MC999 Selling Practices policy violation alert

[pierrelebel]

OK - Here we go again.  Received a MC999 Selling Practices policy violation alert from eBay light night on three completed (unsold) items.

"We're writing to let you know that one or more of your listings need to be updated to meet eBay's picture quality requirements. Please see the list for requirements below.

It's important that you update these listings and any others that don't meet the requirements right away. If listings aren't revised before July 1, 2013, they may be subject to removal and can't be relisted.

Picture Requirements:
-- Every listing must have at least one photo.
-- Stock photos can only be used for brand new items?not used items.
-- Don't use borders on your photos.
-- Pictures must be at least 500 pixels on the longest side.
-- Watermarks are allowed for ownership and attribution, but not marketing.

Consistently good photos are an important part of the shopping experience on eBay and we appreciate your cooperation to keep buyers coming back. High quality photos also go a long way to help sell your items."

For example:  listing 390562711452

It is a stamp.  It is not photographed, it is scanned as most stamps offered on eBay and elsewhere.

"high quality photos..."

How can one offer a better quality image than that?

What is wrong with these guys?

[triber]

I think it must be very hard for you Pierre to scan a small stamp with a good image at the size required by eBay. I am finding that scanning small pictures sometimes, they come out with a lot of "noise", and just don't look good.

[pierrelebel]

"and just don't look good."

When you look at the listing, does the image look good or not? (I cannot change the image of the Queen!)

[brandeentertainment]

What I hate about this whole thing is about 5% of my listing gtc relist and the picture is gone every month .

It just disappears so am i now going to be punished for that?

[msmaggie060]

Pierre,  Because it is a stamp and you have to show the edge I think the bots are picking up on what they think is an added border.

Your listing photo looks great! You probably do know this already but you need a minimun JPEG quality of 90 for 1600 size pictures and should set your scanner for min. 600 dpi .

[msmaggie060]

I think it must be very hard for you Pierre to scan a small stamp with a good image at the size required by eBay. I am finding that scanning small pictures sometimes, they come out with a lot of "noise", and just don't look good.

triber, do you have a Photoshop or other editing program? You can get rid of a lot of noise that way. Use filter>noise>despeckle to clean up a lot of the noise and then sharpen the photo if you need to when you are finished your editing.

[triber]

Thanks msmaggie, yes, I do have photoshop, and I do try to remove the noise, but sometimes on very small pictures, it just looks like a mosaic of squares, and I can't get it to look good.

[ggsale27]

That image is great Pierre. When I scan single stamps for my wife, I use 200 - 600 DPI ( depending on the detail that needs to be shown ). I use a Vario sheet for backing in my scans, a white back ground just does not show the stamp off properly. Policy enforcement at eBay is just ludicrous. They are more worried about a picture than they are about scammers.

[pocomocomputing]

Pierre,  Because it is a stamp and you have to show the edge I think the bots are picking up on what they think is an added border.

Your listing photo looks great! You probably do know this already but you need a minimum JPEG quality of 90 for 1600 size pictures and should set your scanner for min. 600 dpi .

Minimum requirements are 500 pixels on the longest side supposedly starting July 1.

The eBay recommended size is 1600 pixels on the longest side with a minimum JPEG quality of 90 out of 100 for optimum results with the eBay picture system.

You are not required to have 1600 pixel nor the JPEG quality of 90/100.

1600 pixels is not an optimal size size for small items like stamps and coins. The larger image magnifies the image several times and shows imperfections that are not there.

As for Pierre's listing, the image size is 367 x 314 pixels which is well under the minimum of 500 pixels on the longest side.

I am surprised at this violation at this time. I thought it was only being enforced July 1st. The message says that date. I thought that the system was going to prevent you from relisting with an image that does not meet the correct size. But to give a violation after a listing has ended seems bizarre.

[pocomocomputing]

A seller has reported that they had the same violation

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Photos-Html/Ebay-Email-Re/5100152520

He says they are GTC listings which are supposed to be exempt.

Somehow eBay is checking for the minimum 500 pixels early and even for GTC listings.

eBay has regular weekly maintenance on Friday 2 am to 4 am Eastern Time (11 pm to 1 am Pacific Time). That was last night. So it looks like they changed some code somewhere for July 1st and it is running today.

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

That's silly. For a tiny stamp like that I'd think the image size is good enough. I guess you'd need to add more "space" in the surrounding... but that would make your displayed picture smaller in search results =(

And I agree with what someone mentioned above... perhaps the background is perceived as a border by the program that does these image scans?

[pocomocomputing]

The problem with Pierre's photos is not borders but image size. It is not 500 pixels on the longest side. That is my understanding of the problem.

[pierrelebel]

" It is not 500 pixels on the longest side"

I understand that is the standard for photos (their word).

However, eBay should use their collective brains and come up for a standard for scans of small objects. 

Scans of this stamp was at 200% already.  To make it bigger to get the required number of pixels does not in any way improve the quality of the image or the buyer's experience.

eBay simply needs to think.

[Anonymous]

I got that for a few things and it is NOT possible to make it larger as I used a Canon printer to scan them and they should be good enough but NO, not to eBay!!

I think eBay is getting OUT OF CONTROL and it is time they stopped being so silly in many areas like this one! 

We knew that we spend hours and hours scanning them and here eBay thinks it is NOT enough.  eBay stop it and leave us alone.  So what if you think our photos are not good enough but at least everyone can see and knew what they are bidding for.

I have seen so many sellers showing horrible blurry pictures and they get bidding wars and sold for really high prices!!  Go figure!!  Sheesh to eBay!!

[pocomocomputing]

Technology is changing.  Display sizes range from small smartphones display to large LCD display. The typical screen size is 1280 pixels on the longest side today. So pictures in the 300-400 pixel range are small on larger displays.

A seller does not see the range of devices that eBay has to support to show your listings and images.  A seller does not see how the average display size has grown over the past 10 years. This is why eBay has changed their photo system in the past two years.  They want higher quality photos and larger images so that they can resize the images to the various sizes of display available today. This enhances your chances of selling an item since it can be seen well by most potential buyers.

Many listings today have photos or scans that are 10 years old and are small.  That is why the 500 pixel minimum is being introduced. The images are too small for some display devices. eBay recommends that the image be 1600 pixels on the longest side but allow the image to be 500 pixels so that there is some flexibility in the new standards for smaller items.

[melissasminis]

Pierre, Your pictures are fine. I am a stamp collector and like the scan photos the best. Do you have any Russian stamps by chance?

[dipmicro]

They don't enforce against frames yet, otherwise this seller of 390562711452 would have all items pulled.

[gotwhatchuneed]

I would suggest you experiment with magnifying glasses and a digital camera (or cell phone camera) to get image quality and photo size up. I know it's another expense but it could save the frustration of doing everything over when re-listing. Personally I'd find a way to rig a 30X loupe onto a camera but that's just my opinion.

[gotwhatchuneed]

or possibly you could place the magnifying glass on the scanner and the stamp on that. you can get a set of 3 magnifying glasses at most dollar stores for 2 bucks. just play around with them in the store before even buying them, maybe placing a stamp right on the magnifying glass won't work.

[dutchman48]

Pierre and others

I scan tiny objects at 600 dpi, then crop them and save the crop. Go to the saved crop and right click on it and pick resize. Pick the smallest one and it will be more than big enough and still clear enough to show what you want. I am on Windows 7.

See if it works as a test with and without the resize feature.