2016 Spring Seller Update

[raphael@ebay.com]

Hello Canadian sellers,

This is the thread reserved for discussion around the 2016 Spring Seller Update announced today.

Read about the Update here:

http://pages.ebay.ca/sellerinformation/news/sprupd16/index.html

[rose-dee]

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@canadiangemstamps wrote:

Thanks for the response. That really sucks. I like the Auctiva templates. The extra sections make a page look professional instead of a tiny description squashed onto a page with tons of blank white space. Can you point me to the specific guidelines that state that they are not ideal?

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Although 'poco' makes some good points concerning the downsides of using Auctiva concerning eBay's prospective ban on active content, I have to say that, having used Auctiva for years, I've found it always reliable, easy to navigate and use, and with seamless function through to eBay.  I'm not sure one can say that about Turbo Lister or other eBay listing tools.  I also love their templates, and the ability to include photos in the description section in a variety of ways. 

The other factor to consider about Auctiva is that even at a basic subscription level, you get a generous amount of picture and listing storage.  The biggest advantage for me is that I can keep listings for months (or even years) in a very organized and user-friendly way, and then go back to re-use or revise them for other purposes if need be.  That is a huge headache on eBay, where unsold or draft listings drop off the map after only a few weeks.  Just being able to hold and organize my listings indefinitely somewhere off eBay is worth the $2.95 per month I pay to Auctiva.  By the way, they also offer shipping insurance at decent rates that will cover shipments from Canada.  I've often used that service for expensive items at lower cost than Canada Post's insurance rates, or to "top up" the basic $100 coverage offered on Tracked Packet for example. 

Auctiva has been highly integrated with eBay since its inception, and I suspect, as 'poco' mentioned, that they will come up with ways to comply with eBay's new rules while still offering useful features to their subscribers.  It may mean the scrolling gallery will disappear in its current form, but I'm betting they'll come up with something just as useful.   I also expect they'll design new templates that are specifically targeted to mobile devices (and eBay's.   

[pocomocomputing]

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@rose-dee wrote:

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@canadiangemstamps wrote:

Thanks for the response. That really sucks. I like the Auctiva templates. The extra sections make a page look professional instead of a tiny description squashed onto a page with tons of blank white space. Can you point me to the specific guidelines that state that they are not ideal?

---

Although 'poco' makes some good points concerning the downsides of using Auctiva concerning eBay's prospective ban on active content, I have to say that, having used Auctiva for years, I've found it always reliable, easy to navigate and use, and with seamless function through to eBay.  I'm not sure one can say that about Turbo Lister or other eBay listing tools.  I also love their templates, and the ability to include photos in the description section in a variety of ways. 

The other factor to consider about Auctiva is that even at a basic subscription level, you get a generous amount of picture and listing storage.  The biggest advantage for me is that I can keep listings for months (or even years) in a very organized and user-friendly way, and then go back to re-use or revise them for other purposes if need be.  That is a huge headache on eBay, where unsold or draft listings drop off the map after only a few weeks.  Just being able to hold and organize my listings indefinitely somewhere off eBay is worth the $2.95 per month I pay to Auctiva.  By the way, they also offer shipping insurance at decent rates that will cover shipments from Canada.  I've often used that service for expensive items at lower cost than Canada Post's insurance rates, or to "top up" the basic $100 coverage offered on Tracked Packet for example. 

Auctiva has been highly integrated with eBay since its inception, and I suspect, as 'poco' mentioned, that they will come up with ways to comply with eBay's new rules while still offering useful features to their subscribers.  It may mean the scrolling gallery will disappear in its current form, but I'm betting they'll come up with something just as useful.   I also expect they'll design new templates that are specifically targeted to mobile devices (and eBay's.   

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My only concern about third party tools is whether they can survive with their features and advantages slowly being taken away by ebay. I have seen smaller 3rd party tools just close up with little notice and sellers can lose everything. Billboards is a recent one to go under They did give a couple of months notice but some sellers missed the email and warnings.

Once a seller puts their images and listings in a third party tool, they can lose it. Of course, Active listings and the 90 days of Sold and UnSold can be recovered from eBay by just going to another third party tool and importing them. But anything not on eBay could be lost.

I guess a seller just has to do a "leap of faith" that their third party tool will not go under with these latest changes.

[rose-dee]

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@cumos55 wrote:

Correction.... Correction... Correction.

A Basic store with 450 listings is the same monthly  cost as  a Premium store with 1000 listings

Forgot the 250 no insertion fee listings that come with a Basic store....

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Thank you for the correction -- I was about to have an apoplectic fit when I read your earlier post!  

