Variations listing

[PetBazaar]

You can still do it in one listing. On the title state the basics with size choices and state 40 colours, and in the description give the colour and size options and a request that they give the size and colour when purchasing. Not ideal but a way round things until we get the multiple listing option.

That's a reasonable workaround, sort of. But only, I think, for certain sets of variations.

It falls over when it comes to out of stock items. You'd have to either update your description everytime a variant comes into (or out of) stock or risk having a buyer left disapointed because one of the 100 variants that they happen to want is temporarily unavailable.

It gets even worse when a single item has never been available in a particular combo. Again, in a pet related example, you start to get into: Collar X available in Sizes: XXS, XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL - Colours: Red, Black, Blue, Green, Pink, White - Design: Hearts, Paws or Bones design. But then you need a list of exceptions, because there's no Pink in XXL and there's no Paws in XXS or XS. You see how horrific it can get and I haven't even touched on the XXL being heavier than the XXS and perhaps costing more to post.

Surely it can't be too hard for a seller to enter the item details in a spreadsheet, then copy and paste it 20 times changing the price, postage, colour & size in each listing. Until a better facility is available, I'd guess that if they can't be bothered doing that, then they can't really be bothered selling.

[chilternfeed]

PetBazaar you miss the point. It isn't the time in adding the products. It's what it does to the eBid shopping experience.

It makes it look very cluttered and more importantly open to customer error.

All of us know how bad customers are at reading any information in a listing.

It would be so easy for a customer to select a headcollar from my site and because they don't read the information properly, mistakenly buy a pony size rather than a full size. It doesn't matter how big I make the text on the page to warn them.

Once they get the product and realise it is wrong, it is my responsibility under the distance selling rules to take the product back and replace it with the correct size - or refund them the purchase price and the original postage

How long can you afford to run a business on those lines with the price of postage costing about £3 a time?

[neonunchaku]

As an extremely successful seller elsewhere, we are wanting to grow, so have paid our Seller+ fee and now find we cannot sell our variety of colours. This is a serious disappointment and renders our payment a complete waste of money. Please help.

Hi I am in total agreement, did as you did, paid the fees, downloaded the software exported and imported the lists of ebay items only to find that no variations were available, not one. All my multiple listings with variations are useless in fact they are worse than useless. Prices had to be changed and stock amounts were not correct and amendments made to each page with a link back to my ebay items for at least a suggestion of what was available. I agree with that feeling of having wasted money and time.
I had a listing on ebay that had 515 items spread over 168 variations. I can not take the time to list 515 items, I certainly would not care to search through thousands of listings to to buy items from the same dealer so as to economise on postage.

If Ebid wish to compete then they should at least have the basics in place. I do not sell just one type. How many stores do you visit with only one product for sale. What a boring and tedious shopping experience that would be if you could only buy one colour shirt from one shop and then had to search the high street for another shop selling another colour. This is unacceptable.
There is only one answer that should be accepted in this instance, that is one of agreement with this oversimplification not working and a willingness to change it for the better sooner than latter. The is meant to be the modern age, taking a step backwards is not worth any appreciation.

[bringinitback4less]

Hi I am in total agreement, did as you did, paid the fees, downloaded the software exported and imported the lists of ebay items only to find that no variations were available, not one. All my multiple listings with variations are useless in fact they are worse than useless. Prices had to be changed and stock amounts were not correct and amendments made to each page with a link back to my ebay items for at least a suggestion of what was available. I agree with that feeling of having wasted money and time.
I had a listing on ebay that had 515 items spread over 168 variations. I can not take the time to list 515 items, I certainly would not care to search through thousands of listings to to buy items from the same dealer so as to economise on postage.

If Ebid wish to compete then they should at least have the basics in place. I do not sell just one type. How many stores do you visit with only one product for sale. What a boring and tedious shopping experience that would be if you could only buy one colour shirt from one shop and then had to search the high street for another shop selling another colour. This is unacceptable.
There is only one answer that should be accepted in this instance, that is one of agreement with this oversimplification not working and a willingness to change it for the better sooner than latter. The is meant to be the modern age, taking a step backwards is not worth any appreciation.

Hi, I am sorry you are not satisfied with the listing options. I agree with you. Your listings are not set up to be seen in the US. Another thing, you implied in your post that you had to provide links to ebay to see your product line, linking to ebay through your listing is a no no.

[james1968]

I know of at least 1 trader who has decided against Ebid for two reasons -

1. No variations listing format.
2. No way to integrate ebid listings into stock management software (like he can with Ebay & Amazon).