eBay video capability for listings and storefronts has started to be introduced in the US and could be a game changer for showing off your products to their best.
Starting with select listings and currently only viewable on the mobile app, eBay video capability is very different to embedding a video in your product description where it may or may not be seen. This new feature places your video within the gallery image carousel so it’s right up front with your other product images.
eBay say that they will continue to expand these new video capabilities to more sellers throughout 2021. Videos will initially be visible to buyers on the eBay app but will eventually expand to desktop and mobile web.
Currently there don’t appear to be any eBay video capability help pages available, although these will come as video capabilities roll out, but what we do know from the image above is that the video is sitting where the second product image would normally be in the gallery.
As this is a slow roll out and there is no way to tell when you will get access to the feature, you might think that there is nothing for you to do yet. However, now is the time to consider commissioning great product videos so that when eBay video capability is available to you they can be uploaded straight away. It’s likely that you’ll want to make some investment such as a turntable to enable you to rotate products and naturally they type of video you shoot will differ depending on the size of the products offer.
Although creating videos is significantly more time consuming and could incur costs, we’re all in favour of this update by eBay. Our only suggestion would be that you reserve videos strictly for products and don’t waste your buyers’ time with a brand video telling them how great you are – show off your product to it’s best as that’s what will ultimately sell.
“Video is the next step in our ongoing efforts to help you deliver more engaging shopping experiences to your current and new buyers. They let you showcase your products and brand, and help drive buyer engagement and sales.
As we continue to roll out new video capabilities to sellers, we’ll reach out with more information on video guidelines and how to upload videos when you’re eligible.”
– eBay
5 Responses
It’s only taken Ebay 4 years to restore videos to listings , not bad going by there standards!!!
Contrary to your advice in paragraph 5, I’m not sure it is the time to get ahead of the curve; it could be a huge waste of time/money, until you know what video file types, resolutions, sizes, etc are going to be used.
eBay need to concentrate on fixing site glitches before attempting anything else. It’s got to a point where their Millennial age programming is embarrassing.
System glitches have become unbearable, wrong delivery estimates since November causing cancellations and loss of sales for resellers, and from April 6 customer messages with attachments no longer coming through. Ebay really must get it’s act together before it thinks about innovations.
Current requirements for eBay video: MP4 format (MPEG-4 Part 10 or MPEG-4 AVC), under 150MB in size, maximum resolution 1080p. Recommend that video be no longer than one minute, though that is not currently a requirement.