Is ebay about to end selling vintage and unique items?

[PrettySquareGal]

eBay Announces Spring 2018 Seller Update

Excerpt:

By May, “when you attempt to modify existing listings, relist existing listings (including Good ‘til Cancelled), or create a new listing for an item in any condition within the Phase 1 product lines, and you do not associate it with a product from the eBay catalog, you will be unable to complete the listing.”

After we wrote on Sunday about eBay’s plan to begin rolling out the new product-based shopping experience (one that’s more similar to Amazon than the traditional “listing” based experience of eBay), many sellers worried about what it would mean for vintage and one-of-a-kind items. At first glance, we don’t see eBay address this in today’s news – here are two FAQs worth pointing out:

Will this requirement apply for listings with all item conditions, aftermarket customization, bundles, and lots?

Yes. This requirement applies to all item conditions (i.e., new, used, refurbished), as well as customized items, bundles, and lots.

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/2018/02/27/ebay-announces-spring-2018-seller-update/

 

[LizzieMaine]

Blech. Well, back to Bookfinder.

 

[scottyrocks]

Apparently ebay has abandoned its original purpose.

Hopefully someone else will step in.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I'm digging into the details and see this:

To meet buyers’ continuously evolving expectations, eBay is transitioning many categories to a product-based shopping experience where all listings for the same product are grouped together.

http://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2018-spring/inventory-optimization.html

I see they are making changes to the "antiques" and "collectibles" categories but I don't understand what it means other than they're perhaps maybe not going away. I honestly can't make sense of this.

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/categorychanges.html

 

[MondoFW]

There would be complete chaos if they just removed marketing of vintage items on eBay. I have my doubts about this outcome.

Spoiler

But just to be safe, I guess I have to start my shopping spree NOW!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm not sure either -- I don't ever search "by category" anyway, given the rather specific nature of the stuff I look for. I usually don't even look at what category the search result is in. I just do a global search for, I dunno, "worker newspaper 1937," or "78rpm 1934" and then scan thru whatever shows up without any thought of categories. As long as they're not planning to eliminate the ability to do those kinds of searches, I'm not going to worry too much. If I were a seller, though, I might be a bit concerned just given how unnecessarily complicated they seem to be making things. But then, I've been using eBay for twenty years now, and every single change they've ever made has been unnecessarily complicated and stupid.

 

[MondoFW]

I'm not sure either -- I don't ever search "by category" anyway, given the rather specific nature of the stuff I look for. I usually don't even look at what category the search result is in. I just do a global search for, I dunno, "worker newspaper 1937," or "78rpm 1934" and then scan thru whatever shows up without any thought of categories. As long as they're not planning to eliminate the ability to do those kinds of searches, I'm not going to worry too much. If I were a seller, though, I might be a bit concerned just given how unnecessarily complicated they seem to be making things. But then, I've been using eBay for twenty years now, and every single change they've ever made has been unnecessarily complicated and stupid.

I always wonder what eBay was like around the time it was conceived ('97-'00). humble beginnings, it seems like.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It was basically an online flea market crossed with an estate auction -- there was very little "new" merchandise, there were no corporate sellers, and the "Buy it Now" feature didn't exist. Everything was auctioned, and you submitted your bid and hoped you didn't get sniped. And Paypal was merely something Peter Thiel daydreamed about while sitting on the can, so you had to go to the post office and buy a money order and mail it to the seller before you could expect to receive your item. Nobody made a living selling stuff -- it was basically people cleaning old junk out of their cellars and garages and hoping for the best.

I still remember that the very first item I bought on eBay, in January of 1998, was a copy of "Comix: A History of Comic Books In America," by Les Daniels, published in 1971 and long out of print. And it's still sitting on my "oversize volume" bookshelf, in between "Radio Broadcasts At The Library of Congress 1924-1941" and "Western Electric Equipment and Apparatus Catalogue No. 9," which also came, I think, from eBay.

