Further to the Weekly Chat Session May 24th 2017

[femmefan1946]

As background, all of this has to do with building out our product catalogues to cover more and more of our inventory,

Just to clarify.

They may be eBay's product catalogues, but they are NOT eBay's inventory.

EBay is a venue, eh?

EBay does not sell anything and does not have inventory.

And once again, I missed the chat which started at 9 am and ended at 10 am.

Allowing questions to be uploaded the day before is helpful, though.

[strange*highways]

I was under the impression that sellers were required to show a photo of the actually item for sale and not allowed to use stock photos except for brand new items still in the box. So why would eBay maintain a product catalogue ? It doesn't make any sense.

[izzame]

Yes, when I read that I also said, excuse me. Since when had it become the sellers JOB to"building out our product catalogues"
I also agree, news flash to ebay ..... it's the sellers inventory and I have my own inventory catalogue thank you. Also why would a seller, that owns and has in their possession the said item, need bays cat. they have it right in front of them ..... the short of it ebay NEEDS our images and they are taking them period.

[momcqueen]

This is forcing me to re-evaluate being an ebay seller. It is a deal-breaker.

I won't allow my photos to be used to sell other people's merchandise.

I didn't spend thousands of hours depicting my items so that anyone can come along and steal them with ebay's blessing and encouragement. 

I advertise outside ebay and I'm tired of bringing new buyers here that I could be keeping for myself while having to continually make excuses for all the reasons ebay 'isn't so bad, just try it'. And now ebay wants to steal my photographs without my permission and give them to my competitors? Not bloody likely. 

If I stay here at all, I will be deleting all my photos from my listings so that no one on ebay will be allowed to use them, and I'll be moving my merchandise to my own site.

I'm confident I can sell as little as I do here on my own, without ebay's interference.

And without someone stealing from me.  

[silverpinups]

I totally agree. eBay's policy on this matter is basically **bleep** seller's of their images and hard work. 

But why would you bring potential customers to eBay? Keep them for yourself... eBay is a high profile selling platform that you can use to your advantage.

eBay isn't your friend, it's a multi-billion dollar profit based Corporation that's only goal is increasing their quarterly bottom line. 

[momcqueen]

Since I began selling online, I have always directed customers to my ebay store to browse my inventory and place their orders. I need an online presence but it certainly doesn't have to be ebay. I've been loyal but even my loyalty has its limits. When someone starts stealing from me, it's O-V-E-R. 

It's not like it's hard for an experienced seller to set-up an independent storefront. I have my thousands of images and all my Product Data which I entered myself without using ebay's stupid Product Catalogue. Once I migrate my inventory to my own store, I'll reduce what I have to sell here to whatever I can get for free. And my precious photos will be gone long before that. 

Buh-bye, ebay. You blew it. 

[femmefan1946]

I was under the impression that sellers were required to show a photo of the actually item for sale and not allowed to use stock photos except for brand new items still in the box.

I believe that this is an inventory of pictures of NIB items.

Or at any rate of new items.

Personally I dislike Stock Photos, and use my own even when Stock Photos are available.

I am willing to 'allow' sellers to use a mixture of their own pictures and stock photos-- for example a Stock Photo of the contents of a box as well as her own snapshots of her unopened box.

Most of my items are Used so I really don't have a dog in this race.

[thestuffofchris · Accepted solution]

I also prefer when sellers don't use stock photos. I like to be able to see the actual item itself in whatever condition it is in.

It still perplexes me that eBay does not allow sellers to opt-out of having their pictures being used for the product catalogue. If someone is comfortable with it, let them have the choice to opt-in. If not, give sellers the option to say no. With so many users on eBay, I'm sure they can find enough sellers who would be willing to let eBay use their pictures while not taking from those who would rather keep their hard work to themselves.

eBay needs to give sellers the choice to make for themselves.

[momcqueen · Accepted solution]

I think eBay just doesn't want to be bothered having to check if the photo they want came from a seller who authorized its use. It's about the highest form of corporate laziness I can conjure. And due to the overwhelming we-don't-give-a-darn-how-you-feel-about-it, they'll be losing sellers who aren't willing to stand for such theft.

