Text limit for item description / Linking to DropBox- help & advice sought please!

[irt303]

Hi all, I'm currently going through a load of vinyl records with the aim of listing them as job lots.

I'm breaking the vinyl down into various genres and intend to list each job lot separately - a classical music enthusiast is not necessarily going to be interested in my disco, funk & soul records, for example!

Perhaps foolishly, I'm compiling the lists (one for classical, one for disco, and so on) in Microsoft Word, with various details of each record (artist, title, release year and catalogue number, plus any substantial defects). I'm not grading each individual record - I'll provide an overall grade, and make it clear that I'm happy to provide specific details/photos if somebody asks about a particular record. I'm doing this in the hope that providing this information will increase my chances of selling the job lots, as it won't be a 'blind buy' for the buyer.

Even with splitting them into genres, some of the job lots will consist of quite a lot of records, e.g. around 200 for the classical music.

I would then be copying the text in the Word document and pasting it into the eBay description field. My concern is that the list will exceed the text limit for the Description field (I'm pretty sure there is such a limit), and it is also my understanding that the HTML code will further 'bloat out' the listing. I'm worried that the significant amount of time I'm investing in providing this information will have been wasted. Does anyone have any knowledge and/or experience of this issue?

One possible solution that occurred to me was to have the Word document available in DropBox (which I've never used before), but I'm not at all certain that I'm allowed to provide the DropBox link in my description or via eBay Messages.

I'm well aware that many sellers simply take a few photos of their job lots, and maybe provide a few details such as "Record labels include x, y & z", or maybe a few notable releases, and still have successful sales. As I said, I thought that providing details of each release might increase my chances, but I could well be wrong. And I'm also conscious of the fact that the difference in any resultant selling price (what I'd get if I didn't provide details of each release versus what I'd get if I did - which is, obviously, unknowable) might be negligible, and not worth the effort involved in my current approach.

Any thoughts, help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks!

[rjwilmsi]

The listing description should allow enough text for a simple list of 200 records (artist / title / date etc.).

I don't think eBay will allow links to dropbox etc.

You can also use the ~20 available photo slots - a good resolution photo of a set of say 5x5 records should mean you can give buyers that information on 25 records per photo.

However, I would first do some research on whether any similar lots have sold on ebay and whether they have sold for much - if there is little demand for large quantities of records then it may not be worth your time to put together a detailed list.

[technthread]

A few thoughts:

Discogs may be be helpful when it comes to valuing and deciding what can go into bundles and what may be worth selling individually. 

You may struggle to send 200 records as 1 parcel. It depends which courier you are using, I'd keep each parcel to 15-20kg maximum. Assuming each record is around 500 grams I would keep them to bundles of no more than 40, unless you are going to do collection only. 

If you exceed a text limit you could always add extra text by screenshotting pages as photos and adding them as pictures in the listing. You get 24 pictures so you may be able to get a few in there if needed. 

[dancewithadingo]

Good Afternoon Irt

I can't help you with dropbox or microsoft etc but you do seem to be making things difficult and complicated for yourself. Why not,for each bundle, simply put two or three good pictures up together with a VIDEO?

[rainbowtrax]

The limit is something like 500,000 characters I think which is huge. But I certainly wouldn't list them in Word as that will increase your character count massively due to all the unnecessary coding it adds. You'd be better off writing it in Notepad and copying and pasting from there so that you only get the text without all the rest.

[irt303]

@rjwilmsi- Hi, thanks for the reply!

Good suggestion re sets of photos, but unfortunately, it would be a big struggle to do that in my case, as nearly all of the records are in 12" / LP format, not 7". Not only would I struggle to make room to arrange the records like that, but I would be unable to take photos from a sufficient distance to include them all in the frame. But for somebody with the luxury of plenty of available space, that idea would no doubt work, indeed I've seen it done on some listings.

"I don't think eBay will allow links to dropbox, etc." - Thanks, hopefully someone can clarify, but I suspect you're correct.

