Regards,
I have run in to a major issue with the New Unified Listing tool and the Required UPC Item Specific on items that never had a UPC code. We're talking early 1980s model kits.
-Are we supposed to go back to using Does not apply?
-Without filling out this field will the listing be buried & never see the light of day?
-Regardless of the model categories they list the UPC as a Required Item Specific and the UPC does not exist for some items
Additionally, when I changed model categories the ENTIRE listing form reset all the Item Specifics to null, meaning no values.
I look forward to some direction on this critical subject.
Regards,
Mr. L
elizabeth@ebay wrote: "Hey, @mr_lincoln! I've received some clarity back on this:
UPC isn’t mandatory for most categories, but if you do see it as a mandatory field, “Does not apply” can be selected for 1980s model kits with no UPCs.
UPCs help with Search but isn’t the only criteria when buyers search for items so, no – just because a listing isn’t provided with UPC, it won’t get buried.
When sellers changes categories, all items specifics are refreshed with new item specifics applicable for that category and usually we don’t have a way to map them to different categories.
One option you can try is to add a secondary category in those cases (but not all categories support secondary)."
My sincere thanks for the follow up and confirmation that using "Does not apply" in lieu of a non-existent or unknown UPC code on items that never had one in the first place is okay. I have accepted that as the Solution for this thread and hopefully others will see it for their own reference.
Regards,
Mr. L
@1786davycrockett wrote:"I can't tell you how many times I put the UPC code in and it rejects it as WRONG, when it clearly is right on the box or package. Usually with OLDER items. so frustrating!"
Many of the earlier 1970s numbers also used both numbers & alphabetical letters within their codes, or were 9 digits long. Totally legitimate product identification numbers -- but eBay's system doesn't recognize them as legitimate.
Kids these days. . ..
That latter alphanumeric code "could" have been handled by eBay's Epids ... they discussed Epids for that field when a UPC did not exist.
The history of UPC codes includes the early days for grocery stores to eliminate human errors in typing prices on the old cash registers. I attended a seminar in 1984 at a trade show and they went over that history ... I forget the numbers but on average a type-o occurred every X hundred keystrokes. UPC codes and scanners tied to the register's look up list eliminated that.
@1786davycrockett wrote:
I seriously believe that the IT people at eBay are entirely unaware of the manner in which UPC/ISBN/MPN and other product identifiers are established, and what the individual clusters of numbers might actually mean.
For example, there seems to be this idea that there are millions of individual ISBN identification codes available, since each ISBN code has 13 digits.
Wrong. Here's how ISBN codes are constructed:
(1) The first 3 digits denote the GS1 prefix (either "978" or "979" -- no other digits are currently available or allowed).
(2). The next 2 digits denote the language-sharing country group of the text.
(3). The next 4 digits denote the publisher name.
(4). The next 3 digits are the publication title.
(5). And the last digit is the "check" digit.
Thus, if only THREE digits of each ISBN number apply only to the TITLE of a book, most publishers will run out of ISBN codes within a very short period of time -- and larger publishers will run out of ISBN codes within a year.
Which is why ISBN codes are frequently deleted from publishers' catalogues, and recycled to new titles -- it is simply necessary, in order to apply ISBN codes to new products.
I briefly worked for a publisher in 1988-1989 who deleted and recycled often; and I also worked for a huge national bookseller chain that deleted ISBN titles every MONTH, to make way for NEW book titles.
And yet I'll bet $$$ that the eBay IT mob readily believes that there are tens of millions of ISBN numbers readily available, based upon a 13 digit code which I'm sure that they have never bothered to investigate.
But, then, many of these are the same people who seem to believe that ISBN/UPC/MPN and other product identifiers have been around FOREVER.
And, for many of them not born until 1970, "forever" is their entire life. . ..
@1786davycrockett Glad someone else understands this and elizabeth@ebay you may be interested in this knowledge as well. The UPC codes are similar with regard to the breakdown of the 12 digits. The first 6 identify the manufacture AND are assigned by a specific agency that governs the distribution of UPC codes (registry fees apply). The second group of 6 digits identify the SKU (the product type).
