In the Autumn 2017 Seller Release eBay have updated their picture policy and will now ask sellers to remove watermarks from all images.
This is in addition to earlier requirements banning text decorations, logos, borders and other artwork sellers have used in an effort to make their listing pop out in search results. Normal advice applies that you’d expect from any ecommerce website or marketplace – images with a plain, white background and the product filling the frame are ideal although contrasting backgrounds can be used (e.g. if the product itself is white).
Why you might not be in favour
We know that many sellers are not going to like this for one of two reasons. Many will complain that without watermarks anyone can ‘borrow’ their pictures for their own listings. If you’ve invested in fantastic photography we can understand why this would irk you, however on other sites sellers will be sharing images on single product detail pages anyway so this isn’t exactly unheard of. We’re braced for your complaints however.
The second and very valid complaint is that eBay have already asked sellers to redo their pictures recently when they banned text and graphic decorations. Now they’re asking sellers to edit their images once again. It wouldn’t be an unreasonable complaint to wish eBay had just done both measures in one go.
Why you should be in favour
If you want your listings promoted as widely as possible then images need to be clean on plain backgrounds. Search engines won’t display images in shopping results that have UK flags, watermarks or any of the various other decorations sellers have added in the past.
Also eBay won’t want to promote your listings in features such as the ‘Shop the Scene‘ graphic currently displayed in The Entertainment Shop if they’re covered in decorations and watermarks. Image search is going to be increasingly important as technology such as eBay’s Find It On eBay and Image Search rolls out.
Time Line
- From 1st March 2018, watermarks will no longer be allowed on pictures.
- eBay will monitor pictures for watermarks and notify you when we identify images that don’t comply with their updated picture policy.
- From 1st March 2018, sellers who continue to include watermarks in images will have their listings removed from search.
How do you remove watermarks from images?
Hopefully you’ve kept the original unwatermarked images but swapping them is a listing by listing process – you can’t bulk edit as every listing will have different images.
If you use multichannel management software you may find that you have watermarked and unwatermarked image options and can simply select for the unwatermarked versions to be sent to eBay.
If you haven’t got original images then sadly you’ll need to reshoot each image prior to the 1st March 2018 deadline.
85 Responses
This is a crazy move by eBay as for someone who is a designer, like myself, my wall art designs are ‘mine’ (that I spent hours creating) and to show them without a watermark opens the floodgates for copies of my work. I left Amazon due to Chinese copies of my work being made and sold on Amazon UK in competition with me (and Amazon didn’t want to help at all as there’s no copyright law in China!) so now, eBay are going to open the doors for copies. It should be our choice whether or not to add a watermark to our images, after all, eBay make their money from us (the sellers) and not the buyers. The buyers are our customers, not eBay’s.
Presumably this does not apply to Daily Deal sellers. Everyday you see daily deals with text and graphics in the product image.
Ebay put the water marks on our pictures when we uploaded them, will they be taking them off or are we expected to redo the whole lot again ?
“From 1 March 2018, watermarks will no longer be allowed on pictures”
This is madness! I spend a huge amount of time and money taking pictures of the products I sell, and always add a small discrete watermark to my images to protect them. So now I have to use my images, totally unprotected from theft! Why would eBay do this?
Well thats my photography / media budget now cut to zero.. Just wait for someone else to sell the same product, and I get free images
Thank you eBay.
I have jumped through every hoop eBay has placed in front of me, as a seller. Some of them make sense, some dont, and some, such as this, are downright stupid. Every seller has the right to protect their image from theft. I sell postcards and photographs, many of which are one off, totally unique images. If I cannot protect them from being copied, then I dont have a business as most potential customers will simply right click – Save Image as – and wont bother buying it. It will make my items almost worthless overnight. This really is the final nail in the eBay coffin for me, and I will not be selling on eBay come 1st March 2018.
R.IP eBay
From 1st March 2018, sellers who continue to include watermarks in images will have their listings removed from search.’
