MAJOR eBay 3rd Party Hosted Images Issue - Relisting can break listing.

[atavium]

I just made a post in Seller Tools. That was before I saw there was a Developer Forum.

Perhaps someone can help me figure this out. Does the API provide a way to change the 3rd party host for the images on a listing?

I listed thousands of items using CSV and by populating the picURL on the listings. I can not find a way to change this.

When I relist my items, eBay tries to point the images back to the 3rd party host despite eBay's system copying over the images. When the item lists with a 3rd party, eBay's systems will copy over the images to their servers. I always noticed this, and I assumed that eBay would continue to host the pictures for the listing. But when the item gets relisted, it then resets back to the original URL.

It doesn't make sense. eBay should continue to point the listing to the new photos on their servers. This is likely causing eBay to create an insane amount of duplicate images on their servers, since each time a listing that had a 3rd party listing photo is relisted, the images are copied over again.

I discovered this because I had accidently deleted the photos I had on my AWS S3. Thousands of listings broke.

I do not want to use a 3rd party hosting service for my listings if this is going to be the case. Would there be a way using the API to update these listings quickly so the images are permanently on eBay's servers?

If anyone has any thoughts or advice, it would be appreciated.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Seller-Tools/MAJOR-eBay-3rd-Party-Hosted-Images-Issue/m-p/34859561#M47...

[sara9-2463]

I understand how frustrating this issue must be, especially with thousands of listings affected. It sounds like a complex problem with eBay's handling of third-party hosted images.

From what I found, eBay's API does provide a way to upload images directly to their servers using the UploadSiteHostedPictures call. This way, you can ensure that the images are stored on eBay's servers rather than relying on a third-party host1. Here's a brief overview of how you can use this API call:

Upload Images to eBay: Use the UploadSiteHostedPictures call to upload images directly to eBay's Picture Service (EPS). This will store the images on eBay's servers.

Update Listings: After uploading, update your listings with the new URLs provided by eBay. This ensures that the images are hosted on eBay's servers and not on a third-party host.

[atavium]

I am new to using the API but I believe I will end up doing this.

Thank you.

I had an ebay staff reply and they say the listings should be copied to ebays servers, though. So there seems to be a discrepancy between how it should work and how it currently does.

[atavium]

@sara9-2463 thank you for your message. I didn't see this when you posted it.

I tried to use the ebay UploadSiteHostedPictures call. I am not able to store full size images.
eBay has a maximum of 1600x1600px, yet when I upload there, they are about half that size and significantly worse quality. 
I did a search and I was able to find other people on sites like Quora report this issue.