My Gripe for Today

[tunicaslot]

My gripe for today is the Mobile Friendly Checker. Why hasn't the oldest biggest online venue integrated software so that you don't have to make your listings mobile friendly? I've been listing on other venues all morning and decided to throw a few new items up here - now have to go back and recheck everyone of them as I forgot about our Mobile Friendly Checker as every other site is mobile compatible and there is no need to do anything but write a description and click submit!

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Are you doing anything in your listings that would make them Mobile unfriendly? If you are doing a basic description, no fancy html or anything, you shouldn't have a problem. I haven't used the Mobile friendly checker in ages, not since I went through all my old listings to make sure they were OK.

[tunicaslot]

I type a description - that's it - but when clicking mobile friendly checker - it always says not compliant and I have to fix it. It's standard text - no borders, inserts, pictures ect.

Ex

Mens Sweater

Size: XL

shoulder to shoulder

underarm to underarm

length

[18704d]

Even if you simply type in a text description,

you need to check it through the Mobile friendly checker.

If you don't your long sentences won't fit to various screen sizes.

Viewers on different devices won't get clean breaks at the edge of their screen.

And why doesn't eBay automatically do this?

I imagine it's a coding thing.

It's easier for a new website, which is writing new code for their website

to get all these buttons and whistles in place, the first time

Than it is to add them to an older website where adding the code is far more complicated based on the code which is already in use for the website.

jmtcw,

Lynn

[abfabvintage]

@tunicaslot 

I just did a small freak out LOL about your mobile thing since I recently listed some older listings...all mine are mobile friendly TG. However, I only had to check the 5 items I have listed, not hundreds. In the Fall 2018 I had to put in that mobile code at the top of my description (code from Shipscript) each time I listed until my 3rd party lister updated my AW program. Now that the program itself is updated I don't have to worry about it. Everything I list now is mobile friendly. And agree with you, we should not have to go through those paces and this site should just automatically convert it once you list.  

[ohnojoey]

Another gripe for the Mobile Friendly Checker is that the "save" button is hidden until you scroll down, and because it looks like everything is right there, it seems that there is no reason to scroll down.

So when it says "we fixed it for you" one might think it's fixed and leave the page, but It isn't fixed until you click "save" and that button isn't visible! The save button should be at the top staring at you.

It would be such a simple fix to make the button visible.

There have been many complaints about this.

[calntom]

If you are using a saved template to list with, edit the template and run the mobile checker on the template to make sure it is compliant and then save the template. 

[zamo-zuan]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

My gripe for today is the Mobile Friendly Checker. Why hasn't the oldest biggest online venue integrated software so that you don't have to make your listings mobile friendly? I've been listing on other venues all morning and decided to throw a few new items up here - now have to go back and recheck everyone of them as I forgot about our Mobile Friendly Checker as every other site is mobile compatible and there is no need to do anything but write a description and click submit!

---

EBay's mobile checker had broken our listings more times than it repaired them lol.

The main reason it's a problem is because eBay allows HTML but does it in such an odd way. 

Seems they're trying to slowly just cycle out description pages, rather than make them play nicely. Not search description anymore unless you hit that lil button on the top right of search. Moving everything on to product identifiers or in to the returns/warranty additional info sections, and having the updated listing pages show less and less of the descriptions.

Or, the thinking may be more basic, and they're just emulating Amazon as they only allow more limited descriptions.

[zamo-zuan]

Forgot to mention, the scary part is one of the issues I reported to them last year was that they knocked down your visibility for items that weren't coming up as mobile compatible, even if they followed the guidelines according to the help page.

I don't know if they ever fixed that... but considering the mobile checker doesn't detect (or fix) properly, this opens the door for visibility getting damaged if it incorrectly determines you're not mobile compatible. 

[Anonymous]

You can create templates that include that missing line of code the checker adds - then you will never have to use the mobile checker.

[mg152]

I won’t say how I feel about the mobile checker. I don’t wanna get into trouble here. 😀

[readabouthorses]

Since they never added it to Turbo Lister, I don't even know where to find Mobile Checker anymore. I used to have it bookmarked but didn't that one stop working when it got added to the listing process?

[tunicaslot]

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@18704d wrote:

Even if you simply type in a text description,

you need to check it through the Mobile friendly checker.

If you don't your long sentences won't fit to various screen sizes.

Viewers on different devices won't get clean breaks at the edge of their screen.

And why doesn't eBay automatically do this?

I imagine it's a coding thing.

It's easier for a new website, which is writing new code for their website

to get all these buttons and whistles in place, the first time

Than it is to add them to an older website where adding the code is far more complicated based on the code which is already in use for the website.

jmtcw,

Lynn

---

Lynn - I understand that - but Etsy has been around a long time and I have no problem writing a description and then hitting submit. Other web sites have been around as long as Ebay - and I haven't seen the problem on them because they have a competent IT Dept that makes the necessary changes.

[zamo-zuan]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

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@18704d wrote:

Even if you simply type in a text description,

you need to check it through the Mobile friendly checker.

If you don't your long sentences won't fit to various screen sizes.

Viewers on different devices won't get clean breaks at the edge of their screen.

And why doesn't eBay automatically do this?

I imagine it's a coding thing.

It's easier for a new website, which is writing new code for their website

to get all these buttons and whistles in place, the first time

Than it is to add them to an older website where adding the code is far more complicated based on the code which is already in use for the website.

jmtcw,

Lynn

---

Lynn - I understand that - but Etsy has been around a long time and I have no problem writing a description and then hitting submit. Other web sites have been around as long as Ebay - and I haven't seen the problem on them because they have a competent IT Dept that makes the necessary changes.

---

That's the price of outsourcing the teams and being so separated from the eBay staff that they can only contact the IT team through email... 😐

[tunicaslot]

I don't use templates - I know I should - but never got into templates so that's on me - but it's been years now and as I've said before - other sites have no problem despite being around almost as long as Ebay .