eBay Active Content Ban Could Impact Claims

by: Frank F

Yep, And I wonder what is up with the replacement for Turbolister. Its to be retired in June, and we hear CRICKETS from ebay... Many of us have 1000s of seasonal listings stored in Turbolister and need a mechanism to move them to a new tool. Can you imagine sellers losing all the hard work they put in to creation 100s of thousands of listings..

And ebay STILL only has a 3 month retention on listings in its seller hub. Simply ridiculous and Ina, this is worthy of an article too!

by: Marie

Frank

We've actually chatted about TL quite a few times here.  According to Ebay they will not take TL away before they have the Seller Hub ready to take over.  If history serves as an indicator, it won't be ready on time.

With that said, I'm not sure why anyone would be waiting for the Seller Hub to be ready as it won't retain listing and multiple templates like you can currently do in TL.

You may want to consider a 3rd party program.  I have to pick one too as I'm not willing to work with only a 3 month history.  

Some of the alternatives I've found are:

Six Bit
https://www.sixbitsoftware.com/

Ink Frog
https://www.inkfrog.com/

Auctiva
https://www.auctiva
.com/

Auction Wizard
http://www.auctionwizard2000.com/

Wonder Lister
http://www.wonderlister.com/

by: eXtinctBay

I had a phone call about this active listings ban yesterday, and an e-mail followed with more information.

Seems the ban on active content is mostly in place to optimize listings for mobile.

Included in the e-mail was an ''I-Ways Checker'' tool. They expect you as a seller to punch in each item number to see if each listing is OK. And ''this may take up to one minute''.

With many, many listings, I just do not have a couple of days to do this.

As the only tool I use is Auctiva, and they state their products are active content free & mobile friendly, everything should be ok come June.

Not to sound negative here, but those of us who have used eBay since the beginning know that there are problems when anything to the site is changed. Just stating the facts.

by: Scotty

Why do the majority of ''changes'' negatively impact ''sales'' and not the other way around?  It is always how this or that could negatively affect views, sales, feedback, etc.  Never have they put out announcements or ''solutions'' that they will actually speak about in a ''positive'' pro-sales tone or spin.  Even the slightly positive leaning press releases have caviats that lean more negative than positive.  And...anything wordsmithed to sound positive is usually a blatant lie.  This company has things incredibly backwards.

by: abprules
Web Site

Here is a link to an active content checker for all of our items. Maybe that will help.
http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ActiveContentScanner.htm

by: Frank F

Hey Marie, Yes, a 3rd party tool is fine, but what about porting all the stored listings out of Turbolister?! That's my biggest concern is not losing all the hard work putting into seasonal listings, listings that I am out of stock on, etc. I don't think that can be done via 3rd party tools and ebay has said they would provide this functionality and a long list of other functions in seller hub but still we have nothing, nada!

And I recently saw a post on the facebook page, and they said no update but that Turbolister will be retired in June. They would provide no details on all the various functionality that sellers have indicated are required, and especially the ones that RETAIN all the listing we have created and have stored in TL.. And I messaged the guy that posted the questions, and he told me that the ebay business page actually had the nerve to block him as he kept asking (in a professional way) for answers and kept getting the canned NO ANSWER from ebay... So unprofessional of ebay to do this to a customer!

And they said they would have longer retention in Seller hub, BUT here we are nearly a year later and its STILL 90 days..

Something smells real fishy here if you ask me!

by: Scotty

Thanks abprules....ran the scanner and I can see Auctiva has not done anything yet as all my listings use their templates and counter...every listing shows positive for active content.  Have tried many times to get a straight answer from Auctive as to when/how/bulk(?) tool, etc. Non-answers received.  This will be a BIG problem if they do not run a fix.

