Where is the Promised Update on the Missing Photos?

[threshold.sales.group]

Sellers were promised an update on the status of the missing photo disaster, but it's been at least a week of silence.  Photos have huge impact on sales and returns - plus the time invested. In my opinion to not give the effected sellers an update with ebay's plan for the helping them move forward is a separate scandal. Is this the sort of customer service ebay would expect their sellers to give?  

[silverngold]

Pictures remain missing-eg 372057155320 now only has the first photo-all others have vanished. Sometimes, when I've checked over the past few days, there is no photo at all. ("Seller hasn't uploaded any photos").    In addition,  the listing appears twice-one as "sponsored" and one directly under it (same ID) with different specs.  We have no sponsored listings.  I just had a buyer write saying she can't enlarge what is the one photo left on this listing (that should be the only problem!) . It is VERY time consuming to get decent shots of jewelry due to the shine factor, and we have hundreds of listings that now may or may not have complete sets of photos.  I'm sure I'm not the only seller who does not have days to identify all of the listings affected, re-do all of the pictures, then revise all of said listings. Clearly our sales are impacted, yet we're paying rent for a store. Understand that mistakes happen, but this serious problem is ongoing and I think the sellers affected really deserve at least the courtesy of an update.     

[caspianpearl]

Last week "Selling Reminders" identified 30 listings of ours that were not meeting the picture requirements. Suggested we use bulk edit to upload more photos. On all the items every pic except for the Gallery Pic had been deleted. So we went through and fixed each one re-photographing in order to put back the photos that had dissapeared. All fixed. The reminder went away. 

Now today again, we just noticed eBay has identified 29 listings that are not meeting the photo req's. Only have gallery pics. These are different from the last batch. So are photos still dissapearing? The glitch is still happening.... And the onus is on us to re-do the work we already did?

I am furious

[okie1304]

Upon my 5th call regarding missing images beginning around May 26th, Customer Support gave me a eta of July 13th, if not sooner, as it is a "high priority" .  So, even though I had grave doubts of a fix happening at all, I will hold off my comments until tomorrow.  We all know it is going to happen and in fact it is getting worse now affecting my templates in Seller Manager Pro Inventory.  The thought of editing over 1300 listings is not only daunting but more than likely near impossible, since the bulk editor is also not working and will not save any changes to my templates.

[threshold.sales.group]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I'm your same boat. I found almost 200 listings missing all but the gallery photo. Google had cached about 70%, but rebuilding the listings is at least a full week of work and the quality of the images will suffer.  The listing as is will be more likely to have returns, which now count against sellers and due to only one image will drop in ranking.   

I think many of us here use multiple quality photos as a competitive advantage, investing large amounts or time into it, so this is an important issue. No ordinary glitch. The total lack of communication and follow through on the issue is disappointing, especially when sellers are (correctly) held to a high standard. 

[dauniquesllc]

I was told that the missing pictures were permantly gone and when I asked how I was going to be compensated they reimbursed my store fee for that month. I did get that credit. I wasn't affected much by it but I know other sellers were. Message Ebay for Business on Facebook and ask how you will be compsated for lost time and $$!

[shipscript]

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@silverngold wrote:

...I'm sure I'm not the only seller who does not have days to identify all of the listings affected, re-do all of the pictures, then revise all of said listings.

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The "Fast Scan" option on this tool will help you identify affected listings:

http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/BulkPhotoScanner.htm

Those with zero or one photo are likely affected.

Instructions on identifying affected listings can be found here, along with suggestions on how to retrieve photos from Google if you do not have backup photos on your own computer:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Replacing-Active-Content/Find-Listings-that-are-missing-photos/td-p/28...

I have found that I can process about 100 listings in two hours, retrieving a dozen photos or URLs per listing from Google.  Not the best use of time, but might be faster than reshooting items if the pictures can be retrieved from Google caches.

We still don't know if eBay can accomplish restoration on their own, but if they can't, every day we do not retrieve photos from a Google cache means we are less likely to find them on Google because they do tend to update their caches.  If you don't have any backup photos, I urge you to grab them from Google while you can, unless reshooting them is your backup plan.

[okie1304]

UPDATE:  My missing images issue began May 24th and continue to today. I got a service tag on call number 3 and have been checking for a "FIX" ever since. At one point CS told me the fix would occur BY July 13th...NOT!  I called yesterday and received this news...the good news (if that is ever the case on Ebay) is the glitch has been fixed BUT, the bad news, they cannot go back and add the photos as they promised me 😞 I have 1300+ listings to correct now.  So be prepared to have a lot of "homework". CS was very apologetic and even told me to call them if I need to if only for emotional support.  When I asked about compensation, they gave me 3 months of an upgraded store where I will get 1000 free listings for 3 months, this is over and above the 1000 free listings I already get with my store subscription. Not what I had in mind but better than nothing.  Ebay has lost our pictures url's so they cannot restore my listings at all.

NOTE: I was previously told that since I had a service tag #, I would get an email when the issue was fixed....NO email from Ebay...no surprise. So if you are in the same boat call and get compensated don't let them off the hook!

[threshold.sales.group]

7/17  - Wondering if sellers can get a promised update on the missing pictures?   Could eBay staff not just acknowledge "glitches" but explain how they plan to correct the situation for impacted sellers?

[terrycanarsky]

Just noticed we have missing photos on a few GTC listings, mostly secondary and tertiary photos, but some are the primary pictures.  Can't tell how many at this point (over 8000 listings), but any gone at all is problematic.

alan@ebay, tyler@ebay, brian@ebay.com - any updates available?   (sorry, not sure which of you - if any - haunt this board)

~M

[dtddude]

Does anyone have a way to sort listings based on # of photos?  I have 4500 listings and slogging through the listings 500 at a time, and then having everything scroll up in the window when you get to a false bottom is just crazy.  I've spent hours evaluating 1000 listings and still not done.  We need a tool to easily identify what listings has the missing picture disease.  

[bauble-babes]

Here's a fix posted in another thread:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Replacing-Active-Content/Find-Listings-that-are-missing-photos/m-p/286...

[shipscript]

@dtddude

Ask and ye shall receive....

As @bauble-babes posted, this thread has instructions and a link to a tool that will scan through all your listings and then provide a report sorted in the order of number of photos. 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Replacing-Active-Content/Find-Listings-that-are-missing-photos/td-p/28...

[past_and_present_2000]

We have 8000 listings and 100's of them missing photos many off them all photos not even main photo, we get a lot of ebay messages accuse as for be lazy and not posting more photos, I have stopped responding to these massages because people do not understand that eBay has problems

[catherbrownbooks]

I have been diligently trying to update my listings re: new return window (14 to now 30 days; it seems only a few years I had to update everything from 7 to 14 days!) AND old http links (even though ALL of those links were to ebay itself). I too am finding many, many old photos missing! In most cases the primary photo remains but all secondary photos - which help describe an item to a buyer - are gone. So now I'm having to deal with that = deciding if the one photo is enough or whether I need to go pull an old shelved item and make additional, time-consuming scans. Very frustrating. Given their lack of ability to solve serious technical problems in a timely matter, what is ebay's future going to be like?