topic Re: UPC DISASTER in Selling

UPC DISASTER

waddingtonfirstaid — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 06:00:33 GMT

Absolute disaster this mandatory UPC field. Can't revise listings even after using my clairevoyant skills to navigate to advanced listing tool from changing product category. Even when it was possible to revise a listing by setting UPC field to "Does Not Apply" it can not be revised again because it comes back losing the "Does Not Apply" value. Some revised listings get stuck in a fail cycle and can never be revised again. So I've given up.

eBay help phone me and she can't fix it. It's been going on for months and programmers have failed to implement fixes. For months I was told there wasn't a problem. use the advanced listing tool I was told. Well folks, that too is a failure.

Massive bugs. The biggest bug should be sacked - the person at the top who thought it was a good idea to make UPC necessary. Honestly, a lot of businesses do not support the US company raking in mega $$ controlling barcodes. I've never bought barcodes for what we manufacture and never will in future.

Re: UPC DISASTER

waddingtonfirstaid — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 06:18:55 GMT

And I forgot to say, eBay better not be using UPC field data as a condition for improving search rankings when it's massively unreliable on so many fronts, the least being disadvantaged sellers who can not apply them.

Re: UPC DISASTER

digital*ghost — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 11:09:00 GMT

@weducational2 wrote:
Absolute disaster this mandatory UPC field. Can't revise listings even after using my clairevoyant skills to navigate to advanced listing tool from changing product category. Even when it was possible to revise a listing by setting UPC field to "Does Not Apply" it can not be revised again because it comes back losing the "Does Not Apply" value. Some revised listings get stuck in a fail cycle and can never be revised again. So I've given up.

Next year, 'Does Not Apply' will no longer be allowed, so I suspect pushing through with fixes for any associated glitches is very low on eBay's priority list, I'm afraid.

Instead, they'll be requiring a UPC in one form or another in the majority of listings, regardless of condition - either from the manufacturer / retailer, seller generated (for private label products), or eBay generated (they're referring to those as ePIDs).

http://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/news/sp16/structured-data

Re: UPC DISASTER

heihachi_73 — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 20:48:14 GMT

Clearly eBay is moving from a place where you can sell your unwanted second hand goods to an online superstore which only stocks the latest brand new items and ships the same day. I wonder how long it will take until eBay completely bans the sale of second hand items.

The fun will start when we see 'United States vs. eBay Inc.' or some other large-scale, billion dollar class action lawsuit when 98% of their non-business sellers worldwide suddenly find themselves suspended from selling due to the missing UPC (GTIN) field due to items not having any sort of barcode e.g. antiques, coins/stamps/cards, clothing, furniture, let alone anything which had lost its original packaging decades ago, such as old Nintendo games or Matchbox cars...

Re: UPC DISASTER

shepherdsrule — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 21:04:29 GMT

I know things have to evolve with time, and eBay has evolved very quickly, especially in the last 10 years as technology has improved.

But I miss the good old days, I started on eBay about 7 years after it's conception and I loved that it was mostly like an on line garage sale.

Just sayin'

edited: to fix the spelling errors my PC made !

Re: UPC DISASTER

davidc4430 — Thu, 27 Oct 2016 01:15:49 GMT

i spy with my little eye----ebay getting many many calls from sellers asking HELP!

Re: UPC DISASTER

waddingtonfirstaid — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 03:22:21 GMT

Yes, many.

Re: UPC DISASTER

waddingtonfirstaid — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 03:27:57 GMT

digital*ghost, UPC numbers will not be mandatory as stated by their policy http://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/news/sp16/structured-data headed,
2. WE’LL ACCEPT NON-STANDARD PRODUCT IDENTIFIERS ON EBAY.

Looks like eBay will be so keen to retain business they will create their own identifiers for sellers to use. If they go down the UPC barcode track of charging, then my guess is a lot of sellers will create their own under:
Private label product identifiers (seller- generated identifiers)
It's going to end up being largely irrelevant and a complete waste of time for both the seller and the consumer. For goodness sake, I don't even remember my car rego number when I book it in for services. Products change so quickly these days, new models come out, updated firmware happens in days, cheaper to buy new rather than repair, a number to identify something supersceded within months will be a totally irrelevant concept. In fact, it could end up causing people to buy old, outdated rubbish and not keep pace with innovative trends or new, highly efficient, local, social-networked or cutting edge product that does not see any need for bloated UPC like numbering technology.

Regardless, the situation at present is hopeless for sellers who get stuck in a UPC field loop and can not edit listings. It's plainly very bad when the help people can not fix the problem.

Re: UPC DISASTER

kashon59 — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 12:17:53 GMT

Yes, I can't list my dress tonight as there's this red message saying I need a upc or ibsn number. I don't want to have to pay for barcodes for dresses I sell for under $10.00. There is no where to put this info in either, this is very bizarre.

Re: UPC DISASTER

clarry100 — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 18:50:39 GMT

For the moment you can enter the value "Does not Apply" and that will be accepted.
Once it becomes compulsory next year then if you leave the above value in the fields then eBay will do an automatic update adding in their own generated data. At the moment all our stuff is listed with does not apply.

Re: UPC DISASTER

davidc4430 — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 21:51:19 GMT

theres a little spot at the back of by brain that cant wait till this goes live as the ebay customer service lines will have a melt down.

millions of customers ringing very angry they cant list items that have no numbers or the numbers are unknown.

there should allways be a 'does not apply' button.

Re: UPC DISASTER

transport-posters — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 22:12:23 GMT

But from what clarry says, there will be the Does Not Apply option still, or am I missing something? Is this being removed when UPC becomes mandatory?

