-2019 06:45 PM
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.
04-26-2019 06:52 PM
@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.).
04-26-2019 06:53 PM - edited 04-26-2019 06:54 PM
'add' will not work! It must be 'Add'! Spelling and capitalization are important in FileExchange.
04-26-2019 06:55 PM
04-26-2019 06:58 PM - edited 04-26-2019 07:01 PM
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.
04-26-2019 07:01 PM
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
04-26-2019 07:06 PM
@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.
04-26-2019 07:08 PM
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!
04-26-2019 07:18 PM
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.
04-26-2019 07:28 PM
@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!
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