So you still get to upload and pay for the listing and eBay decides what is a watermark?
I hope that their (un)intelligent software can differentiate between text on an item and a watermark.
How do i protect my images now, i’ll have to go over to the lower quality stock pictures and stop using my own detailed pictures as do not want them stolen.
I’ll keep them for my own website, just glad im in the middle of having one made for me as eBay Sales will take a hit from this due to looking the same as everyone else.
Pet Food – would take pictures of the food but now i’ll stick to stock pictures of the bags outside.
OK..
Good luck ebay with going backwards.
I am not spending all the time and money to provide my images to competitors. We are unique because of our own detailed images.
eBay policy makers are getting out of control and their obsession with copying amazon is now getting out of hand. It almost feels like getting bullied.
We will have to remove all our own images and stick to one google standard image.
on the plus side:
Our own site and facebook page will stand out and look better with detailed and own images.
a level playing field is when Argos get their own section of the daily deals page, where they can splatter their images with “in store to collect now” and give you not only the address and phone number, but the availability in your local branch right now.
whereas if you even think about any of that you’re getting the banhammer.
We sellers need to petition this. It is totally out of order!!
I think eBay may shoot itself in the foot here. I am not willing to share the photographs I have spent hours taking and prepping with my competitors.
We have now had to change our listings multiple times, to jump through Ebay’s hoops.
Remember the 500 pixel thing? When Ebay’s own picture hosting shrank the images down to only 400 pixels !!! Spent months re-scanning images to comply.
Remember the embedded code thing? Even innocuous scrolling galleries had to be removed. Months spent checking and removing code from listings to comply.
Now this.
NO !!! ENOUGH !!!
None of these wretched changes they come up with puts any money in sellers pockets.
Why not address the issues that really are bugging buyers and sellers.
For parts of almost every day, some type of buyer can’t access the site properly, or checkout, e.g., mobile users, or people using particular internet providers.
The searches don’t work properly. The checkouts and basket don’t work properly.
Whole days are no devoid of any sales. Like a tap being switched off, followed by a splurge of sales when buyers can presumably buy again.
We are being asked to PAY more and DO more by Ebay for LESS
Ebay is doomed.
I pay ebay over £800 a month in fees and all they do is make it more difficult to sell. I sell photographs and one off items that I watermark to prevent the images being stolen. I am not going to re-photograph over 3000 items just to comply with Ebay’s latest whim. I am going to start moving my stock – onto Amazon, onto Abebooks, and onto my own website (which I hope to have up and running shortly). This is the straw that broke the camel’s back as far I am concerned.
I wonder if there is a way to stop people right clicking on your image, I know there is no right click code out there but I wonder how and if this would work on ebayThe no watermark thing is fine but nobody should be able to steal your images) … Just a thought… Ebay is a sinking ship ruined by chinese sellers and ebay’s greed … I started my own website approx 2 years ago and I would recommend it to anyone, my website cost me £25 a month and a yearly fee to renew my website domain of about £30.
Do I need to do this now or later , is it having an effect right now?
Yes, this policy is just stupid ebay. I gave up on Amazon because all my images were stolen, it is totally frustrating to see my good images on somebody else’s listing or website and they are selling more than me on the back of it! I invest many days each month photographing and editing images so customers can see the true colour and texture of the product offered, (what else do they have to go on when buying remote?) perhaps they are encouraged to purchase because of this? Often stock images are just not correct, out of focus, wrong colour etc. The customer benefits from the work we put in, they truly get what they see, this means less returns and a better reputation for ebay. If this new policy is implemented then we all just don’t bother, instead we use stock or low-res poor quality images, and customers are not satisfied with the product they receive. Quality sellers will look for a new platform or invest the saved money in their own website, either way ebay loose out. Do ebay not understand this is a backward step, come on re-think needed here guys! , from a sellers point of view it’s one of the features that make ebay different from Amazon.
