From the 1st of July on eBay.com, and from some time in the Autumn on eBay UK, the . As well as eliminating decorations such as borders and text from images, there is a new requirement that all images be a minimum of 500 pixels on the longest side (it’s recommended that the longest side be 1600 pixels).
I’ve been complaining that it’s unfair of eBay to put in place a new requirement such as this without providing a tool for sellers to identify which images need updating. eBay still don’t have a tool, but the lovely guys at ISDN*tek have created one.
You can run the new ISDN*tek tool to find active listings that fail to comply with eBay’s image-size policy. There’s also an option to resize and stretch existing images to meet the new sizes, although as that is likely to result in significant loss of quality it’s not advisable. It’s better to reshoot images and replace with new product shots.
As well as identifying undersized images the ISDN*tek tool will report the sizes of all your eBay gallery images giving you a colour coded report.
Great tool, shouldn’t take too long to run against your listings if you only have a few hundred, but if you have thousands of listings it may take several hours to complete. The maximum number of listings the tool can handle is 10,000 so it should be good for all bar the largest sellers.
Great job ISDN*tek! Shame on you eBay for not providing sellers with a tool to identify picture compliance in the first place.
As well as their new image tool, ISDN*Tek have a suite of great products suitable for eBay and the web, have a browse on their website and see if any could be of use to you.
17 Responses
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Breathing space time
[Or sheer laziness]…
‘Good ‘Til Cancelled listings aren’t affected by these changes at the moment, but make sure you’re prepared for upcoming changes’.
I have found this to be a very useful tool, having by chance happened to spot a mention of it on the eBay discussion boards.
If they can’t come up with something similar themselves, eBay should at least provide prominent links to this in order to help sellers through transition.
I believe the new standards come into effect in the USA on July 1st – it will be interesting to see what the consequences are.
Thanks for sharing this. Its easy to use and does the job!
I sell Books and of course I tap in the ISBN number and hopefully there is an image on file. I take it that these standard images are all acceptable?
But often(far too often) there is no image. Does it mean that ebay and its colleagues are going to take huge numbers of photographs to fill in all the gaps. Because the alternative is that I start to list Books and it is only part way through that I find that I need to provide my own photo because the technical details have appeared but no image(although for far too many Books there is no technical details either).
Than*
Great tool, shame you cant export to a CSV or excel file this would be much more useful to take the data offline.
Excellent find Chris and we are in the process of fixing those photos that need attention.
There are also some interesting web tools on their site that could be useful as well.
Thanks to ISDN*tek
Actually this is becoming a bit of a nightmare in general.
I have spent a while on the phone to ebay regarding numerous ambiguities regarding upcoming new picture standards.
1.As it stands, GTC listings will be effected by the upcoming changes despite this being clearly stated in the upcoming business seller release,ie,
“How will eBay be enforcing these changes?……Good ‘Til Cancelled listings aren’t affected by these changes at the moment, but make sure you’re prepared for upcoming changes.”
2. There is a confusion about rules and tips. I use a scenic backdrop, some are advisng it is ok, others that it must be removed. As far as I can see it is a tip in their accompanying tips pdf guide, but some assistants are interpreting this as a rule in that all photos must be shot on a plain background. If it is a tip it needs to clearly label it as a tip, if it it is a rule likewise. The tips in the guide are mixed in with what now appear to be rules, that is very ambiguous.
3. I have also been advised that is only one item to be illustrated on what appears in the ebay gallery. So this means the end of the montage that sellers like me to illustrate that there are numerous colours in the range.
The change particularly effects sellers like me because I use scenic backdrops, such as a swimming pool, and montage adverts which are truly beautiful and have been a secret to success.
But it is not even that, what is worse is the ambiguity, none of the telephone advise I have been given is consistent with one operator saying one thing, and another something in direct contradiction.
Last week, based on what appeared to be good advice, I ammended my wife’s entire site, only now to find out that much of the work needs to be revamped again.
But I can’t even be sure of that either, because no one seems to know.
As it stands I now need to completely reshoot half my inventory, to produce pictures of much lesser beauty.
And I can’t prepare until, the changes come in to effect on July 1st on the .com site when things become apparent in effect, after all no point spending hundreds of hours and pounds doing something which may be unnecessary.
This is a mess.
I have cut and pasted the following from Ebay.com
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Do the picture quality requirements apply to my Good ‘Til Cancelled listings?
Yes. All new and revised listings and relistings are subject to the picture quality requirements, including Good ‘Til Cancelled listings. Existing Good ‘Til Cancelled listings that automatically renew (without revisions) will not be impacted at this time.
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It is pretty clear here that existing GTC listings will not be a problem at this time.
All these changes and Ebay’s continual moving of the goal posts are starting to irritate though as so many of these things are so time consuming, something that Ebay don’t seem to take into account.
I got a definitive answer from Ebay. I won’t quote as it is a dedicated response and I believe there should be some confidentiality:
1. GTC listings will not be effected by upcoming changes.
2. Montage pictures are fine.
3. Scenic backdrops are acceptable within the context of the picture as long as they don’t impose.