I have looked at other listings for vinyl job lots. Final selling prices vary greatly, but I have decided - for better or worse - that it is worth putting together a detailed list. I should have been clearer in my OP: the lists are already more or less complete -I did them ages ago, then semi-abandoned the whole idea. I'm now just checking them for accuracy, making a few additions, and doing the odd tweak here and there.

To be honest, if I hadn't already done 90% of the work, I probably wouldn't start doing it now, as I've spent hours and hours creating the lists (checking the records and/or referring to Discogs, typing it all up, etc.), and - as mentioned previously - it might all turn out to have been a massive waste of time. I've held on to these records for way too long, they are taking up valuable space, and if I'm not able to sell them within a reasonable amount of time, they'll all be donated to a charity shop (I might try Facebook Marketplace as a last resort, but I don't relish the idea!).

I haven't even mentioned the many hours spent play-testing the records for jumps/scratches! And the wear to the stylus, which obviously costs money to replace...

As you can see, I've spent a lot of time on all this. That's not a brag, in fact if anything it's more of a self-reproach. I know that other sellers have put far less effort into listing their job lots, yet still managed to sell them for... something! But, at this point, it's a case of sunken investment, and I may as well do the other 10% to justify the effort put in to the 90% already done. I've definitely made a rod for my own back!

I have a bit of a - what should I call it? Mania? - mania for detail and thoroughness. Good attributes, on the whole, for selling on eBay (particularly from a buyer's perspective), especially when it comes to individual items, but that also means that I get things done at a glacial pace, and in some cases have a tendency to over-describe in order to try and cover every eventuality (which is impossible). And those same attributes certainly make listing job lots a challenge for me. I wish I could adopt a more casual approach, not to the point of sloppiness and carelessness, but just not being quite so a**lly retentive about everything! It would certainly help in the present case. Thankfully, I can appreciate irony, so if I do end up giving away all the vinyl after all, part of me will be crying about the hours wasted, but another part of me will be laughing at the futility. Probably more crying than laughing, though, to be fair!

eBay selling is a bit of a lottery, sometimes (most of the time? All of the time?), but I get the impression that this is even more the case with record job lots. I've seen some fetch hundreds of pounds, and others go for a few quid. That raises of questions of BIN versus Auction, and all the benefits and drawbacks of each respectively, which I needn't go into here.

Sorry for the verbose reply, and thanks again for your suggestions.

[rainbowtrax]

Ok, if they're already in Word then c&p into Notepad to strip it out then c&p from there into the description.

Job lots of records will always vary greatly in price as it will depend on whether potential buyers spot any individual gems within the lot or whether it's all just boot sale fodder with no items of any real value.

[ile136yz]

I feel that if a Seller is listing too many in a job lot they do not get much value for their items.

Decide on the size of parcel weight you want to send, for example items & packing 2kg which you can decide which Courier you like to use.

As for listing use Items Specifics as much as you can as these are picked up in the search. It makes it easy to list as you only have to change the Genres for each job lot.

In the description: include Name of LP,  Artist, Condition, Age.

You mentioned DropBox,  -  On the eBay's Basic Shop the Seller can list different items on one listing for the Buyers to choose,  but the Basic Shop Subscription will have to factor into costs.

Photo of Job Lot & each LP Cover.

Give each Job Lot a Reference Number to make it as easy as possible to find for posting.

Good Luck

[irt303]

@technthread- Hi there, I appreciate your reply!

