Item Specifics!!!! PLEASE PEOPLE----Recommended is NOT Required

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

It seems a lot of people are confused about this. Most items have a very few Item Specifics that are REQUIRED. They are the ONLY ones you MUST fill out by the deadline.

Those millions of RECOMMENDED Item Specifics----you can safely ignore them. You can always come back to the listing and fill out those that apply (if any). 

BUT  as far as the deadline goes-----you ONLY need to fill out the REQUIRED SOON Item Specifics. 

STOP wasting your time.

[1786davycrockett]

Unfortunately, one of the NEW "item specifics" is "Book Title," which most eBay booksellers had previously entered elsewhere.  But as of May 11, eBay is demanding that we go back to all of our original book listings, just to add "book title" in its new "item specifics" slot.

That's ALL that I've been doing since May 11, and today in May 18.  No time to do anything else.  What a massive waste of time & money. . ..

[call*me*alfred-o*]

Yep.  Same for LPs.  Disaster.

Not hours of work but days and days

[go-bad-chicken]

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@1786davycrockett wrote:

Unfortunately, one of the NEW "item specifics" is "Book Title," which most eBay booksellers had previously entered elsewhere.  But as of May 11, eBay is demanding that we go back to all of our original book listings, just to add "book title" in its new "item specifics" slot.

That's ALL that I've been doing since May 11, and today in May 18.  No time to do anything else.  What a massive waste of time & money. . ..

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The book title item specific is a giant time suck when a seller chooses a a book from eBay's catalog either via a title search or via the ISBN. The catalog itself provides the book's title, as well as the author's name, the publisher, the format (hardcover, softcover, paperback, etc.) But eBay apparently does not seemed to be concerned about providing its seller's with that level of service in the way of programming.

[cooper9211]

your title is yelling.  cant go faster.  stop yelling.

[nuclearomen]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

It seems a lot of people are confused about this. Most items have a very few Item Specifics that are REQUIRED. They are the ONLY ones you MUST fill out by the deadline.

Those millions of RECOMMENDED Item Specifics----you can safely ignore them. You can always come back to the listing and fill out those that apply (if any). 

BUT  as far as the deadline goes-----you ONLY need to fill out the REQUIRED SOON Item Specifics. 

STOP wasting your time.

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This isn't true with Music > Records category, regardless of what you think, majority of NECISSARY specifics were changed and placed in the "Additional" Specifics field, things like format size, rpm, edition, features, special attributes, and style. They made some of the recommended requirements things that shouldn't be required like material (dumbest specific they have), Inlay Condition (another dumb requirement), and case type. 

[7198dave]

I have 45's for sale and ebay is requiring the name of the albums.

[music4u]

Yes, someone is making changes, when that don't have a clue on what they are doing.

Also in the specifics, they have changed all of my 7-Inch singles to LP

[music4u]

Also, an easy way to Bulk edit Specifics for Album Name and Artist, is to put "See Title" into the "Add Your On"

[kathieskorner]

You can ignore them until eBay decides they are also required.....

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Keep in mind...Item Specifics are not there primarily for buyers to read when looking at your listing. Their PRIMARY purpose is for use by the search engine (and Google's  search engine, etc). So I'm not sure how this would play out. If you have the title in your listing title, ebay might pull it up when a buyer searches by title. But if the search engine is using ONLY item specifics, "see title" is simply going to ensure that yours never shows up in search. And keep in mind that, unless the buyer affirmatively chooses to include description in search (most probably don't), having the title in the description won't overcome the problem. 

If I had a lot of records, I'd want to test this before going all in on this as a solution.

[katzrul15]

Holiday/Seasonal has the same issue.  The non-mandatory IS will be how e-bay sorts these ornaments by year manufactured, type, season, series, theme, features, name of ornament, etc.

The only mandatory really is to classify it is an ornament.

With all the categories lumped in together to 1 single category now, would be concerned not completing the other.  Especially refining areas where a custom value can now be inserted, etc.

We have been bulk editing 25 or so a day.  Just slow as you need the item physically in your hand to insure all details.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

katzrul15  Agreed that the BEST thing to do is fill out the Required AND then fill out any others that apply (ignoring all those that don't apply.)  But I've been seeing people posting who seem to think that they MUST fill out ALL the Recommended, and that is NOT the case. Fill out ONLY those that apply. And, if you really have very limited time before the deadline arrives, fill out ONLY the Required, and go back later and fill out the Recommended that apply. 

I'm basically doing the same thing you are doing....five or ten a day, filling our Required and all the applicable Recommended (and in some cases, adding my own) and I am also using it as an opportunity (for older listings) to review my pricing, shipping etc. A PITA? Yes. But , for me at least, not a major problem. My sympathies for those with thousands of listings to do.

[katzrul15]

We're at about 550 to go in just seasonal with about 300 done.   

Problem now is they finally added "custom" as a choice in drop-down.  Wasn't there until Sunday.  Probably have 150 we really need to go back to re-do and tackle that also.  Just a beast.

If they intend to filter/sort by age/yr of manufacture they should have made it required not optional.  If you do all this work, certainly want it to be fruitful.

At least on shoes, the required makes sense.  Seasonal is poorly set up - still. 

If they change it again my head will explode.   Need to get this done and behind us.  Ugh.

[evelyb30]

I just had to update two vintage fabric listings.  They wanted "theme" and "thread count" for vintage 50s fabric.  Character family?  Seriously.  And which upholstery use was this clothing fabric suitable for? I typed Not Applicable into a text file,  copied and pasted.  A lot.  There was a third piece too, but I ended the listing like I was planning on doing anyway.  These categories make some relative sense for modern items, but for vintage and collectible ones?  Not so much.