Item Specifics

[kphoto37]

How much do Item Specifics Recommendations Matter? Are we punished if we don't fix them? I have like 1200 of them and it will take forever to fill all that in. I could make another 500 listings in the time it will take me to do all of them.  And some of the recommendations are just crazy, they don't make any Sense. My business has been steadily declining and I'm trying to figure out what is causing it. I understand that it could be as simple as the economy or more competition. I've just just never heard if item Specific Recommendations are life or death or not.

[wastingtime101]

Fill out what's "required" - as for what's "recommended" fill out what's relevant and ignore the rest @kphoto37 .

[luckythewinner]

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@kphoto37 wrote:

I've just just never heard if item Specific Recommendations are life or death or not.

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I sell items all the time with item specifics that are unfilled. And I buy item all the time where recommended item specifics are not filled in.So clearly they are not life or death.

No one here can tell you "how much they matter" because the effect on a search is unique to each search at the time it is performed.

But my guess is that not filling out a recommended item specific would be a very minor contributor to Best Match placement whose effect would be dwarfed by the required item specifics.

[redlinear]

I no longer worry about the "recommended".   That will change daily and you'll end spending all your time re-doing what you already did. And then again, and again, and again.
Best I can tell, if ONE person filters a "color" that somehow relates to an item you have?  The next day, you are seeing where you need to update item specifics and it'll be "color".   
I was like you.  Wondering what happened to my sales and thinking I needed to do as eBay suggested on the item specifics.  It's "mostly" a waste of time.
THAT being said...... Search pulls up many of the terms you enter in item specifics.  You thought you only had 80 characters in the title?  NO, you now have an endless supply of keywords in your item specifics.  
Which is why a search return shows a-lot of stuff that's not what you searched for.