Categories? POOF

[mrgoodlite]

What fresh hell is this mess.  the categories are gone, everything is broad, no more specifics.  i sell most in collectibles/holiday seasonal/christmas/vintage pre 1946/then a category.  this is all gone today and so will the buyers,  collectors will not sit there and search or read 20,000 listings.  everyone reads newly listed.  period.  WE ARE DOOMED

[katzrul15]

Except if you're a Seller who has spent the last several years putting over 750 ornaments up and have about 650 up that people regularly buy from year 'round and you just added 50 on Sunday to get ready for your Christmas in July Sale, that you have already advertised......and more than 680 are Hallmark new ornaments and the delta is Pottery Barn AND you have spent months and months putting in the **bleep** item specifics that e-bay RECOMMENDED be there today NONE of your listings have anything except the **bleep** title, the pictures and not even the Brand, Hallmark shows up.  Let alone all the Series additional specifics you added, the artists for the Hallmark ornaments, the grouping lots you have up that have 3-5 of a series where you had to put a Full description of what makes that bundle/lot......and NONE of that is there.  Even in the "non-Christmas" season, we typically sell 3-4 ornaments a week.

Hallmark was separated by year, series, etc.  Half the questions now, have nothing to do with the ornaments themselves, or the series, etc or anything that even makes sense.  We are going to have to go pull hundreds of items to have them readily available to glean the info from in order to populate the item details.  They are new/sealed in the box - e-Bay wants to know the height, length, width and weight of each ornament.  And many fields, you try to tell it N/A, Does not Apply, etc and it just deletes out what you type in.

I am physically ill.  I spent the last hour and accomplished 3 listings.  At this rate, I will be done by next Easter.  😞

[hurryagain]

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@coffeebean832 wrote:

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@skeletonstore wrote:

What are "probs"(problems?)and why is a search for skeleton showing watches instead of the rigid flexible structure found in most mammals?

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An embarrassing typo. Click on it and you'll see it's intended to say Props not Probs

brittanie@ebay- Please go to the home page and search the word skeleton. On the left you'll see what's displayed in the screenshot above- a typo that needs to be fixed in the left hand category filters.

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...Oh...IDK...given this whole situation...I would say that "probs" would be a fitting thing to leave up...LOL!

Just ask @katzrul15 ...

One hour and they have "fixed" 3 out of about 700 listings.

At that rate, they will be done with this in about 6 weeks working a full time schedule.

😶

[coffeebean832]

@shipscript has a tool that will allow you to download a copy of your listing item specifics into a spreadsheet. I don't suppose that will help you today, though- perhaps yesterday. 😞

Sorry you're in that situation @katzrul15. See if there's something in this post that can help-

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Gather-your-Item-Specifics-before-the-Category-changes/td-p/29...

ShipScript does have a tool to bulk edit item specifics. That could be very helpful here-

https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ItemSpecificsEditor.htm

[katzrul15]

Thank you.  I will take a look at it.  

The biggest issue is that I do not know the answer to many of the questions.  Not without seeing the ornament or the action figure or book.  We stopped putting the year in the description, the series, etc.  Some you could guess, but I have never measured a new/sealed ornament, ever.  We never taken them of the box typically as collectors want them pristine/unopened.  Same with the artist.  I would include it in the item specifics and people often search for the artist, the series....

I put out store on vacation.  Not like we would sell anything right now anyway.  

Usually e-bay gives a "date" that a change is coming.  Was this posted anywhere?  A recent reminder that I missed?

[gibsonbk]

I have been convinced for a long time that all these changes are psychological war on the sellers.  If you spend 3 hours fixing your listing on ebay that is 3 hours you do not spend listing your items on any other site.  This latest change is a great example.  Nothing but frustrated sellers and ebay seems to like it that way.  I understand their business plan less and less lately. 

[katzrul15]

Well, we just shipped off 4 boxes to FBA today and tomorrow, I am going to think about sending more.  

Just messed up on so many levels.  And no, they do not care.  At all.  Ever.  

Bet if i was a dropshipper from China they would have told me.  Except, wait - there are never any freakin details on those listings anyway.  Just stock photos, carp product and empty promises.  

[hurryagain]

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@gibsonbk wrote:

I have been convinced for a long time that all these changes are psychological war on the sellers.  If you spend 3 hours fixing your listing on ebay that is 3 hours you do not spend listing your items on any other site.  This latest change is a great example.  Nothing but frustrated sellers and ebay seems to like it that way.  I understand their business plan less and less lately. 

