eBay

community_team · ‎03-15-2021

Item specifics. They help your listings get seen by more potential buyers. But how can you be sure you’ve got the item specifics people are searching for? This short video shows you.

Read about the latest item specifics updates in the Spring Seller Update:

https://ebay.to/3rucAcp

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎03-19-2021

@a_c_green wrote:
@gwens*4saleitems* wrote:
I said that. To me Fabric is fabric and Material is fabric. Leather is leather and cotton is cotton.

As for sleeve style ... you have Cap which is just a piece of fabric covering the top of arm; Dolman which looks like a bat wing; Blouse; Ruffled; Puff; Cold Shoulder.

But yeah, I don't think people actually "search" for tops by sleeve style.
Well, I think that at that level of searching, Item Specifics are used more to omit listings than include them. That is, you would use the Item Specifics choices to narrow down your results of interest to, say, only clothing with Ruffled sleeve styles. Thus if you're the seller, it helps you to plug in an Item Specific of "Sleeve Style: Ruffled," and then your item will (if all goes according to plan) show up in a search for only Ruffled sleeve styles.

The problem is that there are so many possible specifics that may or may not be useful, and for each Item Specific, there may be a huge list of possible values, including overlapping values, weird near-miss duplications and such. The system seems to have been dumped into Production without a thought as to how duplicate, irrelevant or junk values can be weeded out, especially on such a huge scale as when thousands and thousands of sellers are simultaneously attempting to use existing values and put in their own. It strikes me as an example of an idea that's good in theory, but which falls down in practice when attempting to operate in an environment as huge as eBay.

There still can be problems. If you type something in something it cannot find, it starts making random suggestions.

Often those suggestions are not even somewhat close to what you are looking for.

Example: Typed in a particular computer magazine. It found Zero. It suggested Pikatu & Pokeman collecting cards.

Also, search results can completely vary(quantity) depending on the eBay website you are on.

-Lotz

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎03-21-2021

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
@electrola_man wrote:
I understand a desire for structured data that can be sorted, but some of it really gets out of hand. For example, I don't want to fill in length, width and height for a 40-year-old camera. Nobody is going to search based upon that, and I see no need to waste that time. If I were to put in 3.25 inches tall, and someone could measure it with a dial caliper and find it to be 3.268 inches tall, does that make it eligible for "not as described?" A lot of the item specifics are already covered in the catalog descriptions (that is another subject for another day, but a big one - whoever writes those about cameras does not know much about cameras!), so why ask for them separately?
I've had instances where measurements were filled in correctly originally but when eBay updated item specifics they corrupted my data. 3.25 became 325 or 3 1/4 became 314. It's also ported data from listing the title the same way to newly generated fields. When eBay is random willy nilly for lack of a better technical term, revising listings it's impossible for a seller to stay 100% on top of what they are doing. Finding those "modifications" is like throwing 500 baseballs cards during a tornado and hoping they come down in order.

-Lotz

@abfabvintage

Another example of corrupted data:

Manually created field for Width: 18"

Data when I went to relist: 18"

Discovered only by luck only.

-Lotz

abfabvintage · ‎03-22-2021

There are a lot of those in my program ever since the Oct 2019 IS debacle. Am really worried what this next IS upgrade in May does. I had a very "pure" program since 2001 until 2019 debacle hit.

I ain't got the brains to make this up (Fantastic Beasts)

shellhut · ‎03-22-2021

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
@electrola_man wrote:
I understand a desire for structured data that can be sorted, but some of it really gets out of hand. For example, I don't want to fill in length, width and height for a 40-year-old camera. Nobody is going to search based upon that, and I see no need to waste that time. If I were to put in 3.25 inches tall, and someone could measure it with a dial caliper and find it to be 3.268 inches tall, does that make it eligible for "not as described?" A lot of the item specifics are already covered in the catalog descriptions (that is another subject for another day, but a big one - whoever writes those about cameras does not know much about cameras!), so why ask for them separately?
I've had instances where measurements were filled in correctly originally but when eBay updated item specifics they corrupted my data. 3.25 became 325 or 3 1/4 became 314. It's also ported data from listing the title the same way to newly generated fields. When eBay is random willy nilly for lack of a better technical term, revising listings it's impossible for a seller to stay 100% on top of what they are doing. Finding those "modifications" is like throwing 500 baseballs cards during a tornado and hoping they come down in order.

-Lotz
@abfabvintage

Another example of corrupted data:

Manually created field for Width: 18"
Data when I went to relist: 18"

Discovered only by luck only.

-Lotz

That is why I don't fill in those measurement fields. I put the measurements in my description. eBay's software is so full of bugs.

I've reached that age where my brain goes from "you probably shouldn't say that." To "what the heck, let's see what happens. "

spice_tech1 · ‎03-23-2021

yes..