Wow! Watermarks have been permitted since ebay began.
It seems ebay are insisting that sellers go back and change all the adverts we have and remove watermarks.
This is impossible for a seller like me, who has more than 20000 individual listings for items that are all unique. This would require me to pick all items again, remove the protective wrapping, re-photograph and re-edit the listing. 20 thousand times. It is simply impossible.
This would be an action that would close our business on ebay and force us to shift onto other platforms or close our business altogether as it would no longer be viable. Retrospective demands like this are killing all our desire to continue to work with ebay.
I really hope someone from eBay management is reading this. Who would now bother selling on eBay when it could demand any change in the future, rendering all your previous hard work a complete waste of time!!!
Hey everyone. I’ve only started selling on ebay two years ago but I have done very well. Initially I worked very hard in perfecting my images only to learn that others are stealing them for their own listings . I spent much time on the phone with eBay customer services only to have some not all of these listings removed . since then I have watermark all my images. As I haven’t been around for too long on eBay I’m not aware of all the stupid things they have done over the years , but I have read some of it on different forums . eBay are now going over the top with a stupid watermark policy of there’s . Earlier on a mentioned something about starting a petition . I am very serious about this and I think we should do something before eBay gets too far ahead of themselves by getting this policy live. Problem is, I have no idea how these things work. So any input from all you guys out there would be much appreciated on how to go about this.
I wonder if there is a way to stop people right clicking on your image, I know there is no right click code out there but I wonder how and if this would work on ebay ( but nobody should be able to steal your images… ) Ebay is a sinking ship ruined by chinese sellers and ebay’s greed … I started my own website approx 2 years ago and I would recommend it to anyone, my website cost me £25 a month and a yearly fee to renew my website domain of about £30.
A step too far this time ebay, we sell hundreds of bespoke products with artwork designed by us, if we can’t protect them we’re off. Goodbye ebay!
I totally agree with the comments on here, ebay have pulled some stunts over the years but I think unless they do a u-turn on this then that’s it for me after 14 years on the site as a anchor store.
I sell 1000s of military gifts & I pay a yearly royalty as part of my licensing agreement. If someone is selling for instance a used hot tub or a car then why would you bother to watermark it? I doubt very much that you would. The point being is that sellers who place watermarks feel they have a justified reason for doing so.
Watermarks are vital to me & other sellers where their images are effectively their products.
From what I can tell ebay are trying to copy Amazon & they want sellers to build them a product catalogue in order that other sellers can use images created by other sellers to make ebay more money, we should therefore be charging ebay for our images!
I limit what I sell on Amazon for this very reason. I understand why they would have an issue with “this image belongs to bertie123” slapped across it, but where is the harm in a watermark that says something like “Please feel free to use this image” through it.
That way anyone can use it but your image is still protected!
If ebay thinks that people are not out to rip others off then just google “Does sniping work on ebay?” & see how many are asking that very question.
As this stands at the moment unless ebay has a serious re-think on this, e.g. allowing watermarks on listings that others could steal for their own ends then I feel this is the end for me.
I might as well just put my products in the street & walk away letting people take what ever they like. For me image theft is product theft!
Amazon already have this policy. They dont allow watermarks on your pictures neither so you wont go much further with Amazon.
This move by Ebay is to make a big product catalog of “their” inventory.
They no longer want sellers as individuals. It is nothing but a price war. They want to let other sellers to use, sell the same items at a lower price.
What matters if the picture is the same for a particular product? Only the price. If all sellers sell the same with the same picture the buyer will go for the lower price.
It makes Ebay more unified. It makes Ebay a webshop where all glory (and fees) go to Ebay and all problems diverted to the seller.
In my opinion everyone who relies on Ebay is living in a dream. Of the fees you pay to Ebay you could have already built your own webshop and spent that fee on SEO.
Most of those sellers are just too comfy and lazy to start their own website.
