It has been common practice for many sellers to have stores on different venues in the hopes of getting additional exposure for their items. With Google clamping down on duplicate listings I predict that this will cause some sites to lose listings as those with weak Google traffic will not be able to compete for high ranking.

Effective sites will still prosper but the "me too" sites will be slowly forced to close. "Not keeping your eggs in one basket" as an expression will become less popular and will no longer be good advice.

pjrcoffee wrote (View Post): › "Not keeping your eggs in one basket" as an expression will become less popular and will no longer be good advice.

I still think it's good advice and the best way to go. What will change is that sellers with similar stores on multiple sites will only be able to feed one of them to Google Base. For now, I am feeding my Atomic Mall items only, and have paused the feeds for the Bonanzle and eBay stores.

Was just thinking this myself yesterday. Sellers who list indentical inventory on 3 or 4 sites hoping to nab some "just in case" sales are going to have to make a decision to commit to a single site or wind up getting no Google expsoure at all and virtually no sales unless they come from within the sites themselves.

They can always list different items on diferent sites. My patches go to Specialist Auctions and everything else goes to AM. It's not putting all of my eggs in one basket and it is within Google's guidelines.

Some sellers are upset about these Google changes but I think that this is a good thing. It gives Google shoppers a better buying and shopping experience and isnt that what we want?

Since very few sites have a lot of buyers coming from within the site itself (yes, a couple sites might have some seller to seller sales but can that sustain most of us?) we want the shoppers to rely on Google and other search engines more as oppsoed to just going to eBay to find what they want.

The sites that get good Google exposure should have no problem maintaining their growth. The sites that do not will either figure out how to get it or they will see a drop off in listings and active users.

JMO, but the way I understood it was:

As long as the seller does not just cut/paste everything from the drop shipper, writing their own discription and title, Google will accept them.

I think it will force some sellers, particularly those of dropship items, affiliate marketing, commission sales/multi-level marketing like Avon, Tupperware and Watkins, to change their listing practices. The changes are going to target the boilerplate stuff.

If the item is in hand, like those using legitimate wholesaler items and stocks product on location is entirely another matter.

I can't see it hurting Avon collectibles or product in hand type of sales.

GCO I believe says the items must be shipped the NEXT business day. And those using drop ship can't guarantee that. So I see this as aligning products for sale listings on Google with GCO, whether or not the seller uses GCO or not.

In another thread here on using drop shippers... If 50,000 sellers are using the same dropshipper, thats how many items are cluttering up Google's search with the same product, product descritpion, same images, same price, listing on how many sites?

If those sellers want to keep getting googled, then they are going to have to come up with some creative listings.

Avon etc reps come and go. Selling out of the catalog and waiting for the item to be ordered and delivered... against selling product on hand... from a "retired" rep.

At least that was my take on it.

added... I sell books... there are countless books of any given title on the web at any one time. the keys that I use in my descriptions are basic to every bookseller, size, weight, publisher, binding, edition... ISBN or other identifier. I'm curious to see how this will affect my listings on google, since I use the jacket/rear cover synopsis.

Lady*Belle wrote (View Post): › JMO, but the way I understood it was: As long as the seller does not just cut/paste everything from the drop shipper, writing their own discription and title, Google will accept them.

In another thread I saw where is one seller who was denied by Google because they had the identical items listed on both AM and BZ. Now, the listings were probably identical because the seller used a bulk importer and thyey can "get around" Google's rules by changing the wording a bit but if Google catches it they can close your account (I received an email saying they were closing my base account because I was "dropshipping" I wasnt and I emailed them again and it was cleared up and I was approved) and I think it might take more than changing a word or 2 here and there to make the listing unique enough to get by Google when they put human eyes on it. Hell, right now it seems that Google is just flagging all listings and waiting for sellers to contact them 2 times (after your initial canned email if you email them back they will then look at your items with a live body).

Also, all seller need to go into their Google Base accounts and accept the new user agreement by the end of this month, if not, Google will pull the listings of those who do not accept the agreement.

I did it last week and after I accepted they had "questions" about some of my items so I went through the link and it showed me 5-6 items and gave me a choice of where to categorize them (they were all neckties, nothing painful) so it seems that Google is forcing products into certain categories, perhaps in preparation for a single website for people just to browse categories and listings?