[cumos55]

The books category is an absolute mess when it comes to photos.... and other factors

Many sellers do not place photos in the listing, or put an image  that says  "Image not available"  or equivalent.

Then come the "fake" photos that  look like books, a mono-color  that says  this may not be,  or this is not  the cover of the book.

There is a total disregard for photo policy.....

and then comes a situation where a stock photo is used  for books in very good, good  or acceptable condition or ex-library books...

This then creates a violation of duplicate policy..... Use of the same stock photo regardless of condition of the book does not allow a potential buyer to "see" what is being sold...

There is a seller that had 11 listings of the same book on eBay....  

and now  two sellers have second ID's  where they can now list a duplicate and "Not" get reported.

Ridiculous pricing..... High priced books in the thousands of dollars,  with no photo, and then very little information about the book's content, or even condition....

The ultimate disregard to a buyer's desire for information about the book being sold is a situation where the seller puts a title, a stock photo and information from the catalogue... and then states

"The book a buyer receives may not be the one described in this listing"

Picture Policy... Duplicate policy violations... a total mess

[cumos55]

Many sellers do not want to take the time  to prepare a photo of what they are selling.

Do not want to buy a camera... or a scanner.....

Many do not know how to use a camera and then "edit" the photo.

I know of a seller ... most successful... and... has sold lots and lots of books on eBay and elsewhere on the internet... who refuses to list without a proper photo... Absolutely No stock photos

It can be done.... But....

Some sellers are just too lazy......  or do not understand the meaning of

"Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing"

[hlmacdon]

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@strange*highways wrote:

So why would eBay maintain a product catalogue ? It doesn't make any sense.

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The move aligns them with another major marketplace where sellers do not have rights over their images as well. As to why they are doing this, it relates to the reasons behind the SDI. The goal is to great a uniform product catalog so that items are correctly identified when listing and eventually item specifics like part numbers or UPC's are mapped accordingly. The end desire is to generate more listings for the site, and this is a move that is seen as making that easier while dovetailing nicely with the product catalog goals. With uniform listings It becomes much easier to implement things like product summary pages that simply direct the buyer to the lowest priced seller. With upcoming changes you'll see how this all ties together in terms of how a buyer discovers product on the site. Better images are not going to be a selling differentiator with those changes. Price and speed of delivery will be the relevant metrics to focus on.

Personally I'm not a fan of the move. The other marketplace is a clusteryouknowwhat when it comes to accuracy of images in the more extended portions of the catalog. EBay's charm as it were was to have a site where items and photos were mostly curated by the sellers. I'm sure this has driven some of the marketing folks there crazy as they strive to transition away from an online auction/garage place feel to a more traditional ecommerce marketplace/dropship feel. To me the move just further confuses the two businesses they have on the site. It makes sense in some categories or product types but no sense in others. Ebay in the past was an auction/garage sale with an uncomfortable traditional ecommerce site bolted on. Now the roles are reversing.

At the end of the day sellers have always built the ebay catalog, and this is just another example of free labor being capitalized upon. Discrepancies and inaccuracies that arise from this change will be dealt with how they have always been dealt with, buyer protection.

[reallynicestamps]

It can be done.... But....

Some sellers are just too lazy...

I've been trying to learn how to use photos on eBay, so far so bad.

But scanning flat things like books is so simple, 'too lazy' is the only reason for not doing it.

[melissasminis]

I sell mostly handmade items, so this probably doesn't bother me as much as some. I do, on the other hand, know how much time and effort it takes to take your own photos and uploading them. I am tired of ebay dictating to us what, when, where, how, and who. For new in the box items, maybe being able to use a stock photo is fine, but for any other item, there are many things that can go wrong with that. I know in the past I've tried to sell a couple new name brand items, and used a photo from the brand site, and ebay took my listings down because I violated the rules of not being allowed to use other company images, how is this situation any different? Because we are not large corporations. Not fair, I'm tired of being treated like a second class citizen. Ebay has to realize, they don't sell any actual products (except cheap but expensive shipping supplies), they sell a service, and when that service no longer serves people, their business with end up digging itself in a hole. Keep digging ebay.

