Ebay No Longer Accepts Condition Description In The Stamps Category

Sellers who depend on the ebay Condition Description to convey information about stamp or cover condition will find their listings compromised.

I notice that the Condition Description has gone missing in the Stamps category. I checked a listing using the ebay SYI form and the Condition Description was empty. This is new behavior is in the ebay Stamps Category. It appears that ebay is no longer accepting condition at all without throwing a warning back for anything in the Stamps category. All you get is

<ConditionEnabled>Disabled</ConditionEnabled>

for anything in Stamps and the condition is dropped. It doesn't make a lot of sense with their push for product IDs and conditions for pretty much everything else.

At one time ebay supported Unused and Used as values for Item Condition. Later they dropped Item Condition from the category but Condition Description continued to be displayed. Now it is gone also. I don't know why ebay dropped the "Unused" designation from their XML definitions. Changing the value to "New" would be inappropriate, and so far ebay seems to understand that, but I don't know how long that will continue. An unused stamp is a single stamp separated from a sheet which may have originally been sold in shrink wrap (or not, before shrink wrap was invented). A never hinged stamp may be thought of as equivalent to an unused electronic component removed from its original container.

This change will undoubtedly tilt the playing field against sellers of high quality stamps on ebay and will ultimately hurt buyers.

Hmmm..interesting. Never ever used the condition description field because it was redundant. I always wrote the condition as part of the main description. Item specifics are also redundant if you write a good description. Unfortunately a lot of sellers write little to nothing beyond a basic title.

The problem is that mobile users may not see the description or may see only a truncated version. While item specifics may seem redundant, some are actually used by ebay in certain types of searches. I believe they also make it easier for outside sites like Google to find listings. Unfortunately, some of the ebay predefined item specifics in the left panel are brain dead. They list "Mint hinged" as an option, contrary to Scott Catalog usage. They formerly were using the term "Mint no gum". That may have gone away (an improvement), but ebay never bothers to communicate such changes with sellers in the Stamps category.

I'll be candid: I don't use item specifics as a buyer or a seller when it comes to collectibles. It's different when the item is a widget/commodity that has strict sizing/version/industry standards, but with antiques or collectibles there are just too many variables and idiosyncratic terminology. Item specifics just become an infinite time suck with minimal (if any) return.

I never ever use the blasted things with stamps, so I personally don't see the value in spending the extra time to deal with them.

Now, of course if I'm shopping for computer parts, clothes, or furniture, that's a different matter.

IMO, obviously.

revenuecollector,

You may have missed the point. The loss of Condition Description means that a buyer may never find out anything about the condition of the stamp until it is in hand. The purpose of the Condition Description was to bring the condition of the item to the top of the listing. Now, it appears only in the description and may be removed when an ebay bot "edits" the listing to remove HTML and excessive boilerplate.

It is a good idea to use item specifics to specify attributes or properties like color, catalog number, date issued, format, perforations and other catalog properties or condition or format attributes. Whether we like it or not, "structured data" will invade the Stamps Category, if what ebay states in their blogs is accurate. My guess is that ebay will bungle the process.

When Item Condition in the Stamps category was "Unused" and "Used" it had some use. When the definition for "Unused" was removed from the ebay API XML definitions, Item Condition was removed from the Stamps Category. This is fortunate in a way because the standard definitions of "New" and "Used" don't fit accepted philatelic usage. I believe that removing "Unused" as an item condition definition was a mistake.

Clark

Yes, I apparently am missing your point.

I just went and checked both via desktop and mobile and Condition Description (sometimes called "Seller Notes") was available and prominently displayed on all platforms/methods. I went to create a listing from within ebay and while there is no dropdown selection for "Condition", there still is the "Condition Description", which most people use anyway and is infinitely more useful than a dropdown selection.

I believe it is only the dropdown selection that is no longer applicable, not the condition description itself.

The contents of the "Condition Description" are displayed in the mobile stripped down version of the listing, so I don't get what you mean when you say "...a buyer may never find out anything about the condition of the stamp until it is in hand."

Additionally, once the spring update goes into effect, if you are concerned what subsection of your content gets displayed to mobile users, then utilize the new markup that ebay is rolling out which will allow you to specify a contiguous block of your listing to be shown to mobile users rather than letting a bot decide:

<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Product"><span property="description">This paragraph contains almost 800 characters of text to be displayed in the mobile item description. And the text in this paragraph through this sentence contains 250 characters, which is the amount we will display without any actions on your part. When you tag this paragraph with these simple HTML breaks, the content will be displayed to shoppers looking at your item. This will allow the shopper to see the key information you want to display, without them having to click through to the complete description. If your complete description is 800 characters or less and uses basic HTML we will display the entire description without any action by you�"so the best practice is to keep it within 800 characters. If you have a long description, make it easy for your buyers by using this option. </span></div>

So basically in order to "capture" more of the market share of buyers using mobile devices, ebay is trying to dumb down the listings. What percentage of philatelic buyers are using mobile devices to buy stamps and covers?

revenuecollector,

Your point is correct about enclosing the description in a special div tag, but I already knew about that. However, I don't expect that the average ebay seller of misidentified stamps with undescribed defects to be aware of this "feature" unless it is added to the ebay Sell Your Item Form. Many professional stamp dealers don't use the ebay SYI form or TurboLister because neither scales very well.

I did some additional tests and found that the Condition Description does appear if an Item Condition is specified, but the Item Condition does not appear (http://item.ebay.com/252356121956). If no Item Condition is specified, the Condition Description is not displayed. Unfortunately the Item Condition for Unused was removed by ebay a few years ago. It would not be a good idea to start using an item condition of "New" because ebay might start displaying it someday.

Clark

I just got a report showing 8% of my sales were made on Mobile devices.

How does this matter - even if they were aware of it they would still under-describe/misdecribe.

I agree that many sellers will continue doing what they do best - nothing. However, if ebay should ever require a condition description then at least all of the nonfeasance would be in one place, facilitating buyer complaints about stamps "significantly not as described". Competent sellers could fill in condition, knowing that it would be seen.

The point is that ebay is not helping improve the stamp marketplace. In fact they seem to be finding new ways to further degrade it and spread suspicion instead of trust. A new venue for selling stamps is needed. Now that BidStart is out of contention, we will have to wait and see if what Stanley Gibbons started will result in a new marketplace run by them or someone else.

Clark

Which sadly would accomplish nothing other than *suggesting* that sellers provide accurate descriptions with respect to faults/flaws. There are already a host of sellers that use the boilerplate "See pictures for condition." They would simply populate any required condition box with that text, thus meeting the obligation in ebay's eyes.