Although I should add that even with a Basic store, it's possible to avoid any monthly listing fees at all if one is willing to make use of available free auction listings and promos.  

I don't think I'd find it too difficult to consistently list around 400 items a month most months with my Basic store if I really needed to.  And that's assuming a seller is only listing on .ca (or .com).  If you're able and willing to list on both sites, you can practically double that number.  Of course, for me, all the recent changes are going to make the .ca site virtually unworkable anyway. 

[thecoinhunterca]

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@lumbercanada wrote:
GSP is a cash grab con job. What so called we're not a shipping company but they're repack goods sent to there hub repack and try to make it cheaper and then ship out..

You can live literally 50km from a American seller but ships it back to the middle of the US to the dist centre then about a week later starts moving back again.

It's a got show program especially when you try to by multiple items from the same seller shipping isn't combined and get totally ripped off on charges.

eBay has been a gong show the last 4 years and is taking another turn of being totally money driven and don't care about the end users.

I'm dumping them for good, and going elsewhere.

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Yup...I no longer buy from any seller that participates in the GSP program. I basically send an email to the seller and say so. I f the sellers wants to sell to me, they will have to ship via traditional methods. Otherwise, see ya. Saying that, many US sellers sell enough within the US to not care if they loose an international sale here and there.    

[rose-dee]

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@pocomocomputing wrote:

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My only concern about third party tools is whether they can survive with their features and advantages slowly being taken away by ebay. I have seen smaller 3rd party tools just close up with little notice and sellers can lose everything. Billboards is a recent one to go under They did give a couple of months notice but some sellers missed the email and warnings.

Once a seller puts their images and listings in a third party tool, they can lose it. Of course, Active listings and the 90 days of Sold and UnSold can be recovered from eBay by just going to another third party tool and importing them. But anything not on eBay could be lost.

I guess a seller just has to do a "leap of faith" that their third party tool will not go under with these latest changes.

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I was having a hard day yesterday, trying to absorb all the bad news at once.  It hadn't even occurred to me that Auctiva might go under as a result.  Now I'm really depressed.

[xeposter]

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@rose-dee wrote:

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@pocomocomputing wrote:

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My only concern about third party tools is whether they can survive with their features and advantages slowly being taken away by ebay. I have seen smaller 3rd party tools just close up with little notice and sellers can lose everything. Billboards is a recent one to go under They did give a couple of months notice but some sellers missed the email and warnings.

Once a seller puts their images and listings in a third party tool, they can lose it. Of course, Active listings and the 90 days of Sold and UnSold can be recovered from eBay by just going to another third party tool and importing them. But anything not on eBay could be lost.

I guess a seller just has to do a "leap of faith" that their third party tool will not go under with these latest changes.

---

I was having a hard day yesterday, trying to absorb all the bad news at once.  It hadn't even occurred to me that Auctiva might go under as a result.  Now I'm really depressed.

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I know. You would think eBay likes the showcases in listings, wouldn't you? Don't they sell more for eBay?

Raphael, what is going to happen to eBay applications? Most of them use active code/JavaScript...

Alex

[pocomocomputing]

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@rose-dee wrote:

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@pocomocomputing wrote:

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My only concern about third party tools is whether they can survive with their features and advantages slowly being taken away by ebay. I have seen smaller 3rd party tools just close up with little notice and sellers can lose everything. Billboards is a recent one to go under They did give a couple of months notice but some sellers missed the email and warnings.

Once a seller puts their images and listings in a third party tool, they can lose it. Of course, Active listings and the 90 days of Sold and UnSold can be recovered from eBay by just going to another third party tool and importing them. But anything not on eBay could be lost.

I guess a seller just has to do a "leap of faith" that their third party tool will not go under with these latest changes.

---

I was having a hard day yesterday, trying to absorb all the bad news at once.  It hadn't even occurred to me that Auctiva might go under as a result.  Now I'm really depressed.

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Don't be depressed. I did mention that the active and completed listings are still on ebay if it ever happened. Better to be aware of what can happen and how to get around it.

Now I do not want to be "chicken little" and say the "sky is falling" for Auctiva but when I read their community forums from time to time, the inactivity there is amazing. The topics there had daily posts and new topics all the time. Now months go by in some categories before there is new topic or a reply. I never saw it so quiet. I can only conclude the small sellers left that posted to the Auctiva forums.

Same with inkFrog. Their forums are a ghost town too.

The good news is that these two companies are trying to branch out into multi platform tools to support ebay and Amazon and other sites.

I also find the pricing of the third party tools is getting high, another sign that there are less customers to pay for the costs so a higher monthly fee is needed.

