Variations Issues in 7.0.10 using iMac running 10.10.3

I’ve just upgraded to 7.0.10 and am using OS X Yosemite (10.10.3).

I’m having some challenges using variations and wondered if it’s something I’m doing or there’s a bug.

I have chosen to use Gift Recipient (with 12 options currently but this will increase) and Main Colour (with 2 options).

I check the boxes to add the photos (for example, ‘Use for Gift Recipient/Mum’) but when I select OK and go back to my listing some of them are not being added. There is only a choice of Pink or Blue for the Main Colour. Sometimes one colour is chosen; sometimes two.

Also, the order of the Gift Recipients (and therefore photos) rearranges itself - both in variations and then in my listing. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for this, for example, it’s not alphabetical. This is particularly annoying (for me) as I want them to appear in a certain order on the dropdown in eBay to make it easier for the customer to choose what they want.

If the above isn’t already supported, may I request this as an update? That my variations either a) stay in the order that I input them or b) I have an option to select that they are in alphabetical order (this might be useful when I have lots of variations as it will make it easy for the customer when searching for what they want in the dropdown list). Would anyone else find this useful?

One final thing that happens (which I see has been mentioned as an issue elsewhere in this forum) is that if I rearrange the Gift Recipient variations, ALL the photos are deleted and I have to select them again. So another couple of requests, could this be prevented from happening? And would it be possible to rearrange using drag and drop rather than having to retype? It’s not an issue with a couple of variations but when I have 50-60 it’s an onerous task.

I hope that all makes sense but please let me know if you need clarification.

Thanks for your help!

I have now listed this auction and have more to add since checking how it looks on eBay:

a) Despite my only selecting certain photos in variations, the wrong ones are appearing when selecting from the dropdown menus. For example, I have selected to only use a Pink photo for ‘Use for Gift Recipient/Mum’ and yet the same Pink photo is showing when I select the Blue option.

b) I have tried to select a photo for two of the variations and they just will not save. When selecting the item from the dropdown menu on eBay there is no image, it’s blank. It makes it more difficult as I can’t check this before starting the listing.

Given the above and that I will be doing a lot of listings like this, I need this resolved in some way, please, even if it’s a workaround. So far, it has taken a lot of my time to get to this and it’s still wrong.

At the moment, while this listing is live, I think it will be better for me to continue to display my collage of the items in my gallery image and to have all the variation images blank. Too confusing for the buyer otherwise as they will think they’re getting a colour that they didn’t select!

I will try the above now and see if it works.

Just a couple of follow up questions to get a better picture:

  1. Am I right that you are using images for your variations by linking them with inventory items through the SKU field?

  2. What have you selected as image upload destination for your images under Preferences > eBay > eBay Images?

Hi Ilja

Thanks for your email.

It’s been a looong time, wonderful that GarageSale is going strong and from
strength to strength. Congratulations!

To answer your questions:

  1. Yes, that’s right.

  2. GarageSale’s free picture service.

Thanks for your help.

Kind regards

Alison

eBay’s rules for dealing with images in variations are rather complex, but here is the gist as far as I can recall from the top of my head.

  1. You need to eBay’s picture service (EPS) for somewhere decent results.
  2. Even when using EPS, you cannot assign images to every variation. Instead, eBay groups all images for a certain attribute (what is represented as a column in GarageSale) and chooses an arbitrary image from any item in a column for display to a buyer in the website.

The best way to cope with these limitation when selling, for instance T-Shirts, is to use a different column for each color, and a different row for each size. This way, when a buyer selects a certain variations, at least the color of the shown shirt should match.

Why would eBay design something so un-intuive and complex? :man_shrugging:

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