eBay to Hide Nonstandard-Size Apparel Listings

by: etectra

"missing size values, and/or condition values"

COMPLETE MORONS!

The size in the 1950s never sworn shirt I sold for $600+ has NOTHING TO DO with today's sizes. People were physically smaller on average due to various issues such as health care, food, lifestyle and so on. Although some people in Japan would buy the item an wear it as a status symbol, it was being sold as a collectible and it went to a private museum run by a company that reproduces vintage clothing.

Many antique clothing items have no size tags, such as the Civil War era dresses sold at a era auction.

Clothing also varies due alterations. These alterations, even though done by hand, look like they have factory sewn seams.

Clothing can also cab be altered by laundering.

Sizes and tailoring styles also vary among manufacturers and countries.

Measurements listed in listings are also likewise a total waste of time as they do no account for the depth of the person wearing them and the styling of the piece of clothing. When you go to a tailor does the tailor lay the clothing flat on the ground and measure it or do they put the clothing on you?

Condition is totally meaningless since generic terms mean different things to different people. The only thing that matters is that you provide a detail list of condition issues and let the buyer decide if its value matches what you are asking. But of course eBay wants a quick sale based on generic conditions as opposed to having the buyer waste time actually reading the detail condition since if the seller gets ripped off eBay still makes its commission. If condition is so important eBay how come you are hiding the condition on mobile devices by default and only showing a few sentences which are grabbed by random from the description area (including the seller's TOS)?

by: Shanna

I sometimes find really large shoe sizes at discount stores. Men's shoes only go to size 20, what happens if I want to sell a size 22?

by: Rexford

These idiots don't even have a size "33" (waist) for men's pants in their presets and there is no way to add one.

by: lstreeter

Because ebay doesn't care about people selling vintage clothing.  They only want people selling brand new with tag items from this era.  It is becoming clear that ebay is not going to be the standard for us vintage sellers going forward.  

by: BlueDenim

It would be nice if they could exclude vintage clothing from this new rule. I have so many pieces labeled a size; but the measurements make it clear that the garment may runs bigger or smaller for various reasons.  

by: etectra

Another major issue about selling vintage American clothing is that eBay refuses to block international buyers.

Yeah sure, some people from Japan do pay big bucks for American clothing, especially if it unworn, that they intend to wear as a status symbol, but such sales are far less safe.

eBay lets them use freight forwarding companies to get around block son their country.

eBay also lets buying agents purchase items on their behalf. Some of these buying agents have established a physical address, even a empty rented suite, so they can appear to be within the U.S. as well as using a U.S. based payment system. But the shipping address of a freight forwarder always gives them away.

To get around the seller investigating the shipping address on Google I suspect some of these buying agents have resorted to instead having items shipped to a UPS box near the freight forwarder thus it may be a good idea to ban UPS and similar private postal boxes.

eBay of course will tell you to sell to such buyers as private freight forwarder addresses mean they are not covered by eBay buyer protection. That is a lie by omission as all they need to do if file a claim with their credit card company and / or their bank and / or their payment processor (PayPal) as this trumps any eBay buyer protection or any eBay decisions. Of course any old timer eBay can tell you that eBay violates its own TOS so in fact it can also be covered by buyer protection.