Wake up and move on.
surely somone has to step up and start a new marketplace? there is only so much crap sellers can take from ebay.
this initiative should come from the government post brexit the UK should have a first class first rate ecommerce trading site/auction site ,not at the mercy of the fucking yanks and their wanky metrics and bullshit rules and regulations . Fuck amazon and fuck ebay
Good on ebay great idea can’t stand all that watermark crap white back grand stuff trying to make the item look bigger then it really is Good good can’t wait mite have real picture of stuff now of the actual item ????
The editorial by Chris has missed a vital point.
It’s not just about other sellers copying your images.
If you sell vintage photos, postcards or other collectables with images, people can right click and copy them for themselves without buying the item.
Which would you rather do? Pay £10 or £20 for a possibly unique original vintage item, or right click and have a clear sharp copy for free.
We added watermarks when customers told us our images were appearing on web pages and they felt it was wrong!
Sales went up by around 20% and average auction prices also rose after watermarking.
A discrete, low saturation watermark in no way detracts from the customer’s “experience”.
Unless Ebay also disables the right click copy function on their listings (as many websites already do), then we will simply stop listing on Ebay.
This is another ill-thought policy which will crush thousands of sellers under the wheel.
Ebay is now becoming a very poor imitator of Amazon.
No watermarks, no Ebay shop. They can go jump!
Reason I put watermarks on my images was because competitor were stealing them for their own use.
This will be the finally nail in the coffin for alot of Ebay`s small business members.
photoshop the watermark out not hard is it love the way ebay does it you cant see the item half of the time coz the watermark does my nut when other sellers have the same pics with different watermarks so whats the point…. who the hell wants post cards these days LOL hahahahahahhahha
love it keep up the good work ebay get this boring stuff of here 🙂
free post cards here we come haha
we don’t want all this new crap on it we want it to go back to the way it was all second hand stuff auctions when eBay was ebay was the Real Deal
We know this won’t help with compliance of existing photos
Though if we had an item that was watermark critical
We would include an everyday desktop item accidentally placed in the photo as a spoiler to copying
Or a photo with lens glare or some other minor flaw
Judging by how horrendously poor eBay are at policing their current image policy I don’t think sellers have too much to worry about. We ourselves have reported sellers countless times for text on images and nothing has been done about it.
Bloody Nora
we have spent hundreds on a photograph equipment. competition is tough enough without this
Good bye ebay will use the money i save promoting my website
the reason ebay dont want watermarks, is so they can take your high res, lovingly taken images (not necessarily yours, just whoever went to most effort and got the best picture), remove your ownership of it, and then use your image to point to Argos’ listing, or whichever ebay bumchum is touting your products.
this way, they get to benefit from your work without giving anything at all back, and keep their big-store friends happy.
Here is the email address that you should report your feelings to on this matter
Ebay VC of the UK [email protected]
This was in the pipeline they are taking away all branding and individuality they will be hiding your usernames next year, unless you are on of Hattrell’s friends at Argos or Magpie.
There are other options out there away from ebay you know.
Am afraid eBay is devoid of any ideas it has been for many years, to busy chasing Amazons leftovers am afraid.
I still remember when they said you must use actual product images of pre-owned items, we changed all ours still use our own images to this day (they get robbed all the time) , yet most people did not change a thing.
So, for those whose item is a unique picture, rather than the item in the picture, would you be happy for the picture to be watermarked ‘eBay’?
eBay could surely not complain that such a watermark was inviting sales ‘off eBay’ (LOL) by promoting the seller (more LOL).
eBay really should consider this as an option for sellers in ‘non commodity’ categories like pictures, autographs, postcards, handmade items etc..
But perhaps the eBay is not for turning.
Now is the time to get your website up to speed. Use eBay for customer acquisition and ensure that your web address is VERY clear on the paperwork you send out to them. Even offer a discount code to entice them to use your website for repeat purchases. ‘FROMEBAY’ is a good one as you can also track its success.
