Reporting issues related to the ongoing technical issue with Item Specifics

[community_team]

This thread is dedicated to reporting issues related to the ongoing technical issue with Item Specifics. Please share details including screenshots, steps to recreate, etc. This thread is not meant to be a place for in-depth discussion of the situation, but to be a  place for you to provide us detail into what you're seeing so we can pass this on to the appropriate teams.

Please know that off-topic discussions in this thread will be moved to their own threads. 

For the most recent updates on this issue please review the Announcements Board.

[jeans_lover]

Yesterday you reported this:

"We are currently focused on resolving three outstanding issues:

1. Restoring left-hand navigation for a small group of categories"

Today the "inseam" item specific on Mens and Womens jeans, that was showing on Monday/Tuesday, is missing.

This has been a  monumental **** up from the beginning and I'm not convinced that anyone at Ebay seems to understand it enough to sort it!!

[mr_lincoln]

@community_team 

Subject:  HO Scale Trains - Country of Manufacture

Can you please add Yugoslavia to the Country of Manufacture list for HO Trains?

[abfabvintage]

@edwardian-dreams 

Hi, I have been adding my own custom IS even before IS became this "new thing norm" because whomever is creating these IS has no clue what belongs where. I continue to add my own...but the downside is (and have never gotten an answer from eBay), do your customs show up in search just like all the other ebay fields? I don't care...I use mine as Key Words no matter what eBay wrongly suggests. 

[lovingcreations]

I totally agree with this. Seems every year just before Christmas sales, they make a big change that costs us so much time and messes everything up.

[ablessednest]

As of 10/24/2019, my Seller Hub has updated up to 10/19/2019.

Also clothing sizes were not the only thing affected, I sell linens and many of my pillow shams were missing size in the required fields.

[missdimples_la]

Very disappointed with all the changes that is happening on Ebay. I've been selling on Ebay in Clothing category for 3 years and I was steady growing until this May when something happened and Traffic and impressions dropped in half in one day and never recovered. Every month the sales go down and down despite me listing more items, ending and relisting old items, using listing promotions, Sale events, free shipping. NOTHING WORKS. And now with all the changes happening in item specifics and other areas not know to us, I noticed that new listed items do not get any views even with more required specifics. I list new items every day and they get 1-2 views in a week??? I never had a day with $0 sales in 2 years,  now I have days with $0 sales couple days in a row. WHAT IS GOING ON? I am frustrated, mad, stressed out, on the verge of going out of business. We need explanations, and incentives to stay in business. I am about to close my Anchor store because I can't afford it.  I don't even have any motivation to stay on Ebay.  Please work this problem out as soon as possible. 

[shoe_chef_ken]

The program keeps trying to fill the brand field with "M&M" 

This one has been going on for a few months now. It's been auto-filling item specifics with the wrong information. Such as colors and M&M's as the brand name. It's funny but frustrating! I've been relisting and I'm noticing that some of my listings have a waaaay off Brand name in the Brand field. Hope that's not why they didn't sell....Also, some of my older listings photos are stating their corrupted? That's a new one. I'll attach some files below

[funsationalfinds]

Nothing has been mentioned in your updates that if you want to go on vacation and extend your handling time, you cannot just do nothing with your current listings. Any listings with blank fields must be filled in to be able to change handling time. I was lucky that I was on vacation and had extended my handling time when these changes hit on October 15. I spent the next week waiting as eBay requested I do. My listings were stuck on much longer handling times. I probably lost sales as buyers thought I would take a long time to ship. Anything that sold last week after my vacation I shipped within my normal 1 day handling time but I did not receive my TRS discount. I have now spent several hours editing these listings so that I could return them to 1 day handling time. I have seen so many panicked posts on facebook when a seller needs to go on vacation and can't change their handling time. Please let sellers know this.

[gwnorthmn]

The auto fill of categories is not good. It’s mostly theme, character and fabric wash. A blue piece of clothing is not a character blue. A size medium is not a medium wash.  Make it stop - it’s not intuitive. Sometimes they can be removed and sometimes they can’t. 