SD

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎04-21-2021

@shellhut wrote:
@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
@electrola_man wrote:
I understand a desire for structured data that can be sorted, but some of it really gets out of hand. For example, I don't want to fill in length, width and height for a 40-year-old camera. Nobody is going to search based upon that, and I see no need to waste that time. If I were to put in 3.25 inches tall, and someone could measure it with a dial caliper and find it to be 3.268 inches tall, does that make it eligible for "not as described?" A lot of the item specifics are already covered in the catalog descriptions (that is another subject for another day, but a big one - whoever writes those about cameras does not know much about cameras!), so why ask for them separately?
I've had instances where measurements were filled in correctly originally but when eBay updated item specifics they corrupted my data. 3.25 became 325 or 3 1/4 became 314. It's also ported data from listing the title the same way to newly generated fields. When eBay is random willy nilly for lack of a better technical term, revising listings it's impossible for a seller to stay 100% on top of what they are doing. Finding those "modifications" is like throwing 500 baseballs cards during a tornado and hoping they come down in order.

-Lotz
@abfabvintage

Another example of corrupted data:

Manually created field for Width: 18"
Data when I went to relist: 18"

Discovered only by luck only.

-Lotz
That is why I don't fill in those measurement fields. I put the measurements in my description. eBay's software is so full of bugs.

@community_team

For the dreaded <Biting fingernails Emoji> books category awhile back they removed fiction vs non-fiction field. Now it seems to have ummm magically returned. Bad enough the system thinks EVERY book being listed is a cookbook belonging to some far off country. I am getting VERY tired of having to update a listing AFTER I update a listing because any fields that were "skipped" and using the term specifically, have returned. We are STILL not able to confirm required fields FROM the listing. Definite defect by programmers to this nuisance.

-Lotz

sfq76 · ‎07-13-2021

I list lots of multiple books, and your 'title' and 'ISBN' requirements are broken garbage. I put titles into the body of the listing and you're requiring I add one title to that field. So not only are you wasting my time, your data scrape efforts are going to be a wild failure.

And stop trying to sell your database build outsourcing to your customers as a benefit to us. There isn't a single person who thinks you're trying to help sellers with your efforts.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎07-13-2021

@spice_tech1 wrote:
yes..

Adding item specifics "as required" has not upped my sales one iota. And when you think you are done updating. they start over. Very not appreciated!!!

-Lotz

a_c_green · ‎07-13-2021

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
@abfabvintage

Another example of corrupted data:

Manually created field for Width: 18"
Data when I went to relist: 18"

Discovered only by luck only.

I know this is an older thread, but now that someone has revived it, I noticed the above reply...

That " seen above is an HTML entity, used to represent the user's original Double Quote sign (") when the text may be used in a process that might react to seeing it as some sort of command, rather than just a character in text. An entity pattern consists of an Ampersand up front (&), followed by characters identifying the code, and ending with a semi-colon (;).

Another eBay form I've found that goes into a tizzy if you try to type a Double Quote is the message field accompanying a Second Chance Offer. That form will flat-out reject the message if it contains a Double Quote or one of a few other special characters as well. The workaround I use is to type two apostrophes in a row (''), and those slide right on through.

The problem here is not so much that the form you used converted your Double Quote into an HTML entity (presumably for some sort of internal storage reasons), but that it doesn't have the sense to convert it back again for display later on. If it's handling text values, it should have the smarts to look for, recognize and deal with any HTML entity it encounters.

An entity in the middle of an Item Specifics value like this does no one any favors. I wouldn't call it "corrupted" necessarily, because the original text can be recovered, but it's been converted into a useless format, and that needs to be fixed.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎07-13-2021

@a_c_green wrote:
@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
@abfabvintage

Another example of corrupted data:

Manually created field for Width: 18"
Data when I went to relist: 18"

Discovered only by luck only.
I know this is an older thread, but now that someone has revived it, I noticed the above reply...

That " seen above is an HTML entity, used to represent the user's original Double Quote sign (") when the text may be used in a process that might react to seeing it as some sort of command, rather than just a character in text. An entity pattern consists of an Ampersand up front (&), followed by characters identifying the code, and ending with a semi-colon (;).

Another eBay form I've found that goes into a tizzy if you try to type a Double Quote is the message field accompanying a Second Chance Offer. That form will flat-out reject the message if it contains a Double Quote or one of a few other special characters as well. The workaround I use is to type two apostrophes in a row (''), and those slide right on through.

The problem here is not so much that the form you used converted your Double Quote into an HTML entity (presumably for some sort of internal storage reasons), but that it doesn't have the sense to convert it back again for display later on. If it's handling text values, it should have the smarts to look for, recognize and deal with any HTML entity it encounters.

An entity in the middle of an Item Specifics value like this does no one any favors. I wouldn't call it "corrupted" necessarily, because the original text can be recovered, but it's been converted into a useless format, and that needs to be fixed.

In confirming for my own piece of mind I have found that you may see that garbled information using the tool but when you open the listing in another window it actually displays correctly.

My biggest issue with all these requests and general all around tinkering is somewhere during the process you OR eBay may end up corrupting a listing that was 100% accurate when it was originally created. It's not like the View Revisions attached to a listing gives you details to what was changed....Just that something was changed with the time and date.

-Lotz

PS. The only reason this discussion keeps getting added to is because many of the reported issues/concerns with Item Specifics have been so poorly addressed and condition to be problems.

PS #2. During the creation of this email was giving the option to send feedback/comments. I've done that on numerous occasions including the option to be contacted if someone at eBay saw fit to. To date....Crickets!!!! Definitely feels like no one at eBay has their ears on!!!!

-Lotz