It is something that every seller should keep an eye on. It would suck if they werent paying attention and realize in August that they havent been getting many sales and only then try to fix whatever problems there might be before teh holiday shopping season.

Patch, did you get the message from Google about "condition" being require? I have been busy adding this to eCrater store.

Hello,

We'd like to let you know about an important change we're making to the Product Search data feed requirements. As you know, you can help shoppers find your products by including high quality, frequently updated product information in the form of attributes. In order to provide shoppers with the most useful information, we'll be making the "condition" attribute required starting on June 30th, 2009.

In order to keep your feeds active past this date, please remember to include the "condition" attribute for all of your items if you're not already doing so. Please include one of three values to describe your product: new, used, or refurbished.

Patch I think it is also a difference in seller submisisons and site submissions also. if AM is submitting also, then this would cause duplication.

Back in earlier days, AQ had site submission and seller submission. It was the first site to offer this, that I know of.

So if a seller has a personal website and also sells on various sites with the same exact items and titles... and all are being submitted to google thru various feeds... hence more duplication.

mojavelyn wrote (View Post): › Patch I think it is also a difference in seller submisisons and site submissions also. if AM is submitting also, then this would cause duplication.

AM has sellers set up their own feed. There is not a sitewide feed to Google Base. I may have run into a problem if I'd also continued my feeds for Bonanzle and eBay, so I went ahead and paused those.

love2shop wrote (View Post): › Patch, did you get the message from Google about "condition" being require? I have been busy adding this to eCrater store. Hello, We'd like to let you know about an important change we're making to the Product Search data feed requirements. As you know, you can help shoppers find your products by including high quality, frequently updated product information in the form of attributes. In order to provide shoppers with the most useful information, we'll be making the "condition" attribute required starting on June 30th, 2009. In order to keep your feeds active past this date, please remember to include the "condition" attribute for all of your items if you're not already doing so. Please include one of three values to describe your product: new, used, or refurbished.

I didnt receive that email but everything I am currently selling is new. AM and Specialist Auctions already have an attributes box stating the condition so I guess Google takes those into account....it's been awhile since I listed in eCrater but I thought they had a condition block as well. If not, they might need to get it quick. Just putting the words in the description might not get picked up by Google's scanners....

mojavelyn wrote (View Post): › Patch I think it is also a difference in seller submisisons and site submissions also. if AM is submitting also, then this would cause duplication. Back in earlier days, AQ had site submission and seller submission. It was the first site to offer this, that I know of. So if a seller has a personal website and also sells on various sites with the same exact items and titles... and all are being submitted to google thru various feeds... hence more duplication.

I know that Specialist Auctions does weekly feeds to base so I dont even get involved with submitting my items from there.

AM used to do the feeds himself but just a couple of items from a single seller would get a file of 50 thousand listings rejected. (By the way, sorry about that guys, I wont do it again, I promise, that nude photo of Mike was just a joke and I didnt mean to get AM banned from Google). When he went to the "each seller does his own feed" I was kinda leery because it seemed complicated to me but it was actually very easy and it is working out fine.

AM expands the list of conditions available and the feed may have to translate the other options to fit the Google required grid. Mike is probably aware of this.

Well with all this doom and gloom sounds like its not even worth it to even list items for sale on line anymore.

Its not doom and gloom, its reorganization and sorting some chaff from the grain.

mojavelyn wrote (View Post): › Its not doom and gloom, its reorganization and sorting some chaff from the grain.

Exactly...it's only Doom and Gloom if you sit back and do nothing.....Most sellers have plenty of time to what needs to be done to continue to make sales....."Maybe" there are some dropship sellers who will not be able to get Google Exposure but I am sure that they have time adjust their business plans....it's about looking ahead, planning and being versitile.....I started online over 11 years ago just buying things at garage sales and selling them on eBay....what my business was 11 years ago and what it is now are 2 totally different animals (although sometimes I kinda miss those garage sale days)....things changed in my life/work situations will all of the military responsibilities and I adjusted my business accordingly to stay in business.....even what I am doing today is a severly revised plan of I was doing just 1 year ago....an old cliche, but true, "Flexibility is the Key"....