What's with buyers who don't read?

[movieman630]

2 times in the last 24 hours I've had potential buyers email me with questions asking me things that I clearly state in the listing descriptions.  There's no confusion about it either, my descriptions are clear and concise. 

I'm starting to wonder if maybe there's something wrong with our listing description blocks not being clearly shown to buyers. 

Is anyone noticing this trend?  Does anyone know why a person might not see the description and ask such obvious questions?  Does it have to do with people seeing things on the mobile app?  Did they change something again?

[inhawaii]

It's always  been like that.  

[a_c_green]

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@movieman630 wrote:

I don't know what you mean by don't use HTML.  What is that and what does it mean?  All I do is enter info into the description box.

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@movieman630 : Hyper Text Markup Language. It's basically the hidden commands in your text description that give it its shape and form: fonts, size, color, formatting, paragraphs, links, etc.

[fbusoni]

This is some of the gobbledygook that has to be processed / waded through for your listing description to display.

There is a reason eBay advises plain text.   Google also prefers plain text. 

 

[stainlessenginecovers]

The latest layout (layouts) for the past 4+ years has put the Written Description so far down the page that MOST don't know it's there, or don't know it's there Anymore (where it USED to be, right BELOW the pictures)..

Now, there's 'other items' 'sponsored items' 'like items you've looked at' and even Worse! if you sell 'auto parts, the 'fitment chart is ALSO above it.

Bottom line- it's the layout. 

[714ricki]

A big reason is the mobile app where the item description is a bit hidden if you don't click the correct link.

[iamalwaysright]

I didn't read any of the replies yet. But it's not that buyers don't know how to read, but rather they don't want to read. There's a big difference.

Having said that and I'd hate to say this but in the buyers defense, ebay has made it harder and harder and harder for buyer's to see the listing description. Just look at all the countless ads that are in the listing page: above, below, to the left, to the right, in between, etc etc. It's a jumbled up mess. A Where's Waldo page for finding the actual listing description. Even on a seller's store page ebay included that dumb pop up page that's an extra step for you to go see the actual listing page with description.

Hey ebay! Tell me you don't want buyers to see the listing description without actually saying you don't want buyers to see the listing description.

[movieman630]

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@iamalwaysright wrote:

I didn't read any of the replies yet. But it's not that buyers don't know how to read, but rather they don't want to read. There's a big difference.

Having said that and I'd hate to say this but in the buyers defense, ebay has made it harder and harder and harder for buyer's to see the listing description. Just look at all the countless ads that are in the listing page: above, below, to the left, to the right, in between, etc etc. It's a jumbled up mess. A Where's Waldo page for finding the actual listing description. Even on a seller's store page ebay included that dumb pop up page that's an extra step for you to go see the actual listing page with description.

Hey ebay! Tell me you don't want buyers to see the listing description without actually saying you don't want buyers to see the listing description.

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It's not that people mean things literally, it's just sarcasm or hyperbole.

[fbusoni]

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@iamalwaysright wrote:

Hey ebay! Tell me you don't want buyers to see the listing description without actually saying you don't want buyers to see the listing description.

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I wonder what is the ratio (a) of sales eBay loses to buyers who cannot find the information about a listing that they are looking for, to (b) sales that are generated because of intrusive and extraneous ads that clutter up the listing page. 

I'd also love to know how many buyers decide to pop over to Amazon, never to return to eBay because this site is such a PITA to navigate.

[lux.ra_14]

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@iamalwaysright wrote:

I didn't read any of the replies yet. But it's not that buyers don't know how to read, but rather they don't want to read. There's a big difference.

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"The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read." -- Mark Twain.

[iamalwaysright]

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@fbusoni wrote:

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@iamalwaysright wrote:

Hey ebay! Tell me you don't want buyers to see the listing description without actually saying you don't want buyers to see the listing description.

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I wonder what is the ratio (a) of sales eBay loses to buyers who cannot find the information about a listing that they are looking for, to (b) sales that are generated because of intrusive and extraneous ads that clutter up the listing page. 

I'd also love to know how many buyers decide to pop over to Amazon, never to return to eBay because this site is such a PITA to navigate.

