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Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.
dumb dumb dumb
The concerning phrase is “content already available across the web is exactly opposite of what a seller might want. Would eBay AI find and use seller-generated listings and seller-defined constraints? Where does AI come in? Would it format descriptions from catalogs, seller templates, seller condition attributes? Could it format descriptions, and fit titles into 80 characters guided by older seller-listings?
While speculative, it is safe to assume that AI recommendations using data from a single account would provide better results than useless eBay recommendations. Limiting scope to a single account would enable sellers to identify important keys like catalog numbers, and condition attributes that influence selling prices. AI could also identify potential pricing errors. A general-purpose AI engine from eBay would be unlikely to find useful correlations unless numeric catalog numbers can be differentiated from prices and other numeri strings that produce so many spurious search results on eBay. Item specifics like color or denomination must be unbounded instead limited to a small list.
Not long ago, eBay recommended changing the color item specific of a “red orange” stamp to “orange” for better “visibility”. Will seller credibility be sacrificed by eBay AI?
“less time on creating listings and more on growing and managing your business.””
You can manage yourself to death if your listing is bad. Just another stupid trend to make every listing the same, every seller the same. The “growing and managing” your business then simply comes to who can offer the lowest price. That’s all there is.