ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
@mormardra wrote:
Is it possible to do this? All of my listings have many variations that are difficult to set up manually through eBay so I use Excel to quickly upload them. My images are all self-hosted and my goal is to have File Exchange upload each variation into EPS instead of hotlinking from my host. What I notice is that it successfully does that for my Gallery image, but not for my variations.
@mormardra - Thank you for posting your concern on this Community board thread.
File Exchange does have the ability to link up images per each variants that you may have. Here is information on how to do this:
If you would like us to help you with your file, please provide a screenshot of how your picURL is set up with your variation details as requested by @dollybeauty.
As an eBay rep, I can view the specific file as well. Please provide the File Exchange upload reference number that I can review your file specifically.
Sincerely,
mykal@ebay
eBay Support
@mypaymentstest wrote:
@mormardra wrote:Is it possible to do this? All of my listings have many variations that are difficult to set up manually through eBay so I use Excel to quickly upload them. My images are all self-hosted and my goal is to have File Exchange upload each variation into EPS instead of hotlinking from my host. What I notice is that it successfully does that for my Gallery image, but not for my variations.
@mormardra - Thank you for posting your concern on this Community board thread.
File Exchange does have the ability to link up images per each variants that you may have. Here is information on how to do this:
If you would like us to help you with your file, please provide a screenshot of how your picURL is set up with your variation details as requested by @dollybeauty.
As an eBay rep, I can view the specific file as well. Please provide the File Exchange upload reference number that I can review your file specifically.
Sincerely,
mykal@ebay
eBay Support
@dollybeauty wrote:I have never heard of Excel being able to upload anything to eBay. A csv file created with excel can be uploaded using eBay's FileExchange utility. Is this what you mean?
Can you show me a screen image of the csv file, you are trying to use? The Snipping tool in the Windows Accessory group, is good for this. Once you have an image, use the 'Photos' icon, in the Edit window, to include it in your post.
Here is an example of how I list my variations:
I must have not explained this correctly. Basically, when I use File Exchange to upload variation listings, the main Gallery Image gets uploaded from my website onto eBay's Picture Services. So using the example above...if I go onto my "Mickey Mouse" listing, right click on the main gallery image and click on "Open Image In New Tab" (using Chrome), when I look at the address bar above, the URL is: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/mickeymouse.jpg. When I do the same for my variation images, the URL is "https://www.mywebsite.com/_____.jpg".
What I want is to be able to upload all images (gallery and variation images) onto Ebay Picture Services, NOT only my gallery image. When I create a listing manually within eBay, it does this just fine. But I can't figure out how to get it to do the same with File Exchange. I basically do not want to keep my images stored on a self-hosted website.
I assume you are selling on a different ID to have some volume that makes File Exchange (FE) useful, and then I have to suspect your jobs are large.
The most common reason that photos remain hosted on a private server, instead of transloading to eBay servers, is that the private server can not respond in a timely fashion. A File Exchange batch that hammers your server too quickly with too many photo requests may simply time out at your server and FE will drop back to the default position of adding your own URLs to the listing instead of EPS-hosted URLs.
To get around this, you can try uploading much smaller batches until you find the sweet spot that your server can handle. Also keep in mind that FE queues up jobs, so you want to allow a little time between each batch so that some other seller gets between your batches, allowing your server some breathing room.
Also keep in mind the size of your photos on your server. The largest that EPS will host is 1600x1600, so do not put larger photos on your server (and don't forget to compress those by up to 10% to help speed transloading). Additionally, the largest that is required to trigger the mouseover zoom is 800 pixels on the long side. If your server is weak, and your photos many, you might want to reduce your photo sizes closer to that 800 requirement.
To discover which of your photos transloaded to EPS, and which failed, you can run a FastScan with this tool, which will return a list of URLs and offer a report option at the bottom with a list External URLs associated with item numbers.
http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/BulkPhotoScanner.htm
"My images are all 1200x1200px."
What is the typical file in KB for that size image? Perhaps more compression will help.
Since each variation can have up to 12 photos, a listing with 10 variations could have 120 photos, and a listing with 15 variations could have 180 photos. Your experimentation with lower numbers of variations should expose your server's limits.
It is disconcerting that the requirements of one single listing may be more than your server can tolerate. If you find that to be the case, even after further compressing your image files, you may want to discuss an upgrade with your provider or may want to contemplate using a different hosting service. Websites cohosted on a shared server will encounter more limitations than standalone sites, depending on the traffic of other sites on the same shared server. But the tradeoff is cost. Shared servers are significantly cheaper than the alternative.
"When you say batches, do you mean the number of listings on the file? Or the number of variations on the file? "
I am generally referring to the number of photos that will be requested from your server all at once. So it really doesn't matter if you are submitting a single listing with 250 photos in variations or 250 listings with one photo each.
As you experiment on a single listing with a number of variations that each contains a number of photos, also experiment with reducing the size of those photos and increasing the compression of those photos.
In general, you need to reduce the demand on your server without compromising photo quality. Try to keep your photos above 800 px on the long side so that zoom will work, and try to keep your image quality at 90 or higher, although some images do just fine at 80 quality. I'd have to see your photos to make a better recommendation.
One more tidbit. If you decide that you want to revise a listing to resubmit photos from your server, you will need to CHANGE the image URL that you are uploading in your spreadsheet so that FE will recognize that you are uploading a NEW image. If you upload an image with the same URL that eBay already has on record, FE will not attempt to retrieve it because it will assume it already has that image.
It is fairly easy to submit a NEW image without changing any image names on your server. You can simply append a "?", and, optionally, some digits, to the image URL that you offer File Exchange. Most server hosts will ignore the "?" and anything that follows, but eBay will think you are giving them something new if the URL is in any way different from the URL they have on file. You can actually toggle between a URL with "?" and then a URL without the "?", and then back to a URL with "?", as you work out the problem, and each will appear to be different to eBay if it does not match the previous spreadsheet upload.