[little.luxe.armoire]

Thank you for adding the item specific boxes into the new Baby & Toddler apparel categories. Progress! Now instead of only containing the Brand box, they look like this:

However - My suggestions for next steps (in order of importance): 

(1) Red-star the item specifics or do whatever needs to be done to get them to map correctly into search. 

Right now, I can create new listings or update my GTC ones, but none of the boxes have drop-down menus (definitely the opposite problem of what others seem to be having with way too many choices; these have don't have any). I can type in the correct information so my listings look good individually, but nothing is mapping so size, color, etc. are still all coming up as "unspecified" using the sidebar.

It looks like this is still happening to a lot of sellers, but not all, and I can't figure out why that is. I'm looking at a set of search results right now, and 11 out of 15 return "unspecified" color, and that is not the case when you click into the listings. How did those other 4 get theirs to map correctly? Are they being updated in waves?

(2) Create those drop-down menus so that the item specifics can be standardized into search, but do it with some forethought, please. Maybe get feedback from some of the larger sellers of children's clothing on your menu choices?

(3) Add "Pattern" back in as an item specific - it's just one that I've used a lot in the past but I see it was missed.

[emmie110]

Adding to the list of Item Specifics showing up in categories they don't belong in. 

Department: Adults Babies Kids Teens

Character

Character Family

None of those belong in Flatware (category 20693).

Finish: Brushed Hammered Matte Oil-rubbed Satin. 

Common finishes for Stainless flatware are Glossy (which isn't a choice) and Satin.

[abfabvintage]

@community_team 

Ok...after spending my entire 2 days and today reading these threads, it is obvious this is way too mammoth a fix to be completed accurately. Piece mealing what you think you have fixed on a day to day basis only makes matters much worse. Some sellers go in to do their revise or even list new say 2 days ago, when today everything has changed.

You need to completely ROLL BACK WHATEVER YOU DID ON THE 15TH. There were no major complaints from sellers (or BUYERS) about the Item Specifics or any other problem before the 15th (now pictures are affected?). Seller Hub problems have been reported way before the 15th and fixing SH is not a priority...being able to list accurately and to be able to list at all should be the priority right now...

Each day that I go in to view what I have active prior to the 15th and do a test in Revise (but I don't change it and just cancel)...there are more add-ins, add-offs that were not there the day before. You need to stop doing this major glitch in pieces. If you roll it all back (cannot believe your programmers can't do that), then all goes back as normal. Oh...but Wait...you did encourage people to keep listing and to follow the new IS so a lot of people have already bought in to the new IS that don't work. So I guess you can't roll it back. Duh...Rant over for now. I have never in my lifetime, ever.

[dustydaffodils]

I haven't seen entire descriptions disappear as some other sellers have, but I have had to return to listings to add item specifics that were definitely previously provided.  *Side note - I'm not speaking exclusively about clothing listings.

Overall, sales have absolutely tanked, so it does seem that this whole issue is having a large effect on our sales and I assume on eBay's revenue as a whole, since the earning statement last evening was not positive.

[mr_lincoln]

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@dustydaffodils wrote:

I haven't seen entire descriptions disappear as some other sellers have, but I have had to return to listings to add item specifics that were definitely previously provided.  *Side note - I'm not speaking exclusively about clothing listings.

Overall, sales have absolutely tanked, so it does seem that this whole issue is having a large effect on our sales and I assume on eBay's revenue as a whole, since the earning statement last evening was not positive.

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I've had this type of issue too where I go to Relist an item INDIVIDUALLY or END it and Relist it in a different format (switching from GTC to Auction or vice versa) ... Item specifics are affected and some or many missing from what was put in the original listing.  @community_team,  has this been reported a lot?  I currently do not have any item numbers to reference but will plan to do that in the future.

[elliottmotorsports308]

I sell new car parts, I went 3 days without selling anything which has NEVER happened!!! My daily sales stats are not recording.  Why in the world would ebay change while everything is working just fine, Just like the Managed payments TOTAL FAIL!!!!!!!!!!