eBay Adds AI Generated Item Detail Highlights To Listing Pages
eBay continues to insert AI into every aspect of the buying and selling experience, with new test of eBay.AI generated item detail highlights added to listing pages to draw buyer attention to key selling points in highly visible call to action placement.
The new feature appears randomly across items in different categories and seems to be drawing information from the seller provided item specifics and description fields.
For example, on this listing for a vintage ice cube tray, the AI chose to feature details from the description highlighting that it is durable and reusable and offers quick release of the cubes.
And on this listing for a watch, it chose to feature the pattern and number jewels.
While the examples I found in testing all appeared to be providing information directly drawn from seller-provided Item Specifics and Description data, sellers may still run into issues if the AI only picks up part of the details - like this example where the AI proudly touts "made in the USA" when the seller provided details show that's only true for some of the items in the lot.
Given that room for error, sellers in the eBay community are understandably concerned about what might happen if/when eBay.AI gets it wrong.
Some more of ebay's Magical AI!
Are sellers still responsible for false AI claims that eBay attaches to their account, or is this something the seller has to choose to put on their listing?
Sellers have been considered 100% responsible for anything in the actual listing, including AI generated content.
This is a new weird thing, though, which the seller had no knowledge of it being placed on their listing and did not get to approve it, so I would hope there would be some consideration for that. I don't know how that would be handled if it generated incorrect information in an area of the listing like that, and then the listing was reported or the buyer filed a NAD claim. I will be watching to see if anyone reports such an issue on the boards, though.
And it appears to be something eBay is doing without consent or desire of the seller for the moment. As for whom to blame, we already know the answer to that one. It will be the sellers, even though the seller's know its eBay's fault.
If we have an option to not have an Ai involved, I don't see it. But it would be something many would want to be able to turn on or off for their listings. Even individually.
As for me, its a hell no. I prefer to control my listing content directly. I don't want Ai doing it for me.
We've seen similar issues with other AI summary experiments both offsite in eBay's Facebook Marketplace partnership or onsite in search results:
Liz Morton
Notably, eBay's terms of service state that sellers are responsible for the accuracy of the listing, including when using tools like the AI description generator and image background enhancer but there's one big difference - sellers still get to choose whether or not they want to use the AI description or background but have no choice about when/where/how these AI summaries are created or displayed and no ability to opt out.
Not only is it unfair and unethical to hold sellers accountable for any Not As Described claims which might result from eBay.AI, these features could also raise new questions about product liability if buyers are harmed or mislead by incorrect AI generated information.
In a recent example on Etsy, a buyer left a seller a negative review because the cake they sold was not vegan, but the seller had not advertised it as vegan and in fact stated clearly in the description the cake contained milk and eggs.
The erroneous - and potentially consumer harming - information showing that item in a search for "vegan cake" was entirely produced and published by Etsy's own LLM powered search algorithm.
Liz Morton
The idea of marketplace liability is nothing new of course - since the dawn of the internet and ecommerce, legislators and regulatory agencies across the globe have wrestled with the subject, especially when it comes to sites like Etsy and eBay which historically have leaned on the fact they are "just a venue" for items sold by third party sellers.
While that "just a venue" stance is no longer true for eBay, it hasn't stopped them from forwarding that argument to defend themselves against a lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency, seeking to hold the company liable for illegal chemicals, pesticides and emissions control cheat devices sold on the platform.
U.S. District Judge Orelia Merchant agreed with eBay, dismissing the case in a ruling stating that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects eBay from liability for items sold by 3rd parties on their site.
Section 230 states:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Liz Morton
Etsy, eBay, Amazon, Walmart and other marketplaces can of course be expected to fight tooth and nail to preserve Section 230 as a "get out of liability free card."
If they lose, not only could they be subject to massive regulatory fines and product liability lawsuits, it could also expose just how much of their publicly reported Gross Merchandise Volume/Sales over the years has been built on fraud, counterfeits and other illegal activity, potentially impacting stock prices and leading to shareholder action or SEC investigations as well.
In fact, eBay's Government Relations team recently visited Illinois lawmakers specifically to lobby against a proposed law which seeks to hold marketplaces as well as sellers responsible for product liability claims and they also continue to lobby at the federal level to keep Section 230 protections in place.
But eBay.AI summaries pose an interesting challenged for Section 230 - can companies be held liable when information does not come verbatim from another information content provider but rather from LLMs or other technology the company has put in place between sellers and buyers on their platforms?
Other sellers in the eBay community also questioned the value of this new AI highlight test, pointing out the information the AI selects isn't exactly useful and informative and they would rather see eBay allow sellers to decide what details to feature in that high visibility placement.
Most sellers probably agree that space "above the fold" in a listing is valuable space...
...By the way, one ice maker I looked at had an AI notation: Great for making ice. It's that sort of extra information that makes AI so invaluable.
As far as I know, ebay puts this there, whether the seller wants it or not. I'd be happier if ebay told us they were reserving that space for us to choose what we'd like to highlight about our item.
eBay has been working on a redesign of the View Item Page for the last few years, promising and then reneging on plans to move seller item specifics and description above any Promoted Listings ad modules on the page.
When images of what the final update will eventually look like leaked last year, sellers were initially happy to see that eBay still plans to move the description higher on the page - but there's a catch.
Liz Morton
While it's difficult to see in the screenshot, it appears that eBay's eventual plan for the view item page in the web experience is to show a truncated version of the description that will then prompt the buyer to click to view the full description, similar to how it is currently displayed in the eBay app.
And if you look real close at that mockup - it shows a disclaimer indicating that truncated version of the description will be an AI generated summary.
Meanwhile, eBay continues to hype up new magical AI experiences while existing AI tools continue to struggle and break.
Liz Morton
What do you think of eBay adding AI generated item detail highlights to listing pages? Let us know in the comments below!