I already advise clients to do this now, particularly those whose products are purchased repeatedly.
I spend around £1600 / month on their fees. I feel my listings are much better looking than other sellers’ thanks to my professional pictures. They were used by other sellers without my permission in past so I started adding a card with my eBay id. Now I have to remove it and use “stock” photo? How do I attract people to my listings? As a business seller it cost me a lot more to sell used car parts than Joe Bloggs has to pay when he strips his own car in the shed. There us no way I can beat him on price, I HAVE to offer warranty I HAVE to accept returns I HAVE to pay VAT etc. Now they say I can’t use my pictures? eBay – as much as I like buying I HATE YOU as a seller.
Just an idea – can I stick personalised “warranty void if removed” sticker with my seller id on the product before taking pic? I can’t see this breaching rules. Any other workaround ideas?
RIP eBay
You came, you saw, you conquered, you were different, you copied off Amazon, you became extinct.
I wouldn’t worry to much about this nonsense, I remember a couple of years ago eBay banning the use of logo and text on images, and the same would happen. Still lots of high performing listings full of text and blurb!!!
i also sell photographs and other such items.
watermaked currently.
not happy.
would ebay pick up on things, and flag me if say i used an acetate OHP film, with my username over the top? the photo will be clear through the film, but still have my copyright info on it.
I was losing sales to competitors who used my images – so i watermarked and even if you use google to search my images – they ones found are the ones on my website
Removing these watermarks is going to open up gates of many of lost sales – especially to the chinese who sell at 1p with free delivery!
Good point above if you put a card with the item that shows the name of your shop/company surely that is acceptable (e.g. free warranty, free case etc)
So basically there is no way we can make our listing looking better by having better pictures than our competitors? Is there really no way we can do something without being penalised by eBay?
Get real folks
Suck it up or work round it
EBay’s been doing this for decades
Many have tried and no ones beat them yet
I only joined here to find out from like-minded people what is going on with Ebay’s new policy changes.
I agree with Northumbrian… no-one’s beaten them yet. They’re just too big.
I forsee a fairly different picture. I think Ebay are building an EBAY PRIME shop, or rather they are using their customers (sellers are currently their only customers) to build their shop for them exactly as Amazon did.
Removing all sellers contact details and watermarks, adding product identifiers and manufacturers details and part numbers is just the beginning.
When that scenario is complete I see Ebay identifying the most profitable and popular lines, approaching the manufacturers with their immense buying power and then undercutting all the existing sellers with EBAY PRIME or something very similar.
Ebay are little better thank licensed crooks. They do not genuinely offer the benefits they overcharge you for. Their business model and operating procedures are morally questionable to say the least. They hide the information you need to accurately identify your costs, They make arbitrary off-the-cuff decisions about your customer transactions that normally would demand a court of law to enforce.
Example: A savvy buyer opens a case (with no previous contact with you) the money is immediately deducted from your Paypal account (more about Paypal later) and when the customer escalates it. Result – an instant refund with no questions asked.
The savvy buyer will seek out the sellers with an untracked postage options and repeat the process over and over.
This particular guaranteed money-back wheeze forced me to use traceable postage systems adding immensely to my operating time, the BUYERS costs and, of course, the whole purpose of the exercise… a bigger % fee that Ebay receives.
Paypal has been split from Ebay. That is just a few corrections on a bit of paper. Nothing has changed, same ownership same questionable business model , hand in glove with Ebay.
Example: If you qualify for telephone support try finding a telephone number.
WHEN you do get to speak to someone it is an indoctrinated bottom-feeder with no power to make a decision and reading from a “company policy script” which they cannot deviate from.
Ebay has countless features that do not work, broken links, help menu’s that go round and round in circles… do they fix them? of course not, that would take time and money. Time and money they use to develop all these wonderful new features. Feature that only have one purpose… TO MAKE MORE AND MORE MONEY FOR EBAY.