I've already isolated items that may be worth trying to sell individually. It's hard to establish a cut-off point, given the obvious fact that no item is guaranteed to sell anyway, but, roughly speaking, my threshhold is around £15. If a specific record is 'worth' that, and I'm reasonably confident that there would be some potential interest in it (based on past eBay and Discogs sales), then I'll probably isolate it for individual sale (I should add here that I haven't actually sold any vinyl on eBay yet, it's all work-in-progress). Any less than that, and it's probably not worth it once I've factored in eBay fees, postal costs, and time (packaging isn't such an issue cost-wise, as I recycle from things sent to me - but again, keeping all this takes up space that I would benefit from reclaiming). I also figure that the inclusion of the odd rarity in a job lot makes the bundle as a whole a more enticing purchase, and I already have plenty of records marked for individual sale as it is, so I'm trying to fight the internal impulses described in my reply to rjwilmsi, and not agonize too much over whether to include an item in the job lot or not. After all, if I can't sell a job lot, I can always cherry-pick further items before donating the rest to charity.

As for your second point, the majority of the job lots will be Collection Only due to size and weight. Maybe I ought to have mentioned that in my OP, but I know that I would have then gone off at a tangent (about the fact that I've never done Collection Only before, and am rather uncertain as to how it all works, despite reading other posts about it) - so I was going to save my Collection Only questions for a separate post.

I'd rather not split the by-genre job lots into smaller bundles, for many reasons. Firstly, I just know that I would agonize over which specific records to include (I'm not very good at random!). And secondly, it would take longer to list, package up, send off, etc. I'd also worry about multiplying the chances of a problematic transaction occurring.

Please don't think that I'm pooh-poohing your suggestion - it's eminently sensible, and many sellers do precisely that with their bundles. It's just that, in my particular situation, I want to offload each job lot in its entirety, and in one fell swoop, as it were.

Your third suggestion is genius! Well, let me temper that a little by saying that I'm sure my rusty brain would have hit upon the idea eventually (in fact, I'm sure I've had the idea before at some point), but it certainly wasn't at the forefront of my mind when I posted, so you win the prize! Yes, typed sheets in zoomable photos - that would definitely work, and would still leave photos available for the records themselves. I can't see eBay having any objection to that, either.

Thank you again!

[irt303]

@dancewithadingo- "you do seem to be making things difficult and complicated for yourself." Story of my blimmin' life, believe me!

I'd half-forgotten that you can now upload a video as well as photos - thanks for the reminder!

I could video myself flipping through the records, individually or a few at time (to give a general idea). I imagine there must be a limit to the video length and/or video resolution, so that eBay's servers don't get overloaded, but have no idea what this is (not asking you to spoon-feed me this info, I'll look into it myself).

Many thanks for the suggestion.

[irt303]

@rainbowtrax- Hello again, thanks for posting!

What you've said tallies exactly with what I read elsewhere (probably the .com discussion boards) when looking into this, also alluded to in my OP - that copying & pasting from Word brings in loads of HTML code that reduces the number of characters available in the text field, and that it's better to do it from Notepad.

Since you are knowledgeable about this, I have another question if you may. Bearing in mind that I've already typed most of the lists in MS Word, would it work if I copied & pasted from Word to Notepad, and then copied & pasted from Notepad to the eBay description field? In other words, would this method purge the list of the HTML code (or, at least, the vast majority of it) that was in the original Word document?

I'm sure you can see my reason for asking: having already spent countless hours typing the lists in Word, my sanity could not bear the prospect of having to type them all over again in Notepad!

[dancewithadingo]

Good Afternoon Irt

The video length is in the region of  20 secs.  I would just lay them down flat and video them like that. If you do use collection only it may well be that your buyer, if you are lucky, when collecting may be interested in any other ones that you have available.

You are clearly a thorough and precise person but I just get the feeling that you are putting far too much effort into your sales.  It's not cost effective. Just test the water with a small bundle before you waste anymore time.

If all else fails then why not take them to your local auction house?  Then of course you have Gumtree. 

To summarise 'Just do it'.

Good luck.

[irt303]

@rainbowtrax- Many thanks - that's a relief, I can tell you!

Potential interest in vinyl job lots is very much a matter of subjectivity (as with job lots of other types of item). If you don't like a particular genre, then you may be more pre-dispositioned to think of records in that genre as boot sale / charity shop fodder, unless of course you're a dealer / collector with a wide range of knowledge across multiple genres irrespective of those genres' personal appeal to you.

