eBay has released its second and final seller update for 2011 with most changes to go into effect on August 22, 2011.

The key updates are as follows:
** Starting in the first week of September, sellers will have the opportunity to use 25 extra characters in their title to draw more buyers to their listings. The maximum number of characters will be increased from 55 to 80.
** Buyer Protection cases won’t be included in a seller’s count of opened cases unless the buyer contacts the seller first. Starting in late August, if the buyer doesn’t contact a seller before opening a Buyer Protection case and the seller acts quickly to resolve it, the case won’t be included in a seller’s performance rating.
** Starting October 1, sellers will not be able to submit a new listing or re-listing if “an email address or link that doesn’t help buyers transact safely and efficiently on eBay is included in the listing.”
** Starting in late August, a seller can specify “Money back or exchange” as a refund option and next year, the 3- and 7-day returns options will no longer be available and a cash refund option will be required for all returns. Sellers will still be able to specify “no returns” as a policy.
** Starting in September, buyers will see all tickets offered for an event on a single event page—including tickets available on StubHub—with handy access to a venue seat map. A new tickets catalog, coming in August, will help sellers specify more key details about their tickets and the event and make listing faster and easier.
** Enhanced catalog-based shopping for GPS devices. Starting September 15, when there’s no match in the eBay catalog, sellers will be required to add the product to complete the listing. A new tool for adding products in this category makes it fast and easy.

You can also see if your listings are impacted by the changes made to categories and item specifics.

Get tools and tips to make editing listings faster and easier.

See the Seller Checklist for more information about how the updates.

Learn more from other sellers and eBay staff in the seller update discussion forum.

Thoughts on the update? Let me know. If you have specific questions about the news, feel free to leave it in the comments section and I can put together a follow-up post with a video interview asking those questions to the appropriate folks.

Cheers,
RBH