eBay Message Concerning Item Specifics

[calntom]

Just received this message from eBay:

"Add item specifics so buyers can find your items

Help buyers find what they’re looking for and improve your chances of selling your items.

880 listings missing recommended item specifics"

I actually already have entered the relevant item specifics when I created the listings.

Are there ramifications for not editing everyone of these listings? Or are these just recommended by eBay as the email states? I looked through the first several listings and they are as complete as needed to be. 

[coffeebean832]

Almost all of the ones on my list were prompting me to select Yes or No under Custom Bundle- and if I did that it still wasn't complete as it required something in the Custom Bundle Description field even when I selected No for Custom Bundle.

Most of the rest were asking for MPNs on items that don't have MPNs.

Clothing categories kept asking for Sleeve Style on items that were already marked as Sleeveless under Sleeve Length.

There was a tiny checkbox down near the bottom that said don't show me these recommendations again. I'm going to check that off on a couple and see what happens.

[calntom]

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@coffeebean832 wrote:

Almost all of the ones on my list were prompting me to select Yes or No under Custom Bundle- and if I did that it still wasn't complete as it required something in the Custom Bundle Description field even when I selected No for Custom Bundle.

Most of the rest were asking for MPNs on items that don't have MPNs.

Clothing categories kept asking for Sleeve Style on items that were already marked as Sleeveless under Sleeve Length.

There was a tiny checkbox down near the bottom that said don't show me these recommendations again. I'm going to check that off on a couple and see what happens.

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Roger that @coffeebean832 . I checked it off and at least the listing was removed from the list. I actually edited a few just for grins and added info that was not needed and the listing stayed on the list as to "add item specifics". 

[kathieskorner]

Most of the rest were asking for MPNs on items that don't have MPNs.

Same here - on some used decorative pillows I have for sale - the only thing not filled in was MPN.

[mtgraves7984]

Glad to read this thread. I got it... luckily only 52. I hope mine are as painless as yours. I'd been slow-walking it...

[dogs4eversonlinedeals]

Ebay Management has taken a good idea and gone way too far with it. Too much nit-picking. In the future this will get stricter, making listing more time consuming, and not worth the effort. They want more information for vintage car parts, as an example, would take hours to research, I would have to contact Porsche in Germany for a $30 listing? The same for some DVD's I just listed. All the information on the case was added to the listing. There were 23 different slots to look up for something that sells for $12 bucks. Then, they want to pay more to get better search rankings. Too much hassle. 

[fashunu4eeuh]

Hi, there may be some ramifications. Starting on February 21, 2021, new item specifics are being added to some categories and will be necessary in order to successfully launch a listing or complete a revision. So some are not just recommendations, they are requirements.

See link below:

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/listing-and-marketing/item-specifics.html

I also saw the blurb about the checkbox (discussed upthread) mentioned in the announcement. It stated:

"We encourage you to also add as many Recommended item specifics as you can. For Recommended item specifics that aren’t relevant to a listing, you can select “Don’t remind me about these recommendations again” when creating or revising listings through eBay. This will remove that listing from the ‘Item specifics—recommended’ quick filter as well as tasks and email reminders about missing recommended item specifics.

[coffeebean832]

That checkbox doesn’t work as they say it will. The listing disappears from the list when you save, but then comes right back after the next action. Whether it’s going to the next item on the list or exiting the page and checking back later- any item checked to not be shown again will be right back on the list.

[rpc813]

This is ridiculous.  Every time I edit an item in the flatware category, Ebay prompts me to add a "Bundle Description" for that item.  But the item already had a "Bundle Description"!  Every time I edit an item, the Bundle Description I had entered disappears and Ebay prompts me to add a new one.  Checking the box "Don't show me these recommendations again" has no effect.  It shows me the recommendations again each and every time.

[giasvintageshop]

I am very detailed when creating my listings and put as many item specifics as possible. Sometimes I get an Ebay alert for 1 or 2 items to "fix". Yesterday, I received an alert that 24 items (of 525) were missing item specifics and needed to be "fixed". So I spent almost an entire day fixing these issues although I KNOW I ALREADY INPUTTED THIS DATA WHEN I ORIGINALLY LISTED THEM. So I wasted my valuable time to fix them only to wake up this morning and find that I now have 57 items that "need item specifics". UGH!!! What is going on?

And most of the missing specifics is "type" of item. Seriously Ebay??? Basic info is being dropped by some glitch in the system programming and your users (sellers are also your customers), are being overwhelmed by this big error!!! Please fix it! Last time you had this exact problem (a few years ago), 5 of my listings were removed - lost forever! Luckily, I took full inventory and found the physical items whose listing was "lost". Then I had to take precious selling time to photograph and relist those 5 items. I am not going to repeat this with 57 items!!! Please get tech associates to fix this serious issue asap!!!

[glasser]

Item specifics a joke where I sell. When you see the potential specifics you can use sometimes there are only a couple of hundred searches by that term.

Item specifics should be limited to just a few per item that are critical and actually used. If you look at most clothing sites its like sort by gender, shoe size, Brand  and type maybe sneaker vs hiking.  You need no more than that to usually find what you want. 

On most sites and eBay too you accomplish the same by searching for Women's size 10 running show Nike.  Too many specifics actually serves to limit search results and exposure of items to people. 

Again this is an area where eBay is following what other sites have done and their UX people don't really understand how people list stuff or how much we actually know how to list stuff,

[skeletonstore]

What I'm noticing is the prefill item specifics are less now.  Ebay wants us to pretty much manually re-enter everything so they can advertise more/better with our fees(which will increase).  I rarely used google for example but from what I remember they're very strict about item specifics.  Ebay has already stated and from what I can tell not show our listings and that is exactly what they are and will do.  I have a few shoes available and they removed the shoe size from item specifics. A few days ago I had to cancel an order and shipping label because some customer was under the impression it was a size 7 not a size 5.  I don't know if the new broken system caused that.  so if you don't fill in item specifics I think ebay will just ghost your listings like they've been doing for years.  I tested