eBay Seller Hub Adds Expiration Countdown For Draft Listings
eBay is making it easier for sellers to see when their draft listings will expire to avoid losing their hard work to the 75 day automatic deletion clock.
The drafts view under Listings in Seller Hub now includes a column with an expiration date countdown and there also be an additional banner warning once you reach the 15 days away mark.
The new feature was announced in today's eBay For Business podcast, where the hosts also hinted that expiration times for drafts may be going away completely in the near future.
Griff: ...But anyway, so I've noticed this thing this morning. I'm looking at the drafts, you know, I have two drafts ready to go and I'm about to submit them. If you submit them as more than two, two or more, it takes you through, it looks exactly like the bulk edit feature. And it will alert me, Hey, you idiot, you forgot to put a condition, you numb skull! You didn't put this item specific. Uh, hello idiot. How about how you're gonna get paid? So those are all those little red things in a column.
But then I'm looking over at the draft page in Seller Hub and at the very end there's a column and it says expiration date. And I'm thinking to myself, what? I've never seen this before. Drafts last for 75 days and after 75 days there's unceremoniously deleted. So if you work really hard on that draft on day 76, it's gone.
Well, now we have a little column that says you got 74 days left, you got 73 days left. And I thought, well, this is helpful.
Brian: And that's the column. There's even additional news.
Griff: What's that?
Brian: There's a little banner that goes up and says you've got 15 days. And it goes away too.
Griff: Yeah. So there's a bunch, bunch of alerts to let you know that that thing you've been holding onto and it's just the right moment. It's about to get deleted.
And I noticed then we see this email and in the email they talked about, and I shouldn't even hint at this because they base this on seller feedback, but they said, you know, the obvious thing is to be able to keep drafts alot longer. Like indefinitely. And they sort of hinted in the email that that's the next thing they're looking at. So, you know, baby steps.
Brian: Yes. But at least now if you're a seller and you're paying attention, then there's that. You can go into your drafts, go into the page, and you'll know exactly where you stand on every draft.
What do you think of the new drafts expiration date countdown? Should eBay allow sellers to keep drafts indefinitely? Let us know in the comments below!
