How to: Remove Provider Credit Images From eBay Listings

I was asked on Thursday if I knew of a way to remove the “Powered By” logo’s from the bottom of eBay listings. You know the ones, the little 88×33 graphics that you see added to the bottom of your listings, that were not on your template, a few examples are to the right.

So instead I whipped up a little snippet of JavaScript that hunts for the last center tag there is on the page and then just in case it was something really important (like part of the description), it then has added an extra check to make sure it was only hiding the provider links if they match.You could crudely use CSS and set the CENTER tags to “display:none” eg center {display:none;}. The problem with that approach is that you may have text in your templates and descriptions that use the HTML <center> tag and that would hide those too, that’s not ideal…

 

The Code:

Drop this anywhere in your listing template, whether this be for eSellerPro, ChannelAdvisor, TurboLister, GarageSale, manually in the eBay Sell Your Item Form, Selling Manager or Selling Manager Pro, BlackThorne, it’ll remove the logo for them all, at the bottom of your eBay listings.

<script type="text/javascript">
window.onload=function(){
 findcenter();
}
function findcenter()
{
 nodes = document.getElementsByTagName("center");
 subnode = nodes[nodes.length-1];
 var link = subnode.getElementsByTagName("a")[0].href;
if(link.indexOf("eseller") != -1 || link.indexOf("channel") != -1
|| link.indexOf("iwascoding") != -1 || link.indexOf("pages.ebay") != -1  
|| link.indexOf("auctiva") != -1)
 {
 subnode.style.display="none";
 }
}
</script>

You can download this as a text file from here as the formatting isn’t great in the text above.

Summary

It’s been commonplace for providers to include logo’s on the bottom of your eBay listings for a long time now. From a personal perspective, I can understand both sides of the table.

On one side the providers would like to show that your business is using their eBay tool by including a logo at the bottom of a listing, thus promoting their services or offering and on the other side some businesses would rather not show to their competitors which back office tools they are using.

Your Feedback!

But… What do you make of this, should they stay or should they go? Let me know in the comments box below.

17 replies
  1. Harry Brown
    Harry Brown says:

    Nice work. For listings that already have the code on eBay ( I took out all but the eBay references) it works fine if I edit individually. Of course if I do that I could just delete the code I don’t want.
    So using the eBay bulk editor it does not work because that editor adds a CENTER tag every time it adds something to the description.

    • Harry Brown
      Harry Brown says:

      I should have mentioned that the bulk editor in eBay chokes on search and replace for multi-line edits. It took me 3 separate edits to get rid of the unwanted text.

  2. Rick Phillips
    Rick Phillips says:

    Is is possible to modify this script that would actually remove the code? It works great on eBay but when importing from another channel (Highwire) they strip all scripts so it still shows up.

    Thanks!

  3. Jason
    Jason says:

    Thanks for posting this. When you’re paying for premium software, you should be able to choose whether or not to display an advertisement for the software or not.

    I just applied your script to one of my listings and it works all except for the logo still appears (as a link). No text appears however.

  4. Marshall
    Marshall says:

    Doing something like this may put you in violation of terms of your service provider, but if you contact them and ask there may be a way to have that information removed in a way that is agreeable to both parties. While some may not like these, most people realize that they help show which software solutions work and which don’t when evaluating for your own business, and require the software to be acknowledged, for good or bad.

    One of the most interesting situations I’ve seen with the Powered By credits has been when buyers are having trouble completing the transaction, and they use that to contact the software provider to try and help resolve the challenges. That’s a path that can get a potential dispute resolved without filing a case through the eBay dispute system, with a group of people that understand the buyer’s experience and know the seller’s track record to help defuse negative feelings.

    • Matthew Ogborne
      Matthew Ogborne says:

      Howdy Marshall,

      How was Vegas?

      I’m absolutely sure certain providers won’t like the disabling of the provider logo, its quite understandable, its free advertising and as a provider I’d want the credit of the logo being shown.

      On the flip side from my own perspective, I used to drop a white jpg image down the listing using a DIV tag to cover the MarketWorks logo on the bottom of my listings (wasn’t very good with JS then), so that competitors didn’t know what tool we were using and thus maintaining the competitive advantage that the software was providing us.

      Roll on a few years and this is exactly why one of the strongest categories for eSellerPro is CSA. Two lead accounts started showing the logo and the competitors followed, hence now the CSA category is quite bloated with eSellerPro users and fancy dress is awash too, to the point that the competitive advantage is almost gone! (its worthy of bold text because it is at that stage).