So if you pull ALL your Kellogg's cereal boxes out and look at the UPC codes the first 6 digits are all the same but the last 6 are different depending on the cereal box size & flavor.
Here are some variations on how manufacturers use their UPC code allotments.
Matchbox and other die cast toy cars: The SAME UPC code will be on blister packs of different model vehicles, this allows the SAME price to be looked up in the cash register at checkout. Vehicle type is not the concern but the price is.
Lionel trains: some time in the 80s- to present: they started to make the number on the car part of the UPC code structure ... you could get all but one of the UPC code digits simply by looking at the number on the car or engine ... the last unknown digit could be determined by trial and error.
On a side note elizabeth@ebay: The older eBay Business listing tool would tell you if the UPC code entered was valid or not ... with this feature I could determine that last UPC code digit by trial and error entering the known 11 digits then trying "1" then "2" then "3" until it accepted the code. The New Listing Tool simply says there is no match regardless of what you put in the field ...
@1786davycrockett wrote:Thanks for adding the UPC information, @mr_lincoln -- when I worked for a huge national bookseller chain (that also sold movies and music -- hint: the opposite of Silos & Lowborn), one of my co-workers cracked the UPC numbers on her own, by noticing the similarities of the first six numbers, and the inter-relationship of the digits that followed. So, when customers were searching for other catalog entries from the same music publisher, Katrina merely had to enter all but one or two digits of an existing UPC from the same publisher, and then just kept adding and subtracting the last couple of digits of the known UPC, in order to fill out catalog requests.
Sure saved a lot of time, once you knew that most of the digits in a UPC code were standardized and did not identify a certain item, until you added the last few digits.
Now, if we could only teach the eBay IT Department about the TRUE meanings of both UPC and ISBN codes.
But I think we'll have better luck of winning the lottery. . ..
@1786davycrockett eBay needs a "Seller Council" that would electronically sit in (zoom meeting access) on certain meetings so they could benefit from the wealth of knowledge that exists here ... many of us have grown up with the creation of these processes ... it would help them roll out changes that actually work instead of them shooting in the dark and guessing ...
Earlier this year I had several payments wind up being reported as late going from my location 55 miles to a Philadelphia address ... NO WAY it should take 5 days ... so I called the company that billed me and said there is NO WAY it wakes 5 days to travel 55 miles considering the piece of mail is printed for automatic sorting with the Post Office ... they said, "WHAT?" Yep, the Customer Service rep had NO CLUE that there was a bar code below their company's billing address to expedite mail service OR that such a thing even existed LOL ... it was like a light went off on the other end of the phone.
Turns out things WERE being delivered on time but some "process" at the Philly location was recording them late ... yeah, right ... well they dropped all the late fees AND there has not been an issues since.
@josie46d wrote:
Hello,
I attended the Fall Seller Check-in and the breakout session included the team for the listings design. I am a newbie and tried the new listing tool a couple of times. I quit using because the desktop listing tool was better for a newbie. Anyway, my intention was to let you know the listing team members stated several times during the short breakout session - they read every piece of feedback. I think in the upper right corner of the new listing tool you can provide feedback.
I'll follow your thread and the replies to continue learning. Thank you for starting the discussion and I hope you can also use the feedback option in the listing tool.
@josie46d My sincere thanks for the post and sadly, if they were being honest we would not be having this conversation considering ALL the issues I and others have used the Comments or Tell us what you think links on those pages. I have used those too BUT they do not allow pictures so sadly I doubt half the folks reading that stuff have a clue as to what is being discussed because I doubt many of them sell on the level we do here if at all.
I have a list of issues on the label flow that I used those links for MANY TIMES, I also posted about the issues on the Weekly Chat with pictures and to this day, well over a year has passed, the issue(s) are still there.
Additionally, the new tool is slower ... yep, I have used the Stopwatch feature on my phone to time creating listings (in the past with the Business tool) and then again with the new tool (because it was obviously slower). In basic terms it takes on average about 3 minutes LONGER using the new tool.
In any event, I really appreciate you coming on to this thread.
Regards,
Mr. L