Admittedly, most people across the board (including myself) would agree that a lot of Easy Listening records from the 50s, 60s and 70s really are boot sale / charity shop fodder. I'm looking at you, Bert Kaempfert and James Last! But even within that genre, there are no doubt rarities and other items of specific appeal to enthusiasts.

You'd think that the same goes for classical music LPs, but I've seen Sold listings for job lots of these that have fetched quite high sums. Of course, one doesn't know the specific circumstances. The buyer may, as you've mentioned, have spotted individual gems in amongst the dregs. Or the buyer may have been someone who could simply afford to take a punt in the hope that there might be some desirable releases.

My job lot of classical music contains a lot of 'standard' releases, but among them are a fair few more niche, specialist items that, hopefully, will pique the interest of potential buyers. If I fail to sell them going down the BIN route, or if I fail to get a bid on Auction (I'd have to set an initial amount - can't risk starting at 99p!), then I still have the option of trying to sell those more collectable releases, and sending the rest off to languish with Bert and James! Not many charity shops will take vinyl records nowadays (same with music cassettes and VHS tapes), but, thankfully, I live near some that do. Of course, many of the shops that do accept them charge silly money, the staff apparently thinking that just being on vinyl makes a piece of music rare, but that's another matter. As long as they'll take them off my hands, it's of little concern to me what prices they choose to stick on them, although naturally I'd like to think that they were going to price them reasonably, purely from the perspective of generating income for the charity.

Anyway, yet again I've found myself in Tangent-land, so I'll shut up!

Thanks again for confirming that I can use that method to strip the text of HTML, very useful to know.

[irt303]

@ile136yz- Many thanks for your suggestions.

As mentioned earlier, my intention is to list the job lots as Collection Only. I'm aware that this limits me in terms of potential buyers, but I've given my reasons for this decision in a previous post. The ratio of 'work involved' (my problem, I know) to 'potential sale figure' really does not - in my view - warrant the further effort involved in breaking the job lots down further.

That isn't to say that I don't appreciate or understand your take on things. Perhaps smaller bundles would be more appealing, but I have plenty of other items to list, many of which would be more likely to sell than these job lots, and/or would possibly sell for more than I might get for these records. I'm only prioritising the vinyl because of the space it's taking up, and because of the amount of time I've already spent compiling the lists.

I don't have a shop, Basic or otherwise. In those immortal words, usually uttered just before a massive pile-on ensues (usually with justification, it has to be said): "I am just a private seller." There, I said it. Now bracing myself!

Thanks again for your suggestions, and for wishing me some much-needed luck!

[irt303]

@dancewithadingo- Thanks for another truly helpful post.

The video option wouldn't be suitable for these job lots if the limit is around 20 seconds. As I mentioned earlier, I simply don't have the space to lay the records down flat. Even if I did, 20 seconds wouldn't be long enough to film them.

I'm probably going to try listing them in the description using the Word > Notepad > eBay method discussed with rainbowtrax, and/or include typed lists in the photos as per technthread's idea. I'm always open to new ideas, however, and I've learned something new from your post - the video length.

You are absolutely correct that I'm putting too much effort into my sales, or at least into these job lots. I'm probably 'working' for the equivalent of 10p an hour! I know full well that plenty of other sellers put much less effort into / spend less time on their listings (I really don't mean that in any kind of derogatory sense), and still have 100% feedback and a healthy number of sales. I also know that few things are 100% guaranteed in life, and that no amount of forethought, trying to plan for every conceivable possible outcome, etc., can fully protect you from its many, often completely unpredictable, vicissitudes. eBay alone could teach a person that!

But this is just how I'm 'wired' - and I know that saying that sounds like (is?) a cop-out. Without wishing to sound like some shallow, faux-contrite American celebrity, I am very aware that I have these issues, and am trying to take positive steps to address and overcome them, with the goal of becoming the person that I really am inside...