      You’re absolutely right to note the 3rd parties part in dispute or transactional issues, I had not thought of that all. This occurred numerous times at Marketworks in support (mainly when there was finalisation issues, how I do not miss those…) and also a couple of times of note at eSellerPro, when customers had come through various means to get hold of a merchant. Really good call on that one.

      What would you define as “agreeable to both parties”?

      Thinking aloud, putting myself in the case of a business that wished to obfuscate the providers logo by some means, the use of a “White Paper” would provide an even larger audience that I would class to be undesirable. Unless of course the business was looking for outside investment, besides that I see no other compelling reason to publish more about the business than is absolutely required. It’s to me bad enough that eBay sell “sales data” to Terapeak, let alone saying “Hey look what we use to power our business from” as well and in the UK have to file accounts to companies house which you can buy access to for a quid.

      I’m quite torn knowing both sides of the table, hence the curious question.

      Matt

      Side Note: You can normally work out what provider a seller is using by the URL’s of the images or supporting files that are used in the listing.

      • Marshall
        Marshall says:

        If your only competitive advantage is in that software solution, there’s a lot to your business that you really need to go back and re-examine. Business is going to evolve and grow throughout the lifecycle, and you’re not going to keep secret any outside providers you’re using that are assisting you in the business unless you buy them outright and roll them into your company (think Amazon buying Kiva, though they say they’re going to continue to sell that technology to others). There are a lot of other aspects to the business where you have full control and can really differentiate your business from the others out there. Those are areas where you’ve got the capability to really stand out in a way unique to your situation.

        The software providers use that outreach to let people know the types of things that they can do and to encourage other sellers to use these tools when appropriate. The outreach is not explicitly to your competitors, but to all sellers and would-be sellers in the marketplace. Without that outreach and advertising they have to spend a lot more to do their own advertising and customer recruitment, which increases their overall costs. If you’re going to be willing to offset those increased costs for the business then they may be agreeable to leaving the advertising off of the listing. (If you’ve ever ordered items from VistaPrint you’re in the exact same situation.) There are always other alternatives you can use that may not put that credit in the listing, but are you really going to get the same results for your business with one of those options? It’s something each seller has to decide, but in my world I’m going to be focused on using the best software tool for my business and then putting my effort into growing my product lines and expanding my distribution channels while providing excellent customer service. If that best software option wants to provide a small unobtrusive advertisement of their services (which do not compete with me as a seller) then that’s not going to bother me at all.

        Full disclosure: I have been involved with one of the software development companies named for a very long time (if you read this a lot you’ll know which one). I’ve also been on the other side of the coin and used services that have similar business models to see both the producer and consumer side of the equation.

      • Matthew Ogborne
        Matthew Ogborne says:

        Howdy Marshall,

        Lets focus on ChannelAdvisor for a few moments, but this applies to software of any form, including excel!

        By using CA (ChannelAdvisor) the business is has competitive advantage over a business that is not using CA or another advanced tool, that is a fact.

        I totally agree with you that having CA as a sole USP to the business is a dangerous tack, but with my “business owner” hat on, its an advantage I’d rather not publish, after all it’s hopefully part of a collection of USP’s that give my entire business as a whole an advantage.

        Frankly I drool at the likes of Kiva. There is something really fascinating about warehouse management. I worked for a couple of months at Nisbits, Bristol, in their corporate team. The job was tedious (although the team was brilliant) but what did it for me was using the automated systems that ensured orders could be processed in minutes and the amazing interactions I had with how and why the warehouse was structured in the way it was.

        The processes I learned from the team there have stuck with me ever since. I look at colour coded totes in a whole new meaning and a set of rollers, well that’s obscene. Which I’m sure I’ll explore further at a later point in life.

        Oh dear, I’m owning up, I’ve got serious issues if warehouse management does it for me.

        Back on to topic, buying the competitor/competition is a curious one. This isn’t possible for the vast majority of businesses, so unlike Amazon we can rule this out for the majority.

        Side Note: As with any software you can have good implementations and bad implementations. Being rather blunt a lot of it rests on the actual users and the comprehension and ingenuity that is applied to the software to get the most from it. I’d say its one of the key factors why some accounts crash and burn and others flourish (for everyone else reading this).

        My point being is that the software that underpins a business is just as crucial as the other factors, there is no golden ticket or magic trick to make a business grow, its always a combination of several different, yet interrelated parts that form the whole and software like CA do form a large chunk of it.

