ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
1 BEST ANSWER
Accepted Solutions
File Exchange
File Exchange is most efficient when listing items in the same category where you will have the same types of Item Specifics to fill out. The spreadsheet with predefined columns will save time and energy.
However, if your items are all quite different, you will need to download the Item Specifics spreadsheet for each of those categories to be sure you are including the required specifics. If you have multiple items in each category, this might still be worthwhile, whereas creating a different spreadsheet for single items may not be. Nonetheless, a spreadsheet is an easy way to store items that you want to list only seasonally.
But, there is still the photo issue that may detract from the allure of File Exchange. There is no way to include desktop photos in File Exchange. The File Exchange spreadsheet requires the URLs of hosted images. When sourcing from suppliers, the suppliers often provided links to hosted images, making File Exchange a natural fit.
Free photo hosting is difficult to find. Some sellers have used their google account for temporary hosting. There are a few pay hosts, like Photobucket, that are friendly to eBay. File Exchange will fetch the hosted photo and rehost it on eBay servers, but the fetch sometimes fails and the listings end up displaying photos from the original host instead of from eBay.
Without a photo host, you can plug in one common online placeholder photo and then edit your live listings to upload photos from your desktop via the normal listing tool.
Now let's compare bulk uploading from File Exchange with bulk uploading through Seller Hub.
Seller Hub Bulk Lister
Within Seller Hub, you will have the ability to launch multiple listings instead of a single listing. eBay's Bulk tool will start with a listing form where you can fill in much of the common data and then launch the spreadsheet view to individually (still within the bulk tool) populate the differences one at a time.
Because you have a store, you should already have Seller Hub. Try the feature to create multiple listings to see where it takes you. You can stop before posting the listings and the tool will probably save as drafts, which you can delete.
File Exchange
File Exchange is most efficient when listing items in the same category where you will have the same types of Item Specifics to fill out. The spreadsheet with predefined columns will save time and energy.
However, if your items are all quite different, you will need to download the Item Specifics spreadsheet for each of those categories to be sure you are including the required specifics. If you have multiple items in each category, this might still be worthwhile, whereas creating a different spreadsheet for single items may not be. Nonetheless, a spreadsheet is an easy way to store items that you want to list only seasonally.
But, there is still the photo issue that may detract from the allure of File Exchange. There is no way to include desktop photos in File Exchange. The File Exchange spreadsheet requires the URLs of hosted images. When sourcing from suppliers, the suppliers often provided links to hosted images, making File Exchange a natural fit.
Free photo hosting is difficult to find. Some sellers have used their google account for temporary hosting. There are a few pay hosts, like Photobucket, that are friendly to eBay. File Exchange will fetch the hosted photo and rehost it on eBay servers, but the fetch sometimes fails and the listings end up displaying photos from the original host instead of from eBay.
Without a photo host, you can plug in one common online placeholder photo and then edit your live listings to upload photos from your desktop via the normal listing tool.
Now let's compare bulk uploading from File Exchange with bulk uploading through Seller Hub.
Seller Hub Bulk Lister
Within Seller Hub, you will have the ability to launch multiple listings instead of a single listing. eBay's Bulk tool will start with a listing form where you can fill in much of the common data and then launch the spreadsheet view to individually (still within the bulk tool) populate the differences one at a time.
Because you have a store, you should already have Seller Hub. Try the feature to create multiple listings to see where it takes you. You can stop before posting the listings and the tool will probably save as drafts, which you can delete.
You are welcome, I am happy to help.
Dropbox had worked as an image host in the past, but it appears they closed the "public" window in Sept 2017 to stop that abuse. So no more Dropbox.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Tools-Apps/FIle-Exchange-image-self-hosting/td-p/27449375/
Many of the free image hosts (that once supported eBay) stopped offering free hosting at the same time, all due to eBay's active content rules that prevented link-backs to the hosting company for monetizing their services. When once-free image hosts began charging a fee for hosting, many sellers moved to their own websites for the same amount of money.
Because the free image hosts dried up and most are now pay hosts, a personal website appeared to be a cost effective alternative for some. But you could still use a pay host like Photobucket. Or try to use google storage while still free.
Many will find it more comfortable to upload directly from desktop or phone to the eBay Listing. You can upload photos as a post-processing step to File Exchange, or it can be handled in the Seller Hub bulk lister. Alternatively, you can use the new Unified listing tool and create listings one at a time. Remember that Sell-Similar is still available, regardless of which desktop or phone tool you use.
