- This topic has 9 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 1 month ago by
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Ebay was going to remove listings with watermarks earlier this year. Though they decided not to, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did so at a later date:
In September, as part of our Fall Seller Release, we announced that listings with watermarked images would be removed from eBay search results beginning on March 1, 2018.
We know that buyers want to see products clearly before they make a purchase, and watermarks create a cluttered experience not consistent with retail standard. Watermarked images are also a primary reason Google rejects eBay-funded Google Shopping placements, meaning less visibility for your listings and decreased conversion.
As a result, we encourage you to remove watermarks from listings in order to enhance your reach and velocity on eBay.
However, we have received significant feedback about our upcoming enforcement and for this and other business reasons have decided that we will not enforce the removal of watermarks in March 2018 as originally planned. We know this is a crucial time of year, and we want you to be able to focus completely on selling.
Thank you to those who have already removed watermarks. We know in many cases this has been a significant effort. Because of those efforts, your listings will more likely be included in Google Shopping search, your products will be featured in our product-based shopping experience, and will be considered for our deals and seasonal promotions. And, eBay will even more delight buyers with a world-class retail experience.
We appreciate your efforts and always value your feedback.
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Personally, as long as the image is not being used for a commercial purpose, I do not care if someone grabs an image of a piece of ephemera and posts it on pinterest or instagram. I consider that free advertising. Someone might see the image, want it, search on it for ebay and find mine. I get a sale. Yay, free advertising.
If you scan an image at a lower DPI, or do not take the best pictures of an item, there is no way it can be used for commercial reasons. I don’t think the quality of the images posted on Ebay could be used for commercial purposes at all – the size and file quality of the images are just too small.
Normal photography used for Ebay listings would also not be good enough for a graphic designer to steal an image. If someone is interested in your image for commercial reasons, they will need to buy it and take higher quality scans in order to use it for those reasons.
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I’ve heard good things about XnConvert. See: https://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/
“Good” watermarks ruin the image to make them unusable elsewhere (see: stock photo websites.) A simple corner watermark is easily cropped out. If someone is taking the time to steal your photos, then they’ll spend the extra 10 seconds to remove your watermark, too.
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If it’s a run of the mill photo of a physical object (like say a mug, or a book, or a lamp) I don’t need a watermark. I am not concerned about image theft by other sellers.
Watermarking makes sense only when I am selling ephemera. When you sell ephemera the image is essentially the thing that you are selling.
As an example if I am selling a one of a kind 8×10 black and white photograph – I want the potential customer to buy the photograph. I don’t want them to grab the image from their browser and decide thats good enough.
Normally I take photo of the item and put a pen across it. That way people get the idea of what the thing is without actually possessing it.
See sample here –
https://www.ebay.com/itm/163452845244
If I were to scan items instead of photographing them, i thought bulk watermarking would be easier.
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If this is a concern, then you should watermark it or hinder the image in some way.
Have you seen evidence that people actually just screenshot a low res image and copy it? In the example of that postcard, it seems illogical someone would go through the cost/time of making an imperfect copy and print it on card stock on a color printer…when they could just buy the professional postcard for only $10.
If this person actually exists, they’d be someone uninterested in quality. They’d just as likely screenshot your postcard image even with the watermark.
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That makes sense.
I would go this route:
Embossed text with 50% transparency or so, placed off-center as to not cover up too much. Potential buyers will get the gist without wondering if the text is there to obscure defects/etc.
If I were doing it, I’d shoot the picture at an angle, e.g.: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2013-Mint-Print-Ad-Poster-The-Sound-of-Music-Carrie-Underwood-NBC/322140123992?hash=item4b010c3358:g:cO8AAOSwbYZXVkXS:rk:3:pf:0
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