Hey when did they change (shrink) the item description??

[ricarmic]

When I happened to go into one of my lots this morning, I noticed that the description is now shrunk!!

It says:

Item description (and underneath that)

One seemingly random line from the actual description (and underneath that)

A link: See full item description

This takes the buyer even farther from ever reading what is actually in the description. Depending on what random? line it pulls from the description text it can also be confusing to the buyer. 

It is a good thing that I've naturally been reducing the amount of stuff in the description text (this view is much like what it is in cell phone viewing land anyway) but it is a somewhat significant change to just discover one day.....

[ricarmic]

Well this is more bizarre, the only lots that look this way to me are my own? This is most strange, I'll have to do some experiments......

[ricarmic]

Hmmm even more strange, if I look at my stuff whilst not signed in it looks normal like everyone else's.

I don't know why they would do this for looking at your own stuff.

Anyone else have this happening?

[pierrelebel]

eBay must be running some test again - affecting only some sellers or buyers.

My listings look OK on both eBay.ca and eBay.com

[pocomocomputing]

eBay has been running tests on listings to make the listing like their mobile apps that have the click to see the description. These tests have been running for close to a year and much complaining in the USA forums about this test causing lost sales.

Now in recent days apparently, this hiding of the description has been affecting more sellers/buyers. Someone posted a solution to this problem in the past 2-3 days in the eBay.com forums. The poster got it from Customer Support when they called.

Apparently if you clear your browser cookies it goes back to full description with no button. Be sure to not be logged into eBay or PayPal when you do this.

You can use this shortcut to clear browser cookies.  CTRL-SHIFT-DELETE  Then check off cookies only and delete.

I had the click button in my description yesterday when I revised a listing. Never had it before. I had just read the above fix and had viewed an eBay listing with the button in the description so I am speculating that viewing a listing "infects" you with this cookie and the click button appears. I cleared cookies and the click button was gone in my revised listing.

I think this is a new eBay glitch with this cookie that just started in the past few days.  However, I always clear my browser cookies and cache and temp files after browser sessions so I may have had this and not known.

Post back if this fixes your problem.

[pocomocomputing]

Pierre, interesting that ricarmic and I had this click button issue within a day of each other. I expect a rash of posts in the eBay Canada forums (and already in eBay.com forums) about this as I think it is a new eBay glitch when revising listings or new listings.

[momcqueen]

For what it's worth, this is top news today on eComeB....

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m07/i02/s01  "eBay is once again hiding product descriptions on listing pages after it had run similar tests earlier in the year, but sellers are at a loss as to why. Despite the unpopularity of that testing, users have found that eBay is once again hiding descriptions for a subset of users....."

My thoughts is that they are trying to make our listings look more like a standard online store. In toys, for example, all one normally sees is price and a few manufacturers details. A buyer must always click on a second tab to get to the nuts and bolts of it. Wait, no, it's the other way around. Anyway..... I think it's to see if ebay would benefit from looking like Amazon. Plus, it would streamline the appearance of everyone's listings. To make us look more like Amazon. 

[ricarmic]

Hi Mjwl et-al!

The part I don't like is that it just randomly pulls a line from the description, depending on what one it gets it can be quite confusing to the buyer (at least the way I write my descriptions).

I don't have time to test pocomo's suggestion, I've got my packages mailed and me and my daughter are going to go fishing!!!

[recped]

I don't have time to test pocomo's suggestion

No point, if it's the "clear your cookies" suggestion that will get YOU out of the test but you are not buying your own items. The test participants are the buyers not the sellers.

[ricarmic]

This morning, everything is back to "normal" again.... I didn't change anything... I hope they leave it "normal"......

[pierrelebel]

" I hope they leave it "normal""

That is not good enough!  I wish they would go back to 1998 when we had a 85%-90% "sell through" rate on our auction listings with the majority having multiple bidders.

Now retired, sometimes I miss the "good old days"

[ricarmic]

Hi Pierre! Yes you are correct, I should maybe say the "new normal", which seems to only last a few months at best anymore!

I too miss the good old days!!