Prove to them something isn’t working and they tell you it is your PC, your browser, anything but Ebay’s fault.
Ebay come up with a new idea and start tweaking one feature only to invalidate several other features.
If you are rude to them watch your shop visibility suffer and your sales decrease for a week or so.
They want to make things better for buyers? Do they hell! They want to make things better for Ebay.
My type of business generates lots of requests for advice and technical questions which my customers would like to talk through. I would be very pleased to help 24/7 with a question and answer session which requires a telephone conversation. Ebay are preventing any contact between buyers and sellers for any reason.
Do I want lengthy messages going backwards and forwards with my customers – NO. Do my customers want lengthy messages going backwards and forwards – NO. They want to ask questions, get answers and, hopefully, buy.
My courier requires the telephone number of my customers for delivery time predict messages and dealing with delivery problems but ebay forbids then from offering me a number and fobids me from asking them.
I’m lucky. Retirement is is now in sight and I don’t have to put up with the crap much longer. All my current efforts are going into my own web shop and reducing my exposure with Ebay by putting more of my catalogue on alterntive web portals.
Brave New World, I think not.
Guys eBay are listening and replying to emails .this is a reply to a email i sent,from Rob Hattrell eBay vice president
If you read and follow the links you can understand and ser why the are going to ban watermarks .
Hi Darren
I am contacting you in relation to an email sent to our Vice President Rob Hattrell on the 21st September 2017. My name is Jane and I am responding to you from eBay’s Office of the President, Rob has asked me to reach out to you on his behalf. I apologise for the delay in my response.
Firstly, I would like to thank you for taking the time to contact us. I was very interested to read your feedback on the recent site change to remove watermarks from images on site.
Removing watermarks ensures a consistent experience for buyers while helping us to align with industry best practices. Images with a clean, white background help buyers better understand what is being sold leading to more purchases being made. Listings that follow these guidelines are more likely to result in a sale and show up in search results from Google or other search engines.
We know you may have previously invested time and money into updating your images to include watermarks. We also understand it may take some time to remove these which is why we are not enforcing this until March 2018 – meaning there will be little to no impact over the busy Christmas period.
We do want to try alleviate the work from our sellers as much as possible – in addition to the above we are also looking at working with some 3rd party tools that may be able to assist sellers with the transition (further information will be provided at a later date). We will also be sending e-mails advising members of what listings are breaching the policy so they do not have to manually check their own listings themselves.
Long term, we are looking to make huge improvements to the way eBay buyers will shop and search. The features mentioned below are currently being rolled out in the US and will follow in the UK at a later stage. Removing the watermark from the listing images will have a large part to play as the clearer the image is, the better these features will work.
Shop the look:
If you see a picture of an outfit that you like, eBay’s ‘Shop the look’ feature will allow shoppers to hover over an image which will then generate search results direct from eBay.
Click on the link below to see an example of this feature:
https://www.ebay.com/rpp/shop-the-look
Find it on eBay and Image search:
Find It On eBay is a new feature in our eBay app and mobile platform that lets you share images from any social platform or web browser. All you have to do is “share” the image with eBay and our mobile app will find listings of the item in that image or others like it.
With Image Search, you can take a photo of something you want to buy—or use an existing photo from your camera roll—and put it into the eBay Search bar on our native apps. Then, we’ll show you listings that match the item you are looking for.
Click on the link below to see this in action:
https://vimeo.com/226972601
I hope I have been able to provide further context on why we have implemented this policy change. If you have any further queries or concerns on the above, please feel free to contact me again.
Kind regards,
Jane Grace,
eBay Office of the President
I had the exact same message, word for word, except that mine came from “Ellis” on behalf of Rob. Same words, same links. Presumably they rotate the names in the header.
This is a copy and paste exercise, not a response.
Until I read this, I actually thought they’d given me an individual response.
Gaaaah!!!