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I'll add to that (c) eBay sales that resulted in a return or SNAD and never re-bought because the item doesn't fit the buyer and the size chart was totally lost in the item description that the buyer never saw. This is why I include the size chart as a photo in my listing.

[iart]

I think it's people on their phones. They ave to scroll around to find the description and often think all you've posted is a photo.

The problem is that if you note that the info is in the description, they seem to get embarrassed that they missed it and don't buy.

[iamalwaysright]

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@movieman630 wrote:

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@movieman630 wrote:

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@movieman630 wrote:

Does anyone know why a person might not see the description and ask such obvious questions?  Does it have to do with people seeing things on the mobile app? 

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Your listing template forces me to scroll a scroll bar within the listing to see the entire description, rather than just scrolling the screen. That is a definitely not the case with 99% of the listings I look at and I found it irritating. 

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I wonder why ebay did that.  It never used to work like that.  I've seen peoples descriptions that were chapters long and I never had to scroll in their description block.  It usually just displays.  Did they recently change this?

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I do not think eBay did this. I think it is a function of the HTML inside the OP's listing template.

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Do you know how I might remove this code?  Has anyone else had experience with this in the description block?

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YES. Ebay has been doing this to me for years now. I've been trying to figure it out for so long as I just gave up awhile ago. I feel that this deserves it's own thread. Do you use a 3rd party lister? If so, what is it? When I first noticed this I contacted ebay about this back then and not to my surprise they didn't know anything about it and just blamed the 3rd party lister. I looked thru the html for something that would cause this embedded scrollbar but found nothing. The 3rd party CS also told me the code shouldn't cause an embedded scrollbar.

But I also found and noticed a few interesting things about this. Not sure if it's still valid or behaves the same way now because it's been so long since I tinkered with this.

-Ebay didn't do this to all my listings, only selected ones which is still a significant amount. I'd say well over 50%. But pretty much all of my listings follow the same HTML code template. All I really change is the displayed text itself. The format and layout is exactly the same, yet ebay only does it to selected ones. 

-When I would go to revise these listings and just cut and paste the exact same HTML code, sometimes that would fix and remove the scrollbar. Sometimes it didn't.

-Sometimes when my 3rd party imports a listing to ebay and it becomes live, the listing won't show the scrollbar. Then shortly after the scrollbar would suddenly appear on it's own in the listing when I revisit it or refresh the page. 

-Even now when I click onto a listing that has the scrollbar, I notice when I'm scrolling to the description that the listing will NOT have the scrollbar for a split second then it will just pop in there as I'm scrolling down on the browser's scrollbar. For a listing that doesn't have the scrollbar, I'd scroll down and see the embedded scrollbar appear for a split second then remove itself as I scroll down the page. Not sure if this has to do with how some pages can load itself more slowly than usual. 

-This last one is hazy as I don't 100% recall this happening. I think it used to do this before but I'm too lazy to try and replicate the issue. If you refresh the page over an over sometimes you'll see the listing have this embedded scrollbar and sometimes you won't. It might also differ depending on the device or browser you are using to view the listing page from.

[gurlcat]

I used to get those alllll the time.  Then a few years ago I made this my Condition statement right at the top of every listing 



and I don't think I have had a single question about a Description-stated fact ever since then. My returns also dropped dramatically.  

[movieman630]

The irony is that ebay wants the site to appear more streamlined and professional, they don't want cluttered photos or bad titles but they hide the description where most of the info should be about the item.  If we have to put all the pertinent info into the title and photos the listings will look bad.  I'm already sick of seeing titles with a million abbreviations in them.  Not to mention the titles really don't give us enough space.  I think it's high time for another 100 characters in the titles.  I could put most important info in that title.

[winterpalace25]

Most people are shopping with their phones and the description can be hard to find.

I read on a forum that if you don't use formatting in your description, it appears in full. But if you use the formatting option, it is behind a click.

Also, I have noticed that with my phone the the condition box has disappeared and Condition just says new or used. This is why I prefer to do serious shopping on a laptop or desktop.