Re: UPC DISASTER

clarry100 — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 23:12:28 GMT

As I understand it from Feb next year some form of UPC will be mandatory and "Does not Apply" will no longer be an option.

However, if by the deadline, you have not removed all your "Does not Apply" data then ebay will automatically update all your listings to place some kind of their own generated data in this field. Dummy UPC's I guess.

So I guess we need to watch out for updates on this.

Someone who has more accurate info may wish to add to this.

Re: UPC DISASTER

x3n0m — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 00:35:44 GMT

"Honestly, a lot of businesses do not support the US company raking in mega $$ controlling barcodes. I've never bought barcodes for what we manufacture and never will in future."

good point .. yet another example of racketeering by the American Chamber of Commerce Corponostra .. and more to the point; when will our regulators grow a pair?

Re: UPC DISASTER

englishrosegardens — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 01:13:27 GMT

@clarry100 wrote:
For the moment you can enter the value "Does not Apply" and that will be accepted.
Once it becomes compulsory next year then if you leave the above value in the fields then eBay will do an automatic update adding in their own generated data. At the moment all our stuff is listed with does not apply.

What worries me is that it only says unbranded products will automatically receive an ePID.

From October 2016, when you upload your listing information onto eBay, we’ll automatically create eBay product identifiers (ePIDs) for you if your items are unbranded or have private labels. (from the page in digi's link further up this thread).

I have the brand in the item specifics in all my listings, so will they automatically be updated too? You are allowed to use an ePID if your products are branded, but will we have to apply for it, or is it best to remove the brands from the specifics? I have the brand in the description as well, and I'm sure you can't browse by brand in that category, so I don't really need it in the specifics. There's no way I can access anything from the manufacturer because everything I sell was bought a few years ago and is out of production.

Only use product identifiers (such an ePID or ASIN) if you don’t have access to the identifier from the brand manufacturer or if your item is not branded.

It's about as clear as mud, which is pretty typical, so I'm trying not to worry too much about it until it happens. I can see there being a lot of items sitting in unsold if they don't provide us with ePIDs in time. It says "from October, but as usual, it probably won't happen till months after.

By February 2017, all new listings will require at least one of the product identifiers listed above. The use of ‘N/A’ or ‘Does not apply’ will no longer be acceptable as a product identifier.

Re: UPC DISASTER

letscleanupmycupboards — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 01:14:22 GMT

Can't you just enter a random nonsense number?

Re: UPC DISASTER

justkidzbiz — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 21:57:08 GMT

No, it won't accept it. Already tried that when I was having issues with the UPC and the "Does Not Apply" wasn't showing in the drop down menu.

Re: UPC DISASTER

clarry100 — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 23:20:23 GMT

@letscleanupmycupboards wrote:
Can't you just enter a random nonsense number?

No... if the number is not recognised by their database it will be rejected.

Re: UPC DISASTER

clarry100 — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 23:25:40 GMT

@englishrosegardens wrote:
@clarry100 wrote:
For the moment you can enter the value "Does not Apply" and that will be accepted.
Once it becomes compulsory next year then if you leave the above value in the fields then eBay will do an automatic update adding in their own generated data. At the moment all our stuff is listed with does not apply.
What worries me is that it only says unbranded products will automatically receive an ePID.

From October 2016, when you upload your listing information onto eBay, we’ll automatically create eBay product identifiers (ePIDs) for you if your items are unbranded or have private labels. (from the page in digi's link further up this thread).

I have the brand in the item specifics in all my listings, so will they automatically be updated too? You are allowed to use an ePID if your products are branded, but will we have to apply for it, or is it best to remove the brands from the specifics? I have the brand in the description as well, and I'm sure you can't browse by brand in that category, so I don't really need it in the specifics. There's no way I can access anything from the manufacturer because everything I sell was bought a few years ago and is out of production.

Only use product identifiers (such an ePID or ASIN) if you don’t have access to the identifier from the brand manufacturer or if your item is not branded.

It's about as clear as mud, which is pretty typical, so I'm trying not to worry too much about it until it happens. I can see there being a lot of items sitting in unsold if they don't provide us with ePIDs in time. It says "from October, but as usual, it probably won't happen till months after.

By February 2017, all new listings will require at least one of the product identifiers listed above. The use of ‘N/A’ or ‘Does not apply’ will no longer be acceptable as a product identifier.

Yes there are lots of questions still open as usual.

Our brand is our own since all or products are hand made to order by us, so are unique to us.

So perhaps we fall under the "private label" category. Who knows?

Yes we are trying not to worry about it until we see what happens.

If it causes us too much drama we will just pull out of selling on ebay and concentrate on our other venues.

We do have other irons in the fire and with dwindling sales here during this year, and especially now in what is supposed to be our busy months, we are pretty close to pulling the plug anyway. Just barely worth the hassle any more really.

Re: UPC DISASTER

x3n0m — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 23:55:11 GMT

The keywords to look up are "Third Line Forcing" ..

http://www.bartier.com.au/publications/publicationDetail.aspx?PublicationID=381

Plenty of info there and even mentions how the corporate sleazeballs engaged in this activity can gain temporary immunity from prosecution from the ACCC (for the public good - noless) .. I personally am starting to wonder if the ACCC can be sued for protecting these pit vipers as many historical indiscretions concerning the ACC and their ham-fisted approach to the Australian Marketplace have been systematically swept under the carpet to the point where one must wonder when our politicians spruik on about JoRbs and GrowF as all I can see is joRbs leaving the country enmasse and growF for Cayman Islands swindlers ..