Selling Practices and Saving Time When Listing

eBay continually comes up with new guidelines for sellers that end up wasting time.  The latest is that sellers are required to enter item specifics for the author and title of the book.  This is stupid.  Most sellers put the author and title of the book in the title of the listing.  Exactly why does the seller need to type the same information into the item specifics?  

I heard about this requirement awhile back and was highly annoyed.  I held off doing anything about it, wanting as many of my existing listings to sell as possible before the deadline, which would save me from having to edit them.  I did begin entering the author and title for new listings that I created in the last few weeks.

The new item specifics will be required on eBay beginning July 12.  Yesterday, I finished editing my existing listings to include title and author.  Language will also be required, but I was already using that item specific.  Since I sell international editions of series books, it's been necessary for some time for me to enter the language of the text as an item specific.

Since I complied with eBay's latest requirement, I resumed listing new items.  I always need to get many books listed very quickly, so I look for ways that I can reduce the amount of time it takes to create a listing.  For instance, I copy from old listings to create new listings.  I have used that practice for many years.  It alone saves a lot of time.  There is no reason to start over from scratch each time.

I now take fewer photos of my books.  One photo with the book open is usually enough.  I don't have to crop that one photo.  I have saved much time by cutting the number of photos taken in half and have saved even more time by avoiding having to crop many of my photos.

Interestingly, both eBay and Etsy have recently begun to suggest on the listing form that I need to add more photos.  The sites are unequal in their treatment of sellers.  They allow sellers like Thriftbooks to list books without any photos.  Small sellers are nagged about selling practices while the big sellers get to do what they want.  

In recent years, I have gradually reduced the length of my listings.  This has been especially necessary on Etsy, where listings are truncated when they are anything other than very short.  The truncation hides most of the text, and many buyers will never open up the remaining text to read.  This is a big problem.

An Etsy description that I wrote for an original text Nancy Drew book this spring is as follows:  "The book contains the original 25 chapter text.  The book has blue multi endpapers and lists to Crooked Banister on the back cover.  The book has light wear. The spine is slanted.  There is no writing inside the book."

With that all as one paragraph and short, the text does not get truncated.  In the last two weeks, I have realized that I can begin saving myself more time.  I always provide a picture of the book open so that buyers can see the front and back covers.  Why I do need to keep stating what the last title listed is on the back cover when it can be clearly seen in the picture?  

New listings for Nancy Drew picture covers can go like this:  "The book contains the original 25 chapter text and has blue multi endpapers.  The book has light wear. The spine is slanted.  There is no writing inside the book."  

I save time by not having to verify the last title listed and then change it in the text of the listing that I just copied from another listing.

Of course when the book is a special printing, I will continue to give more information.  But when a book is an ordinary picture cover printing, the back cover list is enough information.  

Most sellers consider the pictures in the listing to be part of the description.  The only sellers for which this would be an exception would be sellers like Thriftbooks, who use stock photos.  Any seller like me considers the photos to be part of the description.

Recently, a member of one of the Facebook groups posted a photo of a book that is for sale on eBay and said that it had no description.  The member was critical of the seller for not having a description.  I was rather baffled.  The photo showed the age of the book and the condition of the book.  Yes, the seller should have made some kind of statement about the interior condition.  Even so, it was unfair to state that the seller had no description.  The seller provided quite a lot of information just by posting a photo of the book.  

Did the seller really need to write out a description of what could be seen in the photo?  "The jacket has a tear in the upper left corner of the front panel.  The jacket has a chip at the center bottom of the front panel.  The jacket has a small piece missing from the spine."   To save time, I make a more general statement like, "The dust jacket has chipping." 

The seller must describe what is not apparent from the photos.  Sellers like Thriftbooks have a meaningless canned description and use a stock photo or no photo at all.  Why criticize a seller who photographs the actual book for sale?  That seller has provided a lot more information than Thriftbooks does.

I want to remind sellers that books should always be protected from moisture exposure. The vast majority of the books I receive in the mail were mailed with no protection from moisture, which is why I end up with wet and damaged books periodically.  Of course it doesn't rain often in most locations, but you never know when the package you mail to a buyer is the one that is left out in the rain.

I have been informed by two different buyers in the last few months about how the package I sent was sitting in the rain and soaked.  In both cases, I was told that my protection of the books saved them from water damage.  It does matter.  Wrap the books in plastic before mailing them.

Note:  In this post I used Thriftbooks as an example of a seller who uses stock photos.  Even though Thriftbooks uses stock photos, I am a big fan of Thriftbooks.  I understand what they do and know how to use their service.  I use Thriftbooks to build complete sets of books that I just want to read.  Thriftbooks is perfect for that and cannot be beat.

Format collectors should never purchase from Thriftbooks.  When format collectors make the mistake of purchasing from Thriftbooks, they are the people who complain about Thriftbooks sending the wrong book.  Thriftbooks sends any copy of the book.  They don't care what it looks like.  Thriftbooks should be used to obtain reading copies.  The service is great for that purpose.

Jennifer's Series Books on eBay

Jennifer's Series Books on Etsy