eBay Makes Big Changes in 2017 Fall Seller Release

by: Bidonmine

I sell collectible paper and I always have a good photo and include a watermark to prevent theft. It is so easy for a buyer to download my image from Ebay and print it out... I have done it with mine to see what it would look like and they print fine.... no need to buy! Without the ability to add a watermark, I will move all those to another site (in addition to my own website).... UNLESS, Ebay sets up the listing photos so that they cannot be downloaded.

by: Bidonmine

I will still use ebay for some items.... Over the last 10 years, I have gone from 5,000 listings to less than 100 (plenty of 'Rivers' out there for selling).

by: Chicago48

Honestly, I have to wait for the changes to hit me.  I'm not feeling anything different than what it was a year or so ago.

by: Chicago48

I would love to see some statistics such as the number of Ebay store owners in the last five years.  Has the number gone up, or is it going down.  It's hard to judge what these changes are doing or how they're effecting sales until we see some stats.

by: eBay Shill Buster

Hey Chicago, eBay stores are being closed in record numbers, they are not going to release that data to the public.

As far as downloading photos from the web, no one needs to download them, all one needs to do is take a screenshot of them, the only thing you can do to protect original designs is publish your photos in very low resolution.

by: Chicago48

@ Ebay shill, there has to be data out there for the public.  Maybe in their public reports?

by: eBay Shill Buster

You don't need that, just read their forums and all the slow sales threads of the last 3 years, sellers are downgrading and closing stores, many are being suspended for not paying fees, so in many cases they have no choice but to quit selling once that happens.

by: maxmad

More of the same old 'who cares' nonsense, I  won't be changing anything  and as for removing  watermarks, ha ha too funny let them spend their dwindling resources to find them.  

by: uffdahhh

We have over 42,000 vintage postcards that we rotate on eBay, each with 2 scans that include watermarks.  That would be 84,000 images that would have to be re-scanned and uploaded to each listing after deleting the prohibited watermarked scans.  Let's say each listing takes 5 minutes to correct - that would take us 437 eight hour days to fix (42,000 listings x 5 minutes = 210,000 minutes = 3,500 hours). Probably would be faster to just start over from scratch.  Are you kidding me!

We added watermarks to keep people from simply copying the historical postcards, many of which are one of a kind.  It is also not fair for someone that has bought a unique 100 year old postcard to see that others have simply copied the image and reproduced them.  We get several requests a year to sell someone a scan of one of our postcards (without the watermark) but we have always refused, since it would not be fair to the eventual purchaser of the original.

Many unique items, including paintings, photographs, and postcards, should be allowed to protect their items from being copied.  At the very least, at least ''grandfather'' all listings that have already been uploaded to eBay.

by: eBay Shill Buster

eBay has morons at the top handing down edicts to sellers, they don't care how much work it takes, hell they clowns are pulling down millions of listings themselves that sellers paid big money to put up.

It is just a matter of time now, Devin is a dead man walking, he has handed down to many  moronic policies in his short times as CEO and programs that are causing sellers to leave the marketplace, this is just another one for another day for the dummy.

by: Jeffery

Please explain the new "product identifier requirements for Refurbs and Used goods".

by: steveylang

"You can refund up to 50% of the item price if the returned item is damaged or missing parts"...right until the buyer files a claim, and EBay refunds them the entire purchase price.

by: BuildingMyOwnSite

For those of you (like me) that watermark.
And for those that are saying, ''Go ahead, let Ebay search for them''
Well, Google is already doing it.

https://thenextweb.com/google/2017/08/18/google-watermark-s
tock-photo-remove/#.tnw_TcrFlLEB

by: eBay Shill Buster

Sellers confirm Devin is an extreme moron time and time again, the guy will not give up his idea of Seller Hub because his scheme is to use it to sell his highly fraudulent promoted listings to sellers.

 http://community.ebay.com/t5/Seller-Hub/New-quot-My-eBay-quot-Up
dated-Site-quot-Worst-Ever-Seen-quot/m-p/27444943#M12978

by: bb6

@uffdahhh I am in the same boat. Not going back and doing 10s of thousands of images over again. I'm also not throwing up these images so others can steal, reproduce and undercut me on pricing without doing any of the work. It's the whole point of what a watermark is! Ebay obviously doesn't care about our intellectual property rights on images, they overlooked this because all they care about is having unmarked images for their catalog that they can some day sell to someone else. As with all their rules they used a blanket rule and it doesn't work with certain categories or certain items.

by: Chicago48

@ paul: I think eBay has already been promoting listings with guaranteed delivery.   I opted in a few weeks ago (the one-day shipping option) and my sales are significantly up since then.
^^
I still don't know what guaranteed delivery means.  If you offer it for one-day shipping option, do you mean "fedex" overnight or usps overnight?  Doesn't the buyer pay extra s/h for those services?

by: Chicago48

This is what guaranteed delivery states:
To offer the Handling time option you have to:

have a seller rating at or above standard
guarantee 0-1 day handling time
offer returns and eBay labels  (What's an EB label?)
sell items with immediate payment (no Auctions?)
state a specific carrier service in your listings, not a generic service (no more economy shipping?)
specify an item location for your listings, with a postal code

So in order to use the guaranteed delivery, the item cannot be listed as auction and bid on?  Because you know, some bidders take fuhever to pay....is that the reason?  
My generic delivery service is "economy" even though I ship priority mail.  I'm not going to make a promise of priority mail and get the buyer's expectations high, when the post office takes 7 days to deliver priority mail.

I'm not changing a thing.

by: lisapar

Regarding watermarks, I'm going to come to Ebay's defense (which I never do).  I have read that Google Shopping is forcing retailers to eliminate any traces of watermarks/trademarks or text from any and all images.  I don't know the reasoning behind this push, but whatever Google wants, Google gets.

http://bit.ly/2fAkZs2

Do I agree with this rule?  Absolutely NOT. I also painstakingly take images of my product, which have been casually ''borrowed'' by competitors.  So, I started putting watermarks on them to protect my property.  Now, I will have no recourse should a competitor ''lift'' my image.
All bow down to the Google King.

by: Chicago48

You gotta assume that the steps and changes that Ebay is making is due to Google or some other search engine requirements.

by: Rexford

ySirTinLee, you are absolutely right.  ecrater lets you run your own show.  It is the answer to all of eBay's heavy handed policies.  My sales are good there, but I don't know why more eBay sellers are buying and selling there.

Of course the ecrater haters are sure to weigh in saying the same thing that they say every time someone says something good about ecrater.