eBay Resources

Designs That Violate eBay Policy

Many sellers don't realize that when a designer creates a store design that is violating eBay policies, they are running the risk of having their listings pulled, stores closed and can potentially be suspended on eBay (if eBay ever decides to enforce the policies they've created). Most sellers simply don't know and trust their designer to create them a store design based on their experience and skill. So when these designers go outside the policy, unfortunately it's not the designer that is penalized. One thing to keep in mind is that just because you see one store design violating eBay policies, doesn't mean that it's OK or that you should follow suit.

What violations should you be aware of? Many! A full list of the policies are available on eBay.com and we'll go over some of the major no-no's in this article as well.

Specifically these are a few of the examples that pertain to eBay stores:

• HTML or JavaScript that automatically overwrites any area on the listing outside of the item description area
• Manipulation of areas outside the listing description, including changing fonts, colors, backgrounds, etc. in areas such as eBay headers, footers, etc.

In a nutshell - the two violations above mean that you cannot alter any of the areas outside the store header, promotion boxes and the custom page box. In the example below I've outlined the areas I've mentioned.

Sadly there is a large, large number of designers who consistently design outside those areas (even sadder is the fact that many of those designers are included in the Certified Designers directory). The two most common violations I've seen on eBay are overwriting the "body" tag to place a background from top to bottom of the page and overwriting the code in the left-menu's category menu (not a custom menu but the eBay generated menu). Yes, harmless, but it is eBay's playground so they make the rules. These are a few examples of these violations (blurred to protect privacy).

In the background violations you can see that the background appears at the very top and underneath the eBay logo. This is a violation because the "body" of the page is reserved for eBay and is not one of the editable regions they allow us to use. When a designer uses the "body" tag in their design and sets a background, it loads that background of the whole page and the result is what you see above. Harmless as it is, it's still a major violation.

The other violation above is quite common. As stated way above, we're basically given 3 boxes, and eBay separates those boxes with whitespace (nothing we can do about it, that's eBay). The designer used creative programming to overwrite that whitespace and to also restructure the left menu. Usually, if you want to do something custom with your left menu (to stay within policies) you simply de-activate the categories menu and create a promotion box with your category links. The designer in this instance used creative programming and stylesheets to overwrite how eBay loads the default menu. Again, although it's harmless it's eBay rules.

Why is it important to know about store violations? Because you have the right to know if your designer is putting your eBay account at risk. Can you afford to have your listings pulled or have your account suspended for a month? Knowledge is power. Don't be afraid to question your designer if you think something they're doing is not within eBay policies.