by: Scotty

@ eXtinctebay:
I use Auctiva as well.  I have been trying to get an answer for a while now as to the removal of active content, particularly from their templates.  I cannot get a committed answer as to whether this will be a one-by-one tool or a bulk tool to clean up my listings.  The actual answer from CS was: ''I will have to wait and see''.  This is the verbatim answer.  What kind of answer this is I have no idea.  If you run the bulk evaluation tool above mentioned by abprules, you will see if your listings are ready or not.  I have Auctiva listed items and every one of them is showing not ready (i.e. the active content still remains).  Auctiva really needs to be more pro-active in regards to advising their CUSTOMERS (!) as to the status and THEIR ACTUAL PLAN in this regard....with dates, outcomes, etc.  As of today, this has not happened and the clock is ticking.  My point is, do not assume all is well since you use Auctiva...it is actually quite the opposite at this point.

by: Marie

@frank

Some if not all of them offer that.  Just go to their site and read up on each one so you can make an informed decision about which one will work best for your needs.

Ebay has always missed deadlines for big projects.  It's nothing new.  But they won't retire TL until they have what they think is a replacement for it.  

by: Groucho

As the deadline for the Turbo Lister replacement draws near there will probably be a press release that the guy at Ebay in charge of the project has suddenly resigned - a la Hugh Williams and the Cassini (supposed) search engine.

Its pretty clear that the something that was actually useful isn't very high on Ebay's list of priorities. They would rather focus on trivial things like active content.

by: wackymacs

Disabled Java Script, tried to sign onto eBay and unable to do so. The reason: "You must have Java Script to use eBay". Maybe, I'm missing something.

by: Groucho

You're not missing anything wackymacs. It's a typical eBay TRAP.
Not dissimilar to eBay saying that our customers want the most popular brands and then having a VERO department to punish you when you actually try to sell the most popular brands.

by: Ming the Merciless

@Marie

"But they won't retire TL until they have what they think is a replacement for it. "

And you know this how?

by: Gemz

Do you want to know the REAL reason why they are retiring active listings? Here's why... Over the course of the last year, ebay has been making obscene amounts of money on it's click advertising. Some times there are as many as 12 different ads running on the same page. This obviously puts a drain on resources on the pc that is being fed this from ebay. Now, add some active content and you slow it down even more. Sometimes to the point where people abandon their search and go elsewhere. Of course they track all this and more. This isn't just for the mobile user but hey, they have to hang their hat on some reason so lets say that the reason is due to the mobile users, then lets add that 50% of the traffic on ebay is mobile traffic and that they have to stop this heinous act perpetrated by us sellers using active content to display 30 seconds of video or a map where we have sold to in the last day! Let's not even give a flip about the 12 flash marketing ads with animated gifs and little games stuck in the ads as the culprit for this slow down! If we monetize them both, the ads win out every time since not every customer to view an auction will make ebay money but every customer to an ebay auction gets force fed the ads which makes them plenty! So I say to ebay... Take out half the ads and allow us to keep active content! You want to speed up mobile, that will more than do it!  

by: Marie

@ming

It wouldn't matter what I'd say.  You wouldn't like it and list all the reasons why I'm wrong.  So I prefer just to skip that part.

Either you believe they will or you believe they won't.  There is no up side for Ebay to close the program before they have something to replace it or should I say something they consider replaces it.  

So whether they will or they won't, time will tell.

by: ignatz

I could have sworn that in their early pronouncements on this, eBay said that simple links to a youtube video would continue to work.  Yet now, in their simple-minded world view, they decide that a link to a video is ACTIVE content?

eBay should FIRE their entire IT staff.  They would be no worse off for it, and save some money to boot.

by: Bidonmine

Seems to me that, If Ebay wanted you to be able to use Youtube videos, they could easily set it up. Just have their active filter content not block the Youtube.com base address.

by: toyman

For Ink Frog users, it's pretty simple. There is a spot under Tools, with a button to Turn On or Turn Off Active Content.

If you can't find it, email the help desk. They will send out easy to follow directions. I did it a couple weeks ago.

by: Ming the Merciless

@Marie

That was what lawyers call a non responsive response.

Since you're either unable or unwilling to reveal how you "know" ebafia will roll out a FUNCTIONAL alternative to TurboLister, the implication to me is that you really don't "know."

by: Bill

Ming:

Amen!