Okay, that was partly played for laughs (you are laughing, aren't you? Anyone? Is anyone laughing? Please? Please find me hilarious! Please recognize, acknowledge and validate my hilariousness!),  but I am blessed / cursed with sufficient insight into my own psyche to recognize these 'issues' even as they're played out. The trouble is, this self-awareness rarely translates into change. Logic and knowledge on their own are useless when it comes to effecting change.

I'm turning this into some weird kind of (self-)therapy session, so I'll just say: you're right, I'm very aware of it, but a lifetime of being this way means that it's very hard to change. On a positive note, I've been relisting some Unsold items today, and, although I was fairly thorough, I didn't spend ages checking and tweaking. By my standards, I pretty much cracked on with it. And I would have gone through the listings even more quickly had it not been for the various things eBay does to trick, confuse and torment us, like changing Item Specifics of its own accord, forcing me to double-check the Preview before clicking on the 'List' button...

An auction house / Gumtree are other possibilities. Not done either before, but they can't be harder to navigate than eBay. Can anything?!

Thanks for your words of encouragement. As you can clearly tell, I'm not a "Just do it!" kind of person, and chances are I never will be, but I can certainly try harder. Maybe one day I can at least become a "Just do it (a bit more quickly, without as much fixation on detail, and with significantly less procrastination than usual)!" type of guy. One day.

[dancewithadingo]

Good Evening Irt

Thank you for the detailed response. Blimey,I knew that you are a highly intelligent and diligent person and I would assume by your replies that you are an author,professor,vicar or scientist,in other words highly educated.

Do bear in mind when writing your descriptions for the records not to go overboard with words. Buyers don't want to be dazzled by prose.  They don't want to hear from a Pulitzer prize winner.  Just remember the old adage of KISS.

Good luck with the sales

[rainbowtrax]

@irt303 I'm loving your deliberations! Here's ebay's info page for adding a video: Adding a video to your listing | eBay Basically, it's 150MB limit so you'll probably squeeze about a minute of flicking which should work out ok. I use it on odd listings where I want to add a soundclip and I can get longer than a minute with just the audio over a static image but ebay estimate about a minute for an actual video. It also says about possibly days from uploading it to it being approved and actually going live on the listing but I've never had to wait longer than 10-15 minutes for it to appear - I don't know if other sellers have found it as quick as that.

[irt303]

@rainbowtrax- Good afternoon, and thank you for the additional info about videos.

Just going back to the idea of stripping the list text of HTML code, I've got three note-type programs on my computer: Microsoft WordPad, Notepad & Sticky Notes (the last two in my Accessories folder).

WordPad looks like basic version of MS Word, so I'm assuming that text in this would still have the HTML. Is this correct? If yes, then would one of the other two be okay? Notepad can be expanded to a full-screen window, whereas Sticky Notes can't (presumably because it's basically a digital Post-It note), so that's the program I'd rather use, assuming it's suitable for the task in hand. Can you confirm that Notepad is the way to go? I know that you mentioned Notepad specifically, but just wanted to check you were indeed referring to this program, rather than using the term generically.

Many thanks, have a good day!

[rainbowtrax]

Yes, I would use Notepad specifically.

[zobth92]

As a collector of records, rather than a dealer, I've bought several job lots of records from real life auctions, although not any recently off eBay.

What I look for is reasonable amounts of records say 30-60. Any more than this and I'd been concerned at the potential number of duplicates in my collection.

I would avoid any that appear to contain mostly classical or easy listening (as mentioned above), but would be open to mixes of other genres.

I wouldn't bother looking through the entire collection- just a sample one or two - part of the fun of collecting is discovering, at your own pace, what you've spent your money on!

By far the most important thing is condition - if the one or two I looked at appeared badly looked after, I wouldn't bother bidding.

Whether this helps when listing on eBay I have no idea - just an extra thought.