posted on February 7, 2006 02:04:51 PM new
YAY!!! The answer we've all been waiting for!!! I found a way to bulk edit the descriptions of store listings (or any other listings for that matter!). Now, we can get rid of the words "cash, bidpay, Western Union" and anything else that eBay no longer allows.
I did a search on the web, and found this excellent site:
This site explains in great detail the process for bulk editing eBay items. Basically, you need:
1) TurboLister (a free program)
2) Subscribe to eBay's File Exchange (a free service)
3) A pretty decent working knowledge of Excel (he explains the steps, but it really helps if you already have an idea of what you're doing)
4) Some sort of a text editor to make the changes in
5) And oh yeah... a computer with high speed internet connection, and a hefty processor doesn't hurt either!
I spent probably about 4 hours today working on my 3500+ listings that needed editing. Not bad considering the time I would have spent if I had to do it manually. One big plus to this method, is you don't have to end any of your listings to make the changes. It simply revises your listing directly from the eBay database.
Once you finish reading through the instructions on the site I posted, here's some extra tips I picked up:
1) removing single words are easy if you have a good text editor with a "find & replace" feature. However... removing the *^&&%^* Bidpay logs was a pain in the (#$*$. The problem is... Bidpay changed its logo insertation text throughout the years. So, since I've had a store for many years.... I must have had 6 or 7 different types of Bidpay logo insertions. Make sure you catch them all! (and don't forget... for a brief period Bidpay was Auction Payments)
2) eBay FileExchange Only lets you load 15MB files or less... plus they only allow 1000 actions per 24 hours. So, even though I have 3000 auctions to revise... I have to do 1000 today, 1000 tomorrow and 1000 the next day.
3) Be prepared to wait!!! Importing my active auctions into Turbo Lister took a couple hours all by itself (and I'm on a network with one T1 and one T3 connection). Then, revising the listings in my text editor took over 90% of my processor, and still took about an hour or more.
Anyhow... I'm sure there's other stuff I'm forgetting... but I wanted to get this posted for the rest of you that have been trying to figure this out!
I found the easiest way was to bypass Excel and use a text editor to search within the field delimiters for first instances of BidPay or Auction Payments, manually select the complete section to be deleted, then replace them with a hidden comment (in case a mistake is made). A decent industrial-strength text editor will process a 15mb file without blinking, even on my circa 1998 PC. YMMV.
posted on February 7, 2006 04:49:54 PM new
Thanks for posting this. I have excel but only know how to use it on the simplest level. What is a text editor?
Do you think anyone has offered to do this for people for a fee? LOL With all the ebay changes it might be the birth of a new industry!
I am tempted to follow Fenix's suggestion of using the Marketworks trial to get it done. (an earlier post)
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posted on February 7, 2006 05:01:37 PM new
neglus,
A text editor is a streamlined word processor. Commonly used to write various computer code languages such as html, javascript, cobol, postscript. On Windows you have NotePad, while on the Mac you have TeachText, Simpletext and TextEdit - at the basic level.
Industrial strength text editors can handle huge files in the blink of an eye and use advanced search techniques such as grep to transform passages of text. Anyone who has dabbled in *nix or linux should be familiar with the power of grep. You can easily script grep so you aren't always having to redo the same search & replaces.
posted on February 7, 2006 06:12:00 PM new
Why bother? Jay and Marie (JayAndMarie), the hotshot powersellers, have "cash," "BidPay," and "checkfree," in their item descriptions.
posted on February 7, 2006 07:53:47 PM newJay and Marie (JayAndMarie), the hotshot powersellers, have "cash," "BidPay," and "checkfree," in their item descriptions. I guess all things are not equal in ebay.
posted on February 7, 2006 08:05:48 PM new
Well, as of 17:57:22, today (2/7/06), JayandMarie are still listing their items without any interference from ebay.
The article states one position by ebay, the listing by JayandMarie indicates ebay policy which allows something much different.
posted on February 8, 2006 07:10:50 AM new
One point to make about Jay and Marie: they only have auction items listed and their payment policy appears to be part of their template. In 7 days they could be in compliance with a simple template revision.
Jay and Marie's payment policy is part of an image file (not searchable)
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posted on February 8, 2006 01:59:00 PM new
Okay... if anyone else uses this method... I found another good tip! When you create your file to upload... in addition to having columns labeled:
Action(SiteID=US|Country=US|Currency=USD|Version=403|CC= ISO-8859-1)
ItemID
Description
You will also want to add one labeled "ShipToLocations", then you will want to put the value "Worldwide" in for all the items you are revising. Why do this, you might ask? Well... I uploaded my first bunch without this field... and found out that it automatically changed all my Ship-To locations to "Local pickup only". I found that out when a bidder contacted me today, and said... "I'd love to buy your ad, but It's a long way for me to travel from Indiana to pick it up locally in Virginia!"
posted on February 8, 2006 04:51:57 PM newWell... I uploaded my first bunch without this field... and found out that it automatically changed all my Ship-To locations to "Local pickup only".
It's always a good idea when doing large numbers of changes to listings (or anything computer related) to backup beforehand, do the changes, then check a sample to make sure it's correct. Saves loads of problems...
(Silently wishing eBay would do the same before rolling out their next 'enhancements'... grrr!)
posted on February 8, 2006 05:49:08 PM new
agitprop,
As an IT professional myself, I am fully aware and do practice safe computing habits. I did indeed upload a sample file first to check the results. However... since the revision file SHOULD have only affected the single field I submitted for revision (the description field), I only quickly glanced at the other sections. At first glance, nothing else looked changed. It's very easy to miss the ship-to field in an auction listing (which is probably why so many sellers complain about international customers bidding on their domestic-only auctions).
However, since I was prepared (and had backed up my data) it was a simple matter of adding the ShipToLocation field to my original file and reuploading it. (after waiting the 24 hours ebay mandates between uploads with 1000 actions).
posted on February 10, 2006 10:28:44 AM new
Presently, I have no "standard" auctions running on eBay. I do have a number of store items and all have the BidPay link and logo in them.
Personally, if even one of these store auctions gets pulled, I'll just close the whole store for good - there are other ways to sell outside of eBay, and I refuse to allow eBay to dictate to me what type of payment I will accept.
Since BidPay is owned by Western Union, I would think eBay would be in violation of interfering with interstate commerce under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (Sherman Antitrust Act. mergers and acquisitions where the effect may create a conglomerate – closing out competition.)
~"It does not matter what I think, it does not matter what you think. The only thing which matters is: What is the TRUTH!"~
The reason why eBay says sellers must remove the Bidpay logo... is because Bidpay no longer exists. They discontinued service at the end of December.
I agree completely on the disgust with which we share about how eBay is trying to dictate payment methods. However... in this case, I must say they do have a semi-legitimate justification in saying the Bidpay payments be removed. Otherwise, you'll get international bidders that bid on your items, think they can pay by Bidpay... and then find out that they can't.
posted on February 10, 2006 12:03:02 PM new
eAuctionmanagement- You have just solved a mystery for me. When eBay added new fields, my older Vendio profiles created listings (hundreds of them before I realized it) for local pick-up only. Vendio insists I went in and changed my shipping preferences (I did not). I have long suspected it was a mapping error on Vendio's part.