“consistent experience for buyers”, “aligning with industry best practices”… blah blah blah what a bullshit
Thats the biggest load of BS i’ve heard so far from ebay. And just as I thought, the response has no mention of how they plan to prevent image theft!
I have been colorizing old photos for some time now and was hoping to sell on ebay in future, but got to say, there is now no way i would do this. Many of the images are very rare items, and they would be taken and resold, so my hard work would be for nothing. It is so common to see something with no watermark sold, then cheap images from the stolen items re-sold and they have the cheek to put their copy-write watermark on it.
Ebay will hurt itself here, the items i buy from there, well when they are watermarked it puts you into a corner of having to buy it to get it, not watermarked, just right click and it is yours for free, easy. There are many sellers who also surf the net, pinch photos, and sell rubbish copies, and i have learnt they do not like it pointed out. There is a website called the OLD SHIP PICTURE GALLERY, the owner of that website takes all his images from eBay, says it is for non profit but look harder, linked to painting sales. Someone let him know and the chap put the guys email on his website saying this person was claiming copy-write on the images on his website.
Sellers build up a buyers groups, buyers like the idea of getting a rare image for things like books, but as mentioned, no watermark, just right click now for your potential book image. In 6 months sellers have the time now to get their clients and pull them away from ebay, and i hope they do. I buy many from people who are not on eBay, works 100% better for both sides.
With everything i have just written, you would think eBay would make watermarking mandatory, you see, if people stop buying there will be no eBay.
I’ve been slowly building up my vintage postcard business on eBay. I’ve been a seller on there since 1999. This policy will allow unscrupulous buyers to steal my images – you know the ones, the type of Bastards that deserve a negative feedback but eBay won’t let sellers tell the truth about these crooks.
I’ll be deleting all my listings and ending my shop subscription if this stupid rule comes into force – my own website will do just fine. I’ll also refuse to buy via eBay and encourage everyone I know to boycott the site.
It would seem the people that ‘manage eBay are so far removed from the experience of small business sellers that they are incapable of understanding very simple things.
Last straw ebay, last straw.
Totally agree, the arrogance from the top man down on eBay is staggering. the whirlwinds coming for eBay.
To add insult to injury from today, when you revise an active listing you are unable to save the change to your inventory.
Ebay confirm this is a known issue but have no date of when it will be resolved.
Their “work round” was for every active listing you change (for example remove watermarks) you would also have to go into inventory and do the same change there too. A 100% extra workload.
OR make the change in inventory and submit a new active listing and lose all your sales history.
Might go back to bed.
Sally
x
I predict the eBay will either change this policy or not enforce it. There are thousands of sellers who have 1000+ watermarked pictures in their listing. Some sellers have 10,000+ watermarked pictures in their listings. It would take thousands of man hours for many sellers to post new pictures without watermarks. It could take years for many sellers to comply. Do you think eBay will hide from search or delist millions of active listings? eBay would lose a fortune on final value fees.
One of eBay’s worst decisions!
Like many other seller we put a lot of work into our product images and descriptions, it’s what differentiates us from our competitors. We have always focussed more on eBay than Amazon because it has always been a more seller focussed platform. We have regulars on eBay, but not on Amazon.
We put all our best images on our website and eBay, but on Amazon we just don’t bother. Any product description updates, improvements, get rolled out onto Website and eBay, but not Amazon, as its just not worth it.
On Amazon over time listings deteriorate, bad pictures, incorrect descriptions, variations all messed up, plus you get the fake product, drop-ship competition, vat fraudsters, etc. eBay allows you to control your own listings avoiding all these problems. I’ve seen great selling products die a death on Amazon, as the race to the bottom cowboys don’t know the product they sell.
If eBay tell us to remove watermarked images, we will remove them, and just leave one very mediocre main image in its place. There’s no way i’m going to upload my best images not watermarked.
eBay need to stop trying to be Amazon, let’s hope they let this change fade away quietly as some others have in the past. It will mean sellers putting less effort and time into eBay, and IMHO will end up losing them business.