eBay

gopetersen · ‎08-08-2018

eBay is recruiting sellers for their new "Product-Based" format.

I don't know exactly what this means, but does it mean eBay sets up the product listing (with pics, etc.) and sellers have to "sign in" to the listing to sell their products (which will probably be sorted according to price)?

If I understand it correctly, sellers might only get a few characters to describe their product, won't be able to showcase their own pics, or do aything to distinguish themselves from other sellers.

Any thoughts on this?

ittybitnot · ‎08-09-2018

From the looks of the supplied list in the thread, it appears it is related to the other thread asking for voluteers to help ebay fix up their catalog for free.

You can find out lots of information about the new "enhancement" here:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Product-Catalog/bd-p/ProductCatalog

Basically it seems to be a mess. Similar listings are posted to a buy box like page, given a stock photo, and generic ebay generated title. The information lacks any particular information such as color, size, condition, etc. (See the posts about coins).

Some are unable to list without using the catalog information, even if it is wrong. The trend apparently is eventually make ALL search results display these pages instead of individual listings.

Some can list by omitting "new".

Some are finding that even if your listing is allowed to go live, ebay inserts the information at a later time anyway along with a stock photo that may or may not represent your item. You can "revise" only to have ebay revise back.

Items without a bar code are supposed to be assigned an ebay number (epid). They let this go live for a while, and it was interesting to stick something in the item specific box and watch your listing for a toaster morph into one for orange socks. That was indeed not ready for prime time.

Good luck with this.

You have been here long enough to know what happens when there are a lack of volunteers.

goodluckselling · ‎08-09-2018

@gopetersen wrote:
eBay is recruiting sellers for their new "Product-Based" format.

I don't know exactly what this means, but does it mean eBay sets up the product listing (with pics, etc.) and sellers have to "sign in" to the listing to sell their products (which will probably be sorted according to price)?

If I understand it correctly, sellers might only get a few characters to describe their product, won't be able to showcase their own pics, or do aything to distinguish themselves from other sellers.

Any thoughts on this?

GoPete I think eBay is taking a slightly different approach than what you described. ebay will assemble exact same items using unique identifiers, but instead of using just one picture and one description for all exact items they will show you a search result with all same items but each sellers picture and description will be used for there listing.

The idea eBay is moving to is to show buyers the exact same items with attributes like (condition, price, shipping costs, return policy, free shipping, item locations, etc) things that a buyer takes into consideration before they buy, then the buyer will click into a sellers listings from search result and buy it just like before.

I am not sure if eBay has any plans to change the listing page view or not, but the change seems to be all about showing the buyers the specific attributes of each seller right in the search result before the buyer clicks into any listing.

I assume they will have buy boxes like

Click here for sellers with free shipping for this item
Click here for sellers who ship today or immediately
Click here for top rated sellers of this item
Click here for sellers of this item that have returns

I do not know how many boxes but I assume eBay will have some filters like these.

Good Luck Selling!

gopetersen · ‎08-09-2018

Thanks, Goodluck, that's an interesting perspective on it.

What I envisioned, when I read their recruiting message, is a copycat of the way Amazon does it. Amazon supplies the listing and the photos and then sellers are on a separate page usually sorted by price (with lowest at the top).

Thus, a product-based listing (with stock photos) rather than seller based. But your answer makes it clear that there could be a number of ways of interpreting "product based".

I'm not planning to sign up as a beta tester but I did want to understand what direction eBay is heading.

Now I understand why eBay no longer wants us to watermark our listing pics. They probably want to take our pics and use them in their product catalog.

threshold.sales.group · ‎08-09-2018

Fwiw, product catalogs work well when the retailer and manufacturers have total control over what is in the distribution system. The manufacturer can then supply the retailer with the verified correct item attributes for the skus and both know exactly what's being offered for sale. The only reliable source of product catalog information is from the manufacturer or distributor of the item. There are product databases large retailers and vendors use to exchange item information. The data contained is verified multiple times for accuracy. Sourcing item data from anywhere else is going to result in an error filled catalog and cause chaos on the platform. That's the fatal flaw in ebay's catalog project.

gopetersen · ‎08-09-2018

threshold, I completely agree with you. Unfortunately, "accurate" "verifiable" doesn't characterize eBay's general approach to things.

Also, even if they did it that way, it wouldn't work for a high percentage of products on eBay. People come here for deals and for items they can't find anywhere else. Many of those "can't find anywhere else" items are vintage/antique/collectible and custom/personalized, and a product-based approach won't work for unique items.

If the new product-based approach buries the unique items (I don't know if it will, but it might), then there will be nothing to distinguish eBay from other big vendors like Amazon and Walmart.

goodluckselling · ‎08-09-2018

@gopetersen wrote:

Now I understand why eBay no longer wants us to watermark our listing pics. They probably want to take our pics and use them in their product catalog.

Could be that but many more reasons. I am fairly certain eBay does not want anything in photos is because google does not accept listing with this stuff in the photo. eBay has been buying a lot of google shopping ads for its sellers and the listings eBay submits for us to google shopping that have this in the picture get trunicated out.

About the cataloged shopping, I also assumed it would be much like Amazon until I really started looking at what eBay has done already and I see the path I mentioned as the direction they seem to be going in.

What we have to remember is that sellers will still need completed listings because of outside links coming in. Many sellers myself included do some of our own advertising and bring in buyers directly to our listing versus depending on the search engine for all our traffic.

Good Luck Selling!

gopetersen · ‎08-09-2018

I know that eBay told us to remove borders and text to conform to Google search parameters, but they continued to permit watermarks, as long as they were semi-transparent, but recently they have said that's not permitted either.

I'm not posting my pics on eBay without my watermarks. They earn obscene amounts of money. If they want to use them, they can pay me for my time and expertise.