        So still with my “business owners” hat on, if the underpinning software that is supporting my company is part of this, I’d rather not share it publicly, no matter how unobtrusive the advertisement is, even if is detrimental one face value to the software.

        Maybe I’m not considering private part of the equation? While I may not like the advert and showing the direct competitors what the business is using, for businesses outside the direct threat arena, then I’d frankly not care and would happily talk about the interactions with the underpinning software part of the business

        After all its the maverns (see the book called “The Tipping Point”, they’re like super networkers, in small niches) of the sector that we’re in are the people that really hold the keys to which business uses which software.

        To flip to the other side of the table from the providers standpoint, I’d be both pissed at (and had probably written something in the T&C’s) and bemused that a business felt it soo important that they would go to the extreme removing a tiny 88×33 logo on the bottom of their listings.

        Let me flip this question back to you.

        Lets imagine you’re one of your favourite retailers, you’re a director and have invested the last 10 years into the business. Its been growing well and you’re attacking all fronts of growth, efficiency and ROI and what ever else I’m missing here, business is going well.

        If ChannelAdvisor was a core component of your product based business, that you’ve ploughed 10 years into and you had the option to mask the logo, to gain even a tiny competitive advantage to your business, would you do so?

        Matt

      • Marshall
        Marshall says:

        A number of us (at CA) know one of the original Kiva guys, as he came from a local university and we were friends with him before he even moved into that space. I think it’s a very interesting way to solve that problem, by looking at it in a different way than many of the other prior proposals.

        The way you described your business, you’d never be a reference customer solely to stay as obfuscated as possible from your direct competition. That’s your choice, but I look at it from a different perspective. First, my personal ethics (which I know are different from some) would preclude me from making those changes to remove the credit from a listing without getting approval from those that put it there. Usually there’s a way to get their approval — you just need to ask correctly. If you think that’s the appropriate way for you to go, then that’s an appropriate avenue for you to pursue. Personally, I prefer to support the companies I do business with and that lead to my personal improvement, so a small non-obtrusive credit to those companies to help them obtain more business makes it more likely that they’ll be around in the future to continue to support me.

        Second, there’s a term in technology called “security through obscurity”. It’s the idea of making something secure because no one else knows it’s there rather than having actual encryption, passwords, or the like. It’s generally considered to be effectively equivalent to no security at all, since there are so many different ways to get past it with just a small bit of knowledge. Trying to hide something is only going to get you so far, and you’re going to expend a lot of energy and effort trying to do so. While I understand your point, many of the companies we work with have confidence in their business and additional strengths, and they know that we power a large number of other businesses. At least some of them have to be their competitors.

        I feel like it’s the equivalent of the credit card signs that are put up in a store or on a website, the badges and icons and various business association logos that a business publishes and promotes, or the other aspects of partnerships that a company does to further their own business. You get the same with most (if not all) of the e-mail providers — I know I actually look at the footer of subscription emails I receive to see which technology people are using since I know people at a number of those companies. If you feel so strongly that those credits need to be removed from your listing for whatever reasons you may have, just talk to the software developers involved. If it’s that important to you and they’re not willing to work with you to come to an result agreeable to both sides, then you have a decision to make.

        To answer the question that you posed to me, I’d be doing the financial calculation (since I’m a numbers geek) — is the marginal increase in revenue I’m going to get more than offsetting of the cost (both financially and in reference to any lost “prestige”) to have that off of my listings. Since my listings already have eBay logos all over them and additional uncontrollable advertisements (in the UK), that one little icon at the bottom of my listings is not anything I’m worrying about. If I’m that concerned about it, I’m looking at leaving eBay altogether which likely isn’t a financially viable option. Personally, I don’t even believe buyers really read that much of the description anymore, but that’s a different discussion.

  5. Matthew Ogborne
    Matthew Ogborne says:

    Howdy,

    if you were wondering how to hide the logo on a frooition listing, CSS is the best way and here’s the code:

    <STYLE type=text/css>
    div#design div a {
        display: none !important;
    }
    </STYLE>

    Matt

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. @przeman25 says:

    How to: Remove Provider Credit Images From eBay Listings – The Last Drop of Ink http://t.co/qK0tedo8Oy

  2. How to: Remove Provider Credit Images From #eBay #Listings #esellerpro – http://t.co/vB3mz3G1

  3. How to: Remove Provider Credit Images From eBay Listings: I was asked on Thursday if I knew of a way to remo… http://t.co/GGpwQbe8 #in

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