[hlmacdon]

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@melissasminis wrote:

Ebay has to realize, they don't sell any actual products

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It is because they don't sell any actual products (shipping supplies are a third party licensing the branding as an aside) that they are making these changes. When you are the sole retailer you can structure your product pages consistently, which allows you do a whole host of things once you have consistent item details that can be looked up in a query to generate a list of products. Things like item identifiers and moving towards a structured product catalog with fixed assets like images is a way of addressing that issue.

As to why, this all goes back to how traffic is generated on site and how buyers discover products. To keep it simple, because of some very poor, and questionable practices in the past, ebay is both ineffectual at generating external search engine traffic through ads and has suffered from search engine traffic penalties for not following best practices. This means they have to go back to a very remedial form of generating external traffic, which is namely to create persistent product pages that link multiple seller listings for those products by part numbers and upc codes. Taking seller images and crowd sourcing the item identifiers is a quick and dirty way of generating a database to power those product pages. Those persistent product pages will have longer term search engine indexing (compared to listings that come and go as sold and dropping off the ebay site), and hence drive more external traffic.

In the same way it will aid buyer discovery by taking buyers to a product page which is a summary of multiple listings. Rather than the buyer sorting to decide which seller is the best fit, an algorithm will default them to that choice. From eBay's point of view this will result in a better sales conversion for them.

In some ways this will help sellers because it means the pathetic level (have a look at your traffic reports for a good laugh) of externally generated site traffic will increase. Depending on how it is implemented on a per category basis, it runs the risk of creating issues others have brought up. It will also put increasing downward price pressure on sellers. It fits the more commercial/mass market side of the ebay business relatively well, but for sellers like us here, not so much.

When you have a photo of a mass market item, you really only need the stock photo assuming the condition is new. For a whole host of categories on ebay that typically consist of non-mass market items or items that have a broader range of conditions (ie a comic, sports card, or book may be "new" but grading and condition is a much broader spectrum that effects price and desirability) a "stock" image is borderline useless. If the image was simply a reference for a seller to visually match an intended listing item to the product database (to say get the item specifics to use in their listing but not the reference photo), there would however be some utility.

[momcqueen]

Traffic reports? What traffic reports?

[esclyons]

ebay need to stop allowing any stock photos, or any photo catalogs.. all it does is encourage thief's.. people who either borrow your photo, and sell a legitimate product or someone who doesn't have the product to sell and sells a cheap knock off..i deal in coins and it happens non stop. we have a club who watches ebay auctions for high dollar and rare coins, and without fail there will be items sold every day with stolen photo's.... it is a terrible experience for people who sell legitimate items..

Long story short, photo catalogs should be allowed to find the item you wish to sell a similar one of.. then it should be DEMANDED that you upload your own personal photos.., otherwise it is a slippery slope of.. well i didn't get what was in the photo..i can't believe ebay would even be participating in this..

enough to say, if i see people stealing my photos. i will have to look elsewhere. coins are all different even they they may have the same dates..  even new in package has different amounts of wear on the outer packages..

come on ebay.. time to rethink things..

[hlmacdon]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

Traffic reports? What traffic reports?

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Probably a .com vs .ca thing (can't remember if .ca fully implemented seller hub yet), but if you can access seller hub  they are located under performance and then traffic.

[momcqueen]

No, we have no Traffic Reports on ebay.ca. We also have no Seller Hub or at least if we do it hasn't been made available to the whole of us.

[hlmacdon]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

No, we have no Traffic Reports on ebay.ca. We also have no Seller Hub or at least if we do it hasn't been made available to the whole of us.

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Wasn't that scheduled for many months ago? Yeesh. You do get a break down of listing page views that were generated from within ebay versus coming from external links. Right now that amounts to a whopping 0.006% of my page views over the last 30 days.