Is anyone having luck with the new listing tool?

[iart]

This isn't a whiny session. I promise. But I'm having serious trouble with the new listing tool. Been selling on eBay for 20 years and every update takes some getting used to. But this listing tool is driving me to drink.

It seems that eBay puts in random info, dates, and such which I don't catch right away and have to revise, revise, revise. I'm getting better. I only have to revise about 30% of our listings (down from 90% a week ago). I'm also ignoring a lot of the info that I used to easily plug into the old form. Which will probably hurt our search results.

Honestly, looking for people who like the system, tips, information to make it make some sense. Or is it just going to take some time to get used to - and a few bottles of Bailey's?

[dhbookds]

The one thing I would say to learn it.........you have to click EVERYTHING to find where to put stuff.........

I don't quite understand what "ebay puts in" if you are going to a "blank" form unless you are trying to piggyback of one of their suggested like items......... 

[iart]

@dhbookds 

You wrote: "I don't quite understand what "ebay puts in" if you are going to a "blank" form unless you are trying to piggyback of one of their suggested like items......... "

We use sell similar. Which I think is now part of the problem. But if you're listing 15 books, sell similar seems to be the best choice. Am I wrong?

But eBay now seems to be putting info in from our previous book - which we did NOT put in in the first place - and we stopped using isbn too so I have no idea where they get some info from (dates and categories that I've noticed. Who knows what other lies they're making us tell).

[siamjane8]

I use sell similar are 95% of our listings. Makes sense to us to start with a sold item already since they must have done something right..... We completely turn it into our listing though- never copying pics or description etc, but I am in the same boat as far as what eBay auto populates. I'm just ignoring the item specific section- too time consuming so whatever is in there right or wrong just stays. I know it's not ideal but at this point I can't spend 15-30 minutes on a listing and stay in business. They need to fix this mess.

     I do agree that you have to click and search every hidden box and drop-down and see more carrots or you will never find it all.... And some of the options only show up if you click them in the correct order lol

keep letting them know that we are desktop users and need a desktop tool, not a phone app

[chapeau-noir]

I've gotten pretty much used to it - took 4-5 listings to do it.  The "pretty much" is partly changing my reflexes, and partly finding where some things are that are not readily apparent - a_c green (sorry, can't get the letter arrangement right) is super helpful.  Search for their posts.  I use templates exclusively and everything transferred over fine, but it seems like a few things were rearranged which is where I'm having trouble.

[chapeau-noir]

Oh yeah, and it seems that some things are 'activated' when you choose them in the menu and are then available.  eBay could have taken the trouble to provide a brief tutorial to adapt to this - a lot isn't really intuitive and it's quite a leap from the older text-based listing form.   If someone hasn't listed other places, it can be confusing because a number of elements are similar to Mercari for instance, or Posh, save ridiculously more complicated because eBay.

[dhbookds]

@iart   I don't use sell similar, but I do believe in templates....... 

[aeparts1]

I used it for a week.

I started off with very simple changes to listings, it wasn't too bad. I progressed to completely new listings, & have to say I hate it. It takes way too long, too much useless clicking around. I tried one of the new photo features eBay is touting, the background clean up. It worked horribly. It cleaned up about half of the background, every time, every picture, no matter what I tried. Pictures ended up looking terrible, nothing I would want on a listing. I gave up on that "feature".

After a week I gave up & switched back to Classic. I dread the day eBay forces me into the new fiasco.

I've been selling for 20+ years, so not new to eBay.

[iart]

@aeparts1 

Ho do you switch to classic? I don't see the option?

[duncanvr]

Its taking some time to get used to it but I am trying. Sell similar seems to be better but still slow. What I like is the photos seem to load faster and you don't have to look at the sub title bar any more. What I don't like is if you click item specs the first time it hangs. Then you open pricing it hangs to, and in pricing if you use auto decline and type a price in there it auto back spaces the price out so you have to be quick. The only other plus is it tops telling me my stamps are about topic cats when they are not.

[yuzuha]

I actually like it a lot. I did 12 "Sell Similar" listings yesterday in under half an hour-- before it would've taken me much longer than that. I'm not sure what you mean by "It seems that eBay puts in random info, dates, and such which I don't catch right away " because the only things it put into my Sell Similar listings were things that had been in the original listings, which was exactly why I was doing "Sell Similar" in the first place instead of just making an entirely new listing.

[yuzuha]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

If someone hasn't listed other places, it can be confusing because a number of elements are similar to Mercari for instance, or Posh, save ridiculously more complicated because eBay.

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I was going to say, it reminds me a lot of the Mercari listing tool, which might be why I find it so easy to use.

[iart]

@yuzuha 

I see most items you just listed are new. Did they also have product number identifiers?

Also, did you enter the size and weight for shipping?

[yuzuha]

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@iart wrote:

@yuzuha 

I see most items you just listed are new. Did they also have product number identifiers?

Also, did you enter the size and weight for shipping?

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No to the product number identifiers. I had to enter the size and weight for shipping except in the case of the ones where I had flat rate shipping (that did carry over entirely), but that only took a few seconds per item as the class of shipping (First Class or Priority) carried over from the "Sell Similar." I just needed to type in the box size and exact weight.

[a_c_green]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

I've gotten pretty much used to it - took 4-5 listings to do it.  The "pretty much" is partly changing my reflexes, and partly finding where some things are that are not readily apparent - a_c green

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<waves> 🙂

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

(sorry, can't get the letter arrangement right)

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Two underscores... a_c_green. In hindsight (18 years later), maybe it would have simpler if I hadn't stuck those in, but back in the day, it was more common to use your name rather than a pseudonym, so...

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

I use templates exclusively and everything transferred over fine, but it seems like a few things were rearranged which is where I'm having trouble.

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Yes, the biggest blunder in the new design is to render unused settings Inactive by default, so that they're invisible, and bury their activation switches in a submenu; you have to guess which one it is. Try the "Edit all options" link in each section of the listing form where you think the control might be found, and eventually you will find it. There is not a lot of logic about where each setting is buried; for example, the Scheduled Start Time setting is found under the Pricing section. Go figure.