It was only two days ago that I asked the question “Would you like the ability to edit catalogue information or to add new entries to the catalogue data?” It now appears that on eBay.com in one category – GPS Systems, you can add new products to eBay.com’s product catalogue if your item doesn’t already have an entry.
This solves the dilemma of how to ensure your items aren’t removed by eBay, as well as filling in holes in eBay’s catalogue. If your product is released in a later model or a new colour you can simply add it and carry on listing as normal.
There is of course a word of warning, make sure that if you do add a new product it really is new to the product catalogue. For example just because a device has more memory doesn’t make it a new product if memory can be upgraded. This would then simply be an item specific – if you create new catalogue entries and you are the only person to list against that product then your item isn’t likely to fair well in search as eBay will probably surface the more popular item. Also ensure that the data is 100% correct and as complete as possible to give buyers the maximum (and correct!) information.
We’ll let you know if this comes to the UK or if we see more categories added where you can add new entries to eBay’s product catalogue data.
10 Responses
Sounds dangerous, hasn’t Amazon had issues since opening up to allow this?
What if a product is not in the catalogue, somebody add’s it but doesn’t do it correctly. Then Joe Blogg’s comes along, list’s his identical product using the incorrect catalogue information provided by eBay.
If I was going to sell off a printer or sim I wouldn’t have a clue if the catalogue information was right or wrong to be honest.
It’s still the search box that holds the answer, and the news of the new release there is great.
This catalogue fascination is a distraction which makes listing stuff harder, describing things accurately more prone to error and so buyers grumpier.
Ever since the Book Details were listed I have had problems. There are Books with details and no photo; Books with incomplete details(or just incorrect details – such as stating a Book is Paperback when it was only ever published in Hardback or quoting a totally incorrect publisher). But I am finding that about half of the books that I type in the ISBN are not listed at all.
It is not just the New Titles(I had one recently in stock that another seller had listed as being Published in December 2011) where there was No Details(fair enough) but many that were published 5, 10, 20 years ago where there is no details.
So Yes it would be very useful if I could enter the Book Details. After all there are no complications of Warranty or similar with a Book and 1 X ISBN is suposed to signify One version of that Book so if there are Paperback and Hasrdback versions they are supposed each to have a differant ISBN(some small publishers in the past have not always done this). Also it would be very useful to be able to enter a photograph where one is not shown.
In regard to errors it would be useful to have somewhere we can just send in the correction to. After all when I am listing I have the Book in front of me as I do it. If the details are not there I can just run through the details and enter them. Books should be the simplest of all to enter and always get the details correct.
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Slightly different, but:
Some years ago, a person I knew was into copying CDs/DVDs.
There was a site he had, that listed all Cd/DVD sleeves with published data & all he did was download & reprint it in his copies.
I know this is not a good example, but a seperate website where such a service could be used for a small subscription fee, maybe…