eBay Rediscovers Videos Help Sell Products

eBay announced it would release a new video capability for listings and storefronts this year, enabling sellers to provide more engaging and descriptive content.

“Over the next few months, you’ll start seeing videos on select View Item pages and storefronts. We’ll continue to expand these new video capabilities to more sellers throughout 2021. Videos will initially be visible to buyers on the eBay app and will eventually expand to desktop and mobile web.”

While the company makes it sound like this is a new feature, the fact is eBay sellers used to be able to include YouTube videos easily. But that capability became difficult, if not impossible for most sellers when eBay forced sellers to remove active content from their listings in 2017.

Considering the rise of social commerce and niche marketplaces like Poshmark, which announced a similar feature last month, making significant market share gains in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it appears eBay is playing catch up again. Ironically, in this instance, it was actually leading the marketplace space by having the capability earlier before forcing sellers to remove YouTube videos.

The announcement seems rushed and lacks details. The only information eBay provided is to say, “we’ll reach out with more information on video guidelines and how to upload videos when you’re eligible” and this mock-up image on the eBay app.

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