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eBay Listing Templates

Listing templates determine the appearance of your eBay listings.

Description

When you list your items on eBay, you can use the default listing templates in Monsoon, create new custom listing templates, or customize both default and custom listing templates with special tokens or an external HTML editor.

Your eBay listing template can have a title up to 80 characters in length and content up to 500,000 characters in length, the maximum allowed by eBay.

Inventory Group Criteria Editor

You can set up listing template criteria in the same way that you set up listing rule criteria. When an item matches a template's criteria, Monsoon Marketplace uploads it for listing using that template.

See eBay listing rule criteria.

Add, edit, preview, and remove an eBay listing template

For every new listing template you add, Monsoon supplies a default template format. You can either use the default format or customize the default using the Content Editor or an HTML editor of your choice.

Your eBay listing template can have a title up to 80 characters in length and content up to 500,000 characters in length, the maximum allowed by eBay.

Throughout the day, Monsoon regularly evaluates your inventory, comparing each item to your listing template rules.

When you revise a listing template that's being used by an item already listed on eBay, an update is sent to eBay and your listing is revised.

An item does not need to delist and relist for a template update to be uploaded to eBay, although the time it takes for a listing to update is dependent on the size of your inventory and eBay processing speed.

A multi-quantity listing for which at least one item has sold is updated with changes made in the template's Content box only. Changes made in the template's Title box for a multi-quantity listing for which at least one item has sold is updated when the listing expires and the item relists. See eBay listing revisions for complete information on all inventory group and item level changes that update active eBay listings.

To add an eBay listing template

On the Settings tab, under eBay, click Listing Templates, and then click Add.
Click the Expand button for each criteria, select the criteria that define your inventory group, and then click OK.

In the template rule summary, click in the Name box, and then type the name of the listing template.

Click Preview to check the appearance of your template. If you want to make any changes to your listing template, click Edit, make your changes, and then click OK.

To edit an eBay listing template

On the Settings tab, under eBay, click Listing Templates.
Click the rule you want to edit, make your changes in the Title box or Content box, and then click OK.

To preview an eBay listing template

On the Settings tab, under eBay, click Listing Templates.
Click the rule you want to preview, and then click Preview. In the Listing Preview window, your listing template displays exactly as it will appear on eBay.

To preview a specific item, type the SKU in the SKU box, and then click Submit.

Note If your template includes a picture, an image thumbnail appears in the upper-left corner. Place your mouse pointer on the thumbnail to preview the picture.

To remove an eBay listing template

On the Settings tab, under eBay, click Listing Templates.
Click the rule you want to remove, click Remove, and then click OK.

Customizing an eBay listing template

You can customize an existing default listing template or create and customize a new listing template by inserting HTML tags and special tokens that are available in Monsoon. You can also use an external HTML editor to customize the look of your listing template.

Before you make any changes to a custom listing template, we recommend making a backup copy first.

Click the template you want to back up, copy and paste everything from the Title box and Content box into a program such as Notepad, then save your file.

eBay special tokens

A special token can be inserted into a default or custom listing template. The token dynamically changes for every listing.

For example, let's say you carry a selection of toys and you want each listing to display the toy's dimensions.

You can insert the Height, Width, and Length tokens into a custom listing template.

In some cases you may want to limit the length of the data that displays in a special token. To specify the number of characters that display in a token, format your token as follows: {Title: 80}. In this example, the maximum number of characters that display in the special token Title is 80. Otherwise, when inserting a special token, be sure that you don't change anything inside the token brackets { } or the token won't work.

To customize a listing template with an HTML editor

On the Settings tab, under eBay, click Listing Templates. and then click Show Larger Content Editor.

In the Content Editor window, click External Editor, or click the External Editor arrow to see more options.
Make any changes, and then save. Saved changes appear in your customized listing template.

eBay listing template priority

Listing template priority is a key feature that can help you manage which templates are applied to which items.

Template priority is determined by its position in the rules list.

Monsoon regularly evaluates your inventory throughout the day, comparing each item to your listing template rules, one at a time, from top to bottom.
When an item meets a template rule's criteria, the rule comparison stops—the item is not compared to rules below the qualifying rule.
If an item matches a different template than it originally listed with, an update is sent to eBay and your listing is revised. Your item does not need to delist and relist for an update to be uploaded to eBay although the update time is dependent on the size of your inventory and the time it takes eBay to process the update.
See for complete information on all inventory group and item level changes that update your active listings.

To change listing template priority

On the Settings tab, under eBay, click Listing Templates.
Right-click the rule you want to move, and then click Raise Priority or Lower Priority.