topic Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary in Selling

SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

katistrophik — Wed, 12 May 2021 05:15:00 GMT

Hi Guys,

Spending time over in US and boards are alight with problems in various categories, info listings missing - this is hopefully a temporary hassle while eBay are attempting to streamline:

This advice from eburtonlab (US)

Do not erase or modify your saved listings just yet. I suspect it will take a few days to determine which problems are caused by the new categories, and which problems are just temporary glitches while the new categories are being implemented.

At some point all the old listings should be available again, and if you modify all your listings right now, your modifications may wind up being unnecessary or obsolete when the dust finally settles in a few days.

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

davewil1964 — Wed, 12 May 2021 05:17:10 GMT

They've certainly stuffed books up.

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

the4masters2013 — Wed, 12 May 2021 05:32:47 GMT

You are not wrong!

I will try again over the weekend and see if it has been sorted.

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

curraone — Wed, 12 May 2021 05:51:59 GMT

Holey Moley - all my books are changed categories! And the specifics are screaming for updates!

Was there an announcement about this? I see your message OP and am going to close my eyes until Monday!

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

curraone — Wed, 12 May 2021 06:06:13 GMT

I see the changes are hidden in the Autumn 2021 Seller Update - which I don't remember getting a notice about but it's there alright. 😖

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

imastawka — Wed, 12 May 2021 07:43:03 GMT

2021 Autumn Seller Update: Listing Optimisation | Seller Centre (ebay.com.au)

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

davewil1964 — Wed, 12 May 2021 08:38:02 GMT

They helpfully didn't tell us what would be required though.

It's seems author, title (which any competent seller would list in the header)and language (which they helpfully stripped out recently) will be the key specifics required.

ISBN (UPC) is no longer a required field.

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

gumleaf_goodies — Wed, 12 May 2021 09:52:50 GMT

Very helpful when the new category changes are provided as an Excel file - which I don't have. The freebie version of Excel I have on my computer always does strange things to the layout. But as Dave pointed out, there is no indication of WHAT has actually changed in the categories.

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

everard6920 — Wed, 12 May 2021 10:15:05 GMT

My items have all been moved to a new category because the old one ceased to exist, but eBay, in their infinite wisdom, has pre-filled some of the specifics to reflect the new category and most of them are flat-out wrong.

Tried to fix but kept getting errors, so I've just accepted that my listings will be in disarray for awhile.

As with most things on this site, this really should've been better organised with sellers able to adjust listings before these new categories went live.

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

ramcycle2010 — Wed, 12 May 2021 11:22:59 GMT

**bleep**, thanks a lot ebay

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

ramcycle2010 — Wed, 12 May 2021 11:27:01 GMT

What a katistrophik stuff-up!

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

ramcycle2010 — Wed, 12 May 2021 12:03:08 GMT

All my toy listings that were in the TV & Movie Characters category, have now been switched over to the Action Figures category. I hope this is not permanent, plush toys listed as Action Figures doesn't seem right to me.

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

katistrophik — Wed, 12 May 2021 15:05:19 GMT

@ramcycle2010 wrote:
What a katistrophik stuff-up!

LOL - coffee splatter all over my screen

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

ella@seller_update — Wed, 12 May 2021 15:33:07 GMT

Hi katistrophik,

Thank you for reaching out to us about the recent changes in the Books categories. We understand the changes might affect the way you used to sell books. eBay is moving to a product-based category structure that will support a better experience for both buyers and sellers. In addition, we are implementing new item specifics to help find your listings. Meanwhile, we will continue to look into improving the search experience further. I do hope this helps to resolve your concern. As the category changes roll out, there will be some fluctuation in the item specifics and left-hand navigation filters. This should settle down in the next 24 hours. We apologise for the inconvenience in the meantime. Thank you again for taking the time to share this valuable feedback, and for choosing eBay!

Kind Regards,

Ella

Kind regards, Ella

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

lm-entertainment — Wed, 12 May 2021 16:06:10 GMT

Hi Ella,

With all due respect - the issue isn't about how people used to sell things; it's that the current listed items have been put into different (most of the time wrong) categories and some of the item specifics have been pre-filled.

If it wasn't for the seller noticing, there would be no indication that there is any issue with the listing - apart from maybe the fact they were seeing a decline in views.

Sellers should have been notified of this change when it actually occurred (yesterday or overnight) so that they could check their listings and ensure there were no issues. Instead, people have been left in the dark and losing sales or worse, providing incorrect information to buyers.

What would happen if a buyer were to submit a 'item not as described' claim for an item specific that ebay had incorrectly populated?

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

ramcycle2010 — Wed, 12 May 2021 16:27:00 GMT

Well said!

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

curraone — Wed, 12 May 2021 21:04:17 GMT

Most significant change for me is that all children's books categories have now moved to BOOKS -

So if you are a buyer and want a children's book - you choose books - then SEE ALL (but no, that button doesn't work)

So you need to specify an age group - and then SEE ALL (but no, that button doesn't work)

So you close the computer and go to a bookshop.

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

imastawka — Thu, 13 May 2021 05:18:03 GMT

ella@seller_update seems to be pretending to be ebay staff = troll IMO

There's also no country of registration

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

curraone — Thu, 13 May 2021 05:22:37 GMT

Nah, I think it is ebay - just the kind of unhelpful message you get from them all the time. 😀

Re: SELLERS - Heads Up Categories Stuffed Up Temporary

ramcycle2010 — Thu, 13 May 2021 05:25:10 GMT

@imastawka wrote:
ella@seller_update seems to be pretending to be ebay staff = troll IMO

There's also no country of registration

I thought the ella thing was weird also, but then so much has changed and is changing, so maybe that's how it's done now?