We’ve been asking for it for years, and at last it’s been announced. regardless of format or duration.
From the 1st of August you’ll be able to upload up to 12 pictures to all of your listings and even better the zoom feature for images will also be available for free (just make sure your images are large enough to take advantage!).
As a result of free images the Picture Pack listing enhancement will be retired, however you’ll still be able to purchase the Supersize feature.
The aim is of course to enable you to make your listing more attractive for buyers and increase your sell through rates. On a personal note I’m buying more often on my mobile and whilst you might be embedding images in your listing descriptions I’m not seeing them, or if I do they’re too tiny to see. Even on a full size monitor often buyers are checking out the top of your listing and having your images hosted there makes sense.
No More Decorative Accoutrements
We predicted this a while back when the new picture standards were introduced on eBay.com – soon you’ll not be allowed to adorn images with flags, borders, text or pretty much anything other than the image itself and (if you really must) a discreet watermark.
We know that having adornments on your images does make a difference to sell through rates, but if everyone added borders and decorative accoutrements the site starts to look a mess and the benefit would cease. The only reason it works is because everyone doesn’t use them, but soon no one will.
Watermarks
If you do want to use a watermark to stop people stealing your images the best solution is to use digital watermarking (e.g. Digimarc). This not only means that the watermark can’t be cut out of the image, but also makes it a lot easier to prove that it’s your image.
If you do use watermarks an alternative (safe!) method is to . That way there can be no argument as to whether they meet eBay’s guidelines.
Image Sizes
When the new standards kick in every listing will be require at least one image – there’ll be no more listings without an image on eBay UK.
The longest side of all images must be at least 500 pixels, but it’s recommended that the longest side be 1600 pixels. eBay display such large images at the top of listings and to take full advantage of the Zoom feature there’s little reason not to provide buyers with great images other than it takes a little extra work on behalf of the seller.
Stock images
eBay will continue to allow stock images for new and refurbished items, but for used products you’ll have to take your own images.
If you are going to use stock images make sure that they’re a reasonable size – there’s nothing worse than an tiny image in a big white box!
Investment in high quality images is one of the easiest ways to draw browsers to your listings in eBay search and then convert them to buyers when they land on your listing. Whilst some sellers might be peeved at losing the ability to add decoration to their images, overall we at Tamebay give these changes a big thumbs up.
eBay Photo Guide
eBay have produced a new photo guide with tips and tricks to ensure your images are as good as possible.
23 Responses
OMG the FREE extra images AT LAST!!!!!
Thanks for the comprehensive overview Chris.
whats the betting sometime in future self hosted pictures will not be not allowed
I love how only last week when a client rang his eBay account manager about adorning images, they said it was a great thing and they were ACTIVELY encouraging this!
He thought he would check as I had been saying for a while to stop it.
Me 1 AM 0
I have been starting the phase out ‘Decorative’ images in anticipation of this. However I have noticed that that the sales seem slightly less then the others. But as you said, once everyone has them, it will be a level playing field.
The devil is in the detail. You have to look at the entire bulletin to learn how this financial loss to ebay is being recovered from other areas.
Many of us are about to loose our TRS discounts as the new conditions to earn this are extremely onerous. And shop fees are rising.
For those who self host, who have an ebay store, and who cannot gain the TRS status as a result of the new conditions, there is overall a significant fee increase.
No More Decorative Accoutrements
It will be interesting to see what the sanctions are, if any.
Those that toe the party line will make the changes and those that usually ignore will bleat on about not having enough time between now and Autumn 2013 to make the changes.
The only thing i would like ebay to be more like Amazon is implementing policy.
Lee
I don’t think any of this has been properly thought through with regard to abstract items. You see, the items I sell are CDs containing either software programs or printable spare parts for long-out-of-print cardboard boardgames. How then I should represent my items under the new rules?
A picture of the labelled CD is possible, of course, but this gives the seller little information as to what is on the disc. For many of my items, I have had to create good artwork so as to communicate the contents of the software package.
I feel that the new rules have not been properly thought through with regard to sellers selling the kind of things I sell. It’s ok needing a picture of a lampshade or a pair of shoes, but what sort of picture should an abstract item like a software package have? What do you guys think?
(As an idea, since I make my CDs up on demand, and they are listed as ‘New’, does this mean I can use stock photos?
I’m just a small seller so I rarely take my own photos (I don’t have a decent camera or know how to use one well…) and use stock images.
Quite often the stock image I get is not 500 pixels, how strict are they going to enforce this? Guess I might end up with awful self taken pictures….
About time ebay removed the banners on images. There are deliberately misleading ones out there.
Does anybody know if there is a way to check the size of current images. Most of mine will be OK but suspect there will be some that fail. I need to identify which these are, but how do I do that? I don’t want to be dumped on at implementation either losing TRS discounts or having listings removed because a specific image deson’t meet the standard.
Any ideas?
.
Re; No More Decorative Accoutrements
There is some serious work to be done by some sellers;
2800 listings
https://stores.ebay.co.uk/babzmedia
1600 listings
https://stores.ebay.co.uk/PP-Retail?_trksid=p2047675.l2563
There are many. many more, bigger one’s too.
How will ebay implement this, Chris!!
Meanwhile eBay seems to be having another meltdown. Listings being removed left, right and centre for “exceeding” selling allowances or something.
Obviously some developer testing something out on the live site and giving everybody heart failure.
Nice to see the mention on here of Digimarc digital watermarking. I use this service for an annual fee and think it’s great to protect my images. There’s no change visibly to the image but a small reader (plugin for Internet Explorer) can give you all the info you need.
I raised the issue of Digimarc when these changes were being discussed at the eBay Seller Council meeting and I got the impression that eBay were not aware of digital watermarking at the time. I could be wrong. I just hope that they allow those who investigate the “Report an item” submittals to have use of the Digimarc reader or it will be pointless. I’ve already come up against this before when being told that they could not access the digital watermark as they were not allowed to download to reader plugin to their PC’s!
On the subject of images, resizing etc. I use FastStone Photo Resizer:
https://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm
It’s completely free!
It will convert, crop, resize up or down, recolour, rename, add watermarks etc. in batches. Just have a look at the features. I hope someone else finds this handy.
Thanks for the summary, at least we are going to use the free Images in listing. I think this offer make the listing more attractive,but everybody use same Image~~Isn’t it a bad effect on ebay listing???