eBay Time Period Manufactured Options

[valeries_trunk]

I am frustrated with the Era/ Time Period options eBay has. They are all 1900-1910, 1911-1919, 1920-1929, etc. I sell mainly antique & collectibles. The items do not fit neatly into these slots. Sometimes a piece of glass or a doll is made from 1924-1934, for example. What time slot am I supposed to use? Why can't I enter my own? At least they would be correct? Also, why is it necessary to fill in the Year Manufactured? Sometimes you don't know on antique & collectibles. Yet eBay continues to promote this as a required Item specific. Are we supposed to guess on a year? What is it falls again between 1920 & 1929? Am I supposed to guess at 1925?  eBay has never given guidelines for dealing with these Item Specifics. It is annoying to just guess. 

[12345jamesstamps]

I sell stamps and don't have a problem listing a certain year or a span of years. 

I have catalogs. I feel if a seller thinks it is an antique or collectible they should list the year....otherwise I suggest maybe not using the words antique or collectible. Perhaps doing research on the item when it was made...pretty easy usually by checking other sellers selling the same thing on eBay.

[eburtonlab]

The point of using item-specifics like that is to allow buyers to search using a few pre-defined filter options. Most of the options are just that: optional. If you are not sure about something or you think that your buyers won't be searching using that particular option, don't include that item-specific.

If every seller created their own custom entries, then every time someone listed (or searched for) an item they would have to choose among thousands of custom options for each item-specific, and the entire system would be unworkable.

If no buyers are going to search for your item using a 1924-1934 filter, then including that information will not be any use to anyone for finding that listing. If an option is not available for a particular item-specific and you think your buyers need that option to search, include the desired option as a keyword in your title so your buyers will be able to search for it.

[pennysdream · Accepted solution]

Oh I sooo agree with you.  I have items that may have started production in 1966, and are still in production today, by the same company.  Using the same mold.  The only difference is where they were made.  I can figure out a close date by where it was made.  However, there is no way for me to know the exact year.  Could be anywhere between 66 - 72,  72 - 86, 86-95 (or somewhere in there) 95 to now.  

[ten_o_nine]

@valeries_trunk 

Why can't I enter my own? 

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I thought you could enter your own. Do you have a screen shot?

[pennysdream]

Some categories you can.

Some you cannot. 

Some have a "Not Dated" option. 

There is no consistency between categories.  

Also, sometimes when a category is updated, the option is changed from what it was, to another option. 

[ten_o_nine]

The OP mentioned collectibles & antique, I list in those categories and never ran to this problem.

[kds99]

I basically agree with your comments. Further:

It may vary between listing categories. I only looked at non-topological postcards, but a few things are clear. On my one listing sample the page indicates "Subject" is searched 34.8 thousand times. "Year manufactured", which is a single year, is searched 4.4 thousand times. "Era", which is a range of years, is only ranked as "trending", so obviously not even enough searches to tabulate. "Time Period Manufactured", which is a range of years, is searched only  107 times.

Given that we are only guessing at how eBay works, there may be more here than meets the eye, but it seems that for the purpose of focusing buyer searches, only "Subject" and maybe "Year Manufactured", might be worth worrying about. Regardless, I don't know how useful it is for a postcard buyer to look for a particular year a postcard is manufactured, but they apparently do it.

A more useful purpose for these item specifics might be to provide the seller after clicking on the listing an organized means of providing tidbits of data to pique the buyer's curiosity and provide information without having to clumsily dump it all into the description.

[soh.maryl]

Don't know much about this since I no longer sell, but can't you just make a guess?

Doubt if anyone from eBay checks this info for accuracy.

And, if a collector, for instance, bothers to message you that your widget is from 1920-1929, 

rather than 1900-1910, then just thank him and change it.  Or not.