And now I realize there's such a thing as "eBay nostalgia," and I feel a bit sick.

 

[redlinerobert]

have any of you looked at 1stdibs? Higher quality of items and you can find some good deals.

 

[3fingers]

If I were a seller I would have no interest in eBay' s ideas of categories. I search like Lizzie described, but if you click on their suggested categories that contain your search terms you will severely limit the number of items you see. If you ignore the categories and do a general search it will pull up all items that match (and a good many that don't). Example: a search for vintage Manning Bowman will get what I want to see and also many football cards featuring the Mannings printed by a company called Bowman.
I'd love to meet the people eBay pays to dream up their next bit of idiocy .

 

[scottyrocks]

Yes, I have never used categories on ebay in the 20 years I've been using it. General searches yield far better results.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You can also use "-" to omit items you don't want from searches, once you've figured out what those things have to be. I often search for "NBC" items, relating to the radio network, but right after 9/11 there was a big rush by preppers on "nuclear, biological, and chemical" gas masks which were unfortunately abbreviated "NBC." For a couple years after that I had to enter my search as "NBC -gas mask -survival -filter -prepper -Israeli -surplus -conspiracy" in order not to get flooded with unwanted results.

 

[l0fielectronic]

From reading it all on their announcement I think 'Product' seems a poor choice, what they seem to mean by Product is a Product Type/Category so I think you'll still be able to sell individual items.

As to whether people will be able to find them that may be another matter.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

The issue is that ebay is forcing sellers to select their listed product from a catalog that will pre-populate many of the fields. As it's written, if it's not in the catalog it can't be listed which would eliminate the option to list vintage and unique items. But then digging further as I posted above, it sounds as if that catalog requirement won't be forced for all listing categories. However, they are screwing with the categories, too, so the only thing that's clear is that they are adding further "englitchments." Plus, the move to squeeze out small sellers in favor of big box/big boys continues.

 

[scottyrocks]

So will we still be able to do a general search? If so, that should eliminate most of the mess of this change.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

So will we still be able to do a general search? If so, that should eliminate most of the mess of this change.

But it might eliminate the items you wish to purchase if sellers can no longer list them under the new policies. That's the concern.

 

[scottyrocks]

But it might eliminate the items you wish to purchase if sellers can no longer list them. That's the concern.

Okay, I see. I am going to keep on top of this one. I, like many of you, do some shopping on ebay, although I will say that I have almost abandoned it in favor of amazon these days.

I don't seem to be searching for antiquey items as much anymore, maybe because they have become so hard to find on ebay, which has been the trend over the last few years.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I have been in the process of selling off many vintage items in my collections, so I am definitely going to watch how this unfolds.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Here's a bit more detail, complete with line after line of ridiculous marketingspeak: http://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2018-spring/inventory-optimization.html
From the looks of this, it seems to revolve around only certain lines of fast-selling contemporary merchandise, most of which I've never even heard of, let alone have even a microscopic interest in ever owning. From the sound of it, additional "phases" will add more such merchandise to the "eBay catalog." The goal certainly does seem to be to make eBay more of a mall and less of a yard sale, but I can't imagine they'll ever totally eliminate the small, unique-item used-goods seller. They might be shoved into a dark, dingy corner of the Modern Product-Based Shopping Experience Today's Buyers Expect, but they won't be entirely eradicated.

If, however, I was a dealer in programmable thermostats or whatever the hell a Jawbone Jambox is, I'd be worried -- because the whole idea seems to be designed to push traffic toward volume dealers in such things instead of independent retailers. Look for the outfits that import such goods by the containerload to get preferential treatment in search results over the independent regional seller.

 

[Fading Fast]

If Ebay is "successful" and it forces off what had been its core sellers (yard sale type of stuff), won't that open up an opportunity for another company to cater to them? I use Amazon and Target for the mass market stuff and Ebay for the quirky / vintage / old stuff. If Ebay pushes that stuff away, I have to believe some company will see it as an chance to build a business.