We’d like to thank you for your patience and understanding as we resolve the final issues from the 15 October category and item specifics update. We apologize for the frustration and disruption caused to sellers. From the moment your experience was disrupted, we’ve listened to your feedback and worked quickly to address the issues.
Final status update
Left hand navigation filters - The left-hand navigation filters are now working again and this issue is fully resolved.
Missing values - We are continuing to copy the Additional item specifics you previously provided into the Required item specifics fields. We expect the exercise to be complete in the coming weeks.
Irrelevant item specifics values - The consolidation of irrelevant values is in progress and you’ll start seeing only appropriate values in the drop-down menus by the end of this week. Sellers will notice marked improvements already.
Actions for sellers:
While we finalize these, we’d like to remind sellers that you should still update listings in Toys, Fashion, Home & Garden, Collectibles, and Media & Gift Cards categories:
- For existing listings: provide required item specifics when you revise existing listings.
- New listings: follow the prompts and include all required item specifics, plus as many recommended specifics as you see fit.
- We recommend utilizing Optiseller Aspect Finder Tool to help you quickly identify and correct your existing listings that are missing key item specifics.
What happened?
This year we’ve introduced several item specifics changes to approximately 70% of Home & Garden and 80% of Consumer Electronics listings worldwide with little to no disruption. Knowing this, we made Category and Classification changes to other categories, including the fashion category on October 15th. However, while making these changes, we also made some item specifics “Required.” These two changes together had an unforeseen, temporary impact on the ability to edit existing listings in the fashion category. Although editing of existing listings was temporarily blocked, listing data was accessible, and listings were visible in search results. We were able to restore editing of listings within a short period of time.
What have we, at eBay, learned from this?
We do not take these interruptions lightly and we’re committed to working harder for you and your business.
When asking sellers to update their listings, as part of a Seller Update, we will not make multiple updates and item specifics requirements simultaneously. We will instead make changes gradually so the flow on effect is not felt all at once by our sellers. We will not be making any further planned changes in 2019 so our sellers can focus on holiday.
Our efforts in updating our marketplace, and optimizing search for our buyers will continue. We will be in touch again late January with information on additional updates for 2020.
Until then, thank you for your continued partnership and for selling on eBay.
Previous Updates
October 30 announcement
October 25 announcement
October 23 announcement
October 22 announcement
October 21 announcement
October 18 announcement
October 15 & 17 announcement