[hlmacdon]

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@x..e wrote:

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I know. You would think eBay likes the showcases in listings, wouldn't you? Don't they sell more for eBay?

Raphael, what is going to happen to eBay applications? Most of them use active code/JavaScript...

Alex

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Aside from the security concerns, they are probably also looking at page load speeds for mobile devices, which is somewhat important given the average mobile shopper has the attention span of a gnat, hence the default mobile views with the app contain the bare minimum of information to render quickly, which has the unfortunate side effect of being a huge source of buyer issues and causes a huge drain on seller time with buyer issues.

But to get back to your question, it has been my experience that the sort of features sellers are using in their templates via active code greatly reduce buyer confusion and increase conversion. I know for one I've seen a large reduction in the number of customer service inquiries/issues caused by mobile shoppers since adjusting my templates. We will have to see what third parties come up with as whitelisted practices.

In my opinion ebay needs to take a long hard look at what sellers are using these features for and offer something comparable. Often times these are used to assist in mass updating of listings when relevant information changes or to better explain situations like shipping to customers. The way listing descriptions are walled into single database fields is extremely limiting as a seller and limits flexibility when mass updates need to be done.

[westernstargifts]

For those sellers who subscribe to Seller Source Book, they have posted the following on their site.

SSB Showcase is Compliant

With recent eBay announcements for Fall 2017 there have been questions if the SSB Showcase will be affected. eBay has stated in their announcement they recommend the discontinuance of scrolling galleries which use Javascript and Flash.

Wishing to make sure that our Showcase was always viable on mobile devices we have already transitioned away from a Flash showcase to an HTML5 showcase. As such our Showcase no longer contains the type of Active Content code eBay recommends sellers should avoid - Flash or Javascript. All your new listings since the end of March contain the new showcase.

If you currently have older GTC listings or relisted items, they would contain our old showcase. Over time you will want to adjust those listings but it is not required by eBay that you do so immediately.

[pocomocomputing]

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@westernstargifts wrote:

For those sellers who subscribe to Seller Source Book, they have posted the following on their site.

SSB Showcase is Compliant

With recent eBay announcements for Fall 2017 there have been questions if the SSB Showcase will be affected. eBay has stated in their announcement they recommend the discontinuance of scrolling galleries which use JavaScript and Flash.

Wishing to make sure that our Showcase was always viable on mobile devices we have already transitioned away from a Flash showcase to an HTML5 showcase. As such our Showcase no longer contains the type of Active Content code eBay recommends sellers should avoid - Flash or JavaScript. All your new listings since the end of March contain the new showcase.

If you currently have older GTC listings or relisted items, they would contain our old showcase. Over time you will want to adjust those listings but it is not required by eBay that you do so immediately.

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Auctiva also went to a HTML5 showcase in the past 3-6 months and is now the default. If SSB is allowed, then the Auctiva one should be. But they still take a lot of resources to load and run which is something eBay wants to avoid. I wounder if the HTML5 based showcase will be still be allowed.

[pocomocomputing]

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@pocomocomputing wrote:

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@westernstargifts wrote:

For those sellers who subscribe to Seller Source Book, they have posted the following on their site.

SSB Showcase is Compliant

With recent eBay announcements for Fall 2017 there have been questions if the SSB Showcase will be affected. eBay has stated in their announcement they recommend the discontinuance of scrolling galleries which use JavaScript and Flash.

Wishing to make sure that our Showcase was always viable on mobile devices we have already transitioned away from a Flash showcase to an HTML5 showcase. As such our Showcase no longer contains the type of Active Content code eBay recommends sellers should avoid - Flash or JavaScript. All your new listings since the end of March contain the new showcase.

If you currently have older GTC listings or relisted items, they would contain our old showcase. Over time you will want to adjust those listings but it is not required by eBay that you do so immediately.

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Auctiva also went to a HTML5 showcase in the past 3-6 months and is now the default. If SSB is allowed, then the Auctiva one should be. But they still take a lot of resources to load and run which is something eBay wants to avoid. I wounder if the HTML5 based showcase will be still be allowed.

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Here is an eCommercebytes article on Active Content

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y16/m04/i06/s02

[westernstargifts]

Thanks for posting the link pocomo.  I usually read the articles that ecommercebytes sends out but hadn't seen that one. 

I have no clue as to what drives the scrolling galleries..too technical for me.  I wouldn't be too disappointed if they disallowed the scrolling gallery but would be upset if they take away the ability to use the Search bar in my store.  At least that is the way I read it.

