eBay announced in March that sellers could add video to their listings on a restricted basis and promised to expand the availability throughout 2021. On Thursday, it rolled out the functionality to Canada in a similarly limited basis.
As in the US, Canadian sellers can add videos to their image gallery on the View Item pages on one of two ways: through eBay APIs or through third-party providers.
“Video is the next step in our ongoing efforts to help you deliver more engaging shopping experiences to your current and new buyers,” eBay said in Thursday’s announcement. “They let you showcase your products and brand, and help drive buyer engagement and sales.”
In July, eBay discussed why it offered video capabilities to third-party developers through the Media APIR before adding functionality to its own flow for sellers listing directly:
“We’ve heard from our developer community about the importance of getting early access to eBay’s products and initiatives, and the Media API is an example of our API-first strategy. We ensured developers were at the heart of our design process: from collaborating with trusted partners on the requirements, to drafting and reviewing the contract with colleagues in the developer community, to partnering on our betas and product release.”
At the time (July), the Media API was available in the US and UK, “with more markets coming soon.”
“You can use the videos to better display your inventory, use it for instruction guides, better display the item condition or any other that can be supported by video,” eBay told Canadian sellers last week.
Those who use only desktop to browse eBay may wonder why they haven’t seen videos in listings. eBay said on Thursday, “Videos are initially visible to all buyers on the eBay app, and will soon expand to desktop and mobile web.”
You can find more information on the eBay Canada Announcement Board. If you use video in your listings on eBay or elsewhere, feel free to share your experiences in the comments section.
I’ve already been putting videos in listings where it would be helpful. You make a quick video, upload it to youtube, then use FlipperTools to create an HTML embed. This has been done long before ebay started talking about it themselves. My biggest concern is ebay adding logic to prevent this method and forcing a pay to play model for ebay’s limited video functionality. It wouldn’t be the first time a large internet based company has crowdsourced free features, then turned around and charged for them.