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That is an awesome conspiracy theory!  I Love it! 

eBay is just too big to care.  That is usually the attitude that a large company takes before they start to lose market share to others b/c of their c-r-a-p-p-y attitude.   Sad.

I just cannot fathom how any of this helps buyers or sellers.

Boy, if it isn't one thing - it's 12!  At least that is the way it seems as of late...

😶

[moviecomicdude1]

Arthur, for example...why are “Comics” and “Graphic Novels & TPB’s” all lumped into one category now?!! It makes no sense and now it’s impossible to search for only graphic novels when after you do a search in that category,  a half a million comics now show up in you search with graphic novels sprinkled throughout the results. I mean, are you trying to make it harder for buyers to find things?!?! 

[hurryagain]

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@moviecomicdude1 wrote:

Arthur, for example...why are “Comics” and “Graphic Novels & TPB’s” all lumped into one category now?!! It makes no sense and now it’s impossible to search for only graphic novels when after you do a search in that category,  a half a million comics now show up in you search with graphic novels sprinkled throughout the results. I mean, are you trying to make it harder for buyers to find things?!?! 

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This is what happens when you have people that have no retail experience designing/implementing systems.

[bobilee]

Their switch to managed payments stopped me from being a seller on Ebay after many years. This change looks to stop me from being a buyer here as well. I have very specific searches saved which I use every day to find newly listed 18th century porcelain, I am not about to sift through pages of Hummel figures and souvenir ash trays.

[wastingtime101]

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@moviecomicdude1 wrote:

Arthur, for example...why are “Comics” and “Graphic Novels & TPB’s” all lumped into one category now?!! It makes no sense and now it’s impossible to search for only graphic novels when after you do a search in that category,  a half a million comics now show up in you search with graphic novels sprinkled throughout the results. I mean, are you trying to make it harder for buyers to find things?!?! 

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As long as sellers update the Type specific in their listings then it will be easy to filter comics and graphic novels using the available search filters.

[fern*wood]

I just listed a Christmas ornament.   I'm still waiting for someone to tell me why one of the new item specifics to pick from is "Bacon Bandage".   

Ebay is definitely on a roll now.   I still miss my of classic page, I can't get my second selling ID approved for MP and now this new cat/spec overhaul completes the trifecta. 

[skeletonstore]

I don't have that many item specifics but whatever I did fill in is now gone.  Most were auto-specifics Ebay prompted you to add.  So now like many others in collectibles(what used to separate ebay from amazon)I am now being filtered through 1.6M items.  Ever heard of carpal thumb syndrome?   I'm also not being prompted by ebay to update my listings that had all the item specifics removed.  Remember it was years ago ebay taught us descriptions don't matter so we stopped filling that part in really.  Just look on a phone , most info is all hidden and has been that way for years. People are saying oh the buyer will just use the filters.  No they won't.  They will shop elsewhere.  The amazon vans are on my street all day long.  al ltheir drivers could care less.  They're just listening to music,  leaving their door open while driving etc...ebay's jeeps?   They all look like they're on permanent suicide watch charging $6 for 1st class parcels.  Make it harder for the buyer(along with the seller)and they will shop elsewhere.  Facts.  

[vintagescifi64]

Dear Arthur of eBay.  This is another example of short-sightedness.  Yes, you said categories will change.  However, you did not say the change would be monumental.  As usual, you gave no examples or you would have heard a cry of outrage long before now.  It's like you said: "We have a new President and he's going to implement new policies" and then have sweeping new policies in all categories of life.  You were vague, as usual.  Sellers are complaining because you haven't explained how we are to update all our listings (I have over 1200+ for comics alone) without spending a month doing the updating individually.  As usual, this appears to be tied to your software issues not to buyers or sellers needs.  If you had asked reputable sellers before implementing this you would have found that we are flexible to change, although you're piling change upon change in many areas in a short span of time,.  We're spending more time keeping up with you in this (as I see it) "non-revenue producing activity" of updating a perfectly fine listing and that's taking away from our "revenue producing activity" of adding new listings.  So what's the practical solution?  Do I spend a month updating all my comics individually or do you have some magic solution for updating en masse?   

[vintagescifi64]

P.S. In particular, I want my "Condition Description" box back without having to check the box in each of my 1200+ listings.  My condition appears not to be seen by the buyer.  That's crucial to comics.