Would store categories also be considered active script since it causes an interaction by taking the buyer to another page when he clicks on the category?  If so, what would be the use in having a store, other than being able to put it On Vacation?  There are also the free listings to consider I suppose, but it would greatly reduce the functionality of a store if I have understood the article correctly.

These new changes are certainly a challenge.

[pjcdn2005]

I wouldn't be too disappointed if they disallowed the scrolling gallery but would be upset if they take away the ability to use the Search bar in my store.  At least that is the way I read it.

I could be wrong but I think they are referring to some type of search function that a seller has added, not something that was put there by eBay.

[deeeight]

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@cumos55 wrote:

Additional considerations....

(1) The number of auctions with zero insertion fees.

(2) The value of the shipping supply coupon

(3)  Dedicated customer service    with the Anchor store 

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Auctions are pointless in today's online marketplace. They just don't produce good results except for collectibles (like that Action Comics #1 last year that broke several million).

[xeposter]

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@deeeight wrote:

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@cumos55 wrote:

Additional considerations....

(1) The number of auctions with zero insertion fees.

(2) The value of the shipping supply coupon

(3)  Dedicated customer service    with the Anchor store 

---

Auctions are pointless in today's online marketplace. They just don't produce good results except for collectibles (like that Action Comics #1 last year that broke several million).

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That was amazing, wasn't it? It is now one of the top 10 most expensive items every sold on eBay!

Alex

[cumos55]

Collectibles are where auctions  ...whether on eBay... or... at a local auction.... do work  and very well

Been there... done that!

[pocomocomputing]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

I wouldn't be too disappointed if they disallowed the scrolling gallery but would be upset if they take away the ability to use the Search bar in my store.  At least that is the way I read it.

I could be wrong but I think they are referring to some type of search function that a seller has added, not something that was put there by eBay.

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An eBay store has what is called a listing frame around a listing with the listing store header at the top with a store search option and a left hand column with store categories to click on. This area is ebay controlled so all okay here.

In the seller description, a seller can add their own HTML code and a programming language called javascript that is in all browsers can be used in the description. ebay restricts what parts of JavaScript can be used in the description but there are ways around this. So malicious code can be put in a listings by bad sellers or just simple mistakes. eBay wants to restrict the javascript and other tools currently allowed even more to make listings safer. As well these tools take more computing power and are longer to download because the description is longer and downloads more data to run. This affect mobile devices that have slower wireless connections and slower processing and smaller screens. Mobile is so important today for sellers because buyers use them so much today.

So scrolling galleries (Flash based for sure) will be banned, interactive content like a search in the description which asks for input will be banned, a description with tabbed content (Payment, shipping, returns .. tabs to click on to see the terms).

ebay wants the description to describe the item. Period. No terms, no links, no promoting other items. They started this with recommendations a couple of years ago. Now they are pushing it and will phase it in over the next 3 years until descriptions are plain and simple. My opinion but the signs are there, even stronger with the 2016 update.

ebay will get as bland as Amazon. No individual looks to set a seller apart. eBay is taking away everything that made eBay different.

[coastmama2]

Hasty change indeed. Last shipping two days ago showed paypal automatically charging PST for Postal shipment from Alberta, but when I went to the counter, the counter pricing did not include PST. Very confusing to estimate what to charge for shipping, even though it was only $1 difference, including using my small business card. Maybe this PST is because Canada Post small business rate office is located in Ontario so therefore it is technically buying postage from an Ontario company. Shipment was to Nova Scotia.

[pierrelebel]

The problem has nothing to do Canada Post small business office being located in Ontario.

The problem of being charged GST or HST when located in Alberta depends on the type of service you select to ship your parcel.

Next time you are at the post office, sending a parcel to NS or ON or anywhere in Canada where HST applies, ask the clerk to take a few minutes and give you a price shipping by "regular parcel" and one by "expedited".  In both cases, ask specifically how much tax is being charged.

Surprise!  You will find that in one case you are charged 5% GST only while in the other you are charged 13% or 15% HST - depending on the province of the recipient! 

That is the way GST/HST regulations work regarding postal services.  In some cases the tax rate (GST or HST) is determined by the location of the sender while in other cases, it is determined by the location (province) of the recipient.

For more information:  https://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/personal/productsservices/collectionofsalestax.jsf

PS - Keep in mind that this information is for individuals.  Different rules apply to businesses.

[pierrelebel]

PS - Alternatively, instead of going to the post office, sellers can get the same tax information using the Canada Post website

Once you have entered your postal code and the postal code of the recipient, take a good luck at the tax being charged for different services.  In some instances you will see different tax rates.  Not a mistake by CP computer.