Trying to list a book

[egglesdtp]

I have tried at least half a dozen times to list a particular book which ebay keeps over-riding and insisting it is a textbook, and filling in all sorts of unsuitable item specifics, even changing the ISBN I put in. No matter what I do, every time it reverts back to rechecking the box stating 'Prefill this listing with ebay catalogue info' which I DO NOT WANT! How can I overide this?.

[the4masters2013]

Yes, he has. I had the same problem and he was good enough to give me the handy hint.
I have posted the same hint for the OP.

[the4masters2013]

Blurb!! Not blub... my spelling is getting dreadful!

[egglesdtp]

But I don't want to use ebay's blurb about the book - I want to use my own. I also found that whether or not I could proceed without ebay taking over my listing (which I don't want them to do)  was which of the two ISBNs (10 or 13) I used. In the ned, I just didn't put either ISBN in - and I could finish the listing.

I guess that's the difference between booksellers. Some want ebay to fill in the details, other want to use their own.

[the4masters2013]

I'll use the ebay blurb if the category is correct.
Otherwise, I unclick the box and do my own blurb.
I prefer to have the correct category no matter what!

[davewil1964]

As said.

But, after you untick 'prefill' and change the category back to the correct one, DO NOT change the ISBN. Leave it at the 13 digit one, or eBay's bot will revert it and change the category, etc back to the wrong one.

Any search for the 10 digit should find the 13 digit one as well. Although I doubt too many buyers search by ISBN.

If you are deleting the ISBN, select 'does not apply' from the dropdown, otherwise it won't relist.

[egglesdtp]

Thanks for that final tip.

[dazzledayz]

As Dave says but beware.

If you use the ISBN in your seller filled fields and later revise the listing in the bulk editor, your category will be changed to that which eBay has decided is appropriate.

(there my also be other cases where  this happens as well)

In the short term, if you want correct categorization choose does not apply for ISBN though I don't know (and eBay won't tell) if there is any penalty exacted in search.

For some reason almost any book that is remotely instructional is now classed as a textbook.

I even had 2 editions of the same book classed differently just this week (ed 1 was textbook, ed 2 was non-fiction).

ebay have introduced a cleanup system whereby you click the flag symbol next to the item in the catalogue selection area and you'll be able to tell them the category is incorrect by providing the correct one.

Only problem with this is that your correction is advice to ebay only and will have no effect on the current listing you are working on.

I suspect that any listings mis-categorized will stay that way even if eBay later revises their catalogue structure.

The catalogue for books is a total dogs breakfast and I don't really understand why.

The catalogue data for the individual books actually shows the correct details as submitted by the publisher yet eBay chooses to ignore this and classify along lines I simply cannot fathom.

In the larger scheme of search it probably doesnt really matter whether or not you have the right category anyway.

Most books are searched by title or author and I don't think many buyers would use the category refinement tool at left of search.

[egglesdtp]

So it seems the solution to the whole debacle is to leave out the ISBN field - or at least 'does not apply'. Who would search for a book based on ISBN anyway? Sometimes ebay is just stupid.