23-08-2017 10:37 AM - edited 23-08-2017 10:40 AM
I just viewed one of my listings and was suprised to see a very shortened, edited item description. My eight line description had shrunk to two lines.
It turns out this is another ebay " improvement ". A brief random section of the description is shown with buyers needing to click on yet another icon to see the full description and sellers terms. No doubt this is to make things simple for the phone app buyers, but will cause further problems for sellers. If a fault or colour is mentioned, but does not show in the grab ebay have selected, we will see a rise in INAD desputes as impatient , want it now phone buyers click "buy" without clicking the link to see the full description.
Looks like we will have to be very carefull in the "item condition " box when listing and need to get all of the important information crammed into the first two lines in the description. Basically we will need to change ( again .........) the way we do our page layouts when we list items.
on 23-08-2017 11:13 AM
ebay really need to bring out that book of theirs
1001 Ways To Screw A Seller
on 23-08-2017 12:07 PM
For a few months I have been considering rebirthing my selling career but over the last few weeks with the problems people are having I doubt I will. Dauly life can be difficult enough without Ebay wonderful HELP.
on 23-08-2017 12:15 PM
I noticed that on a listing I looked at last night. When I clicked on the show more button it opened the description in a new tab. I'm not sure how it looked on the app as it wasn't something I was interested in after all.
on 23-08-2017 12:39 PM
This might explain why I have been seeing listings where the sellers have added Description as a field in the Item Specifics section and copied their main blurb there.
on 23-08-2017 12:54 PM
Is the shortened version only on a mobile or on mobile and PC. ? If its on both its a Friday glitch on Wednesday.
The "Improvement" should show on mobile only and show approx 200 characters (CR count as 50 characters), you should see 800 characters if you use CSS and HTML.
on 23-08-2017 12:59 PM
Can you give an item number for this, as I don't think your can add descriptions to the item specifics. Howver for many items such as books and DVDs the item specifics include a description based on the UPC or EAN. You can add a few things like genre etc, but not descriptions.
on 23-08-2017 02:13 PM
https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/What-s-happened-to-listing-descriptions/td-p/5461640
Post 11 by shipscript is of particular note.
on 23-08-2017 02:28 PM
Also check out here.
http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/sprupd16/view-item.html#tab=faqs&faq=faq-vi-q09
eBay FAQ Mobile View Item Description Summary
on 23-08-2017 04:49 PM
I will take a screenshot next time I see one. You can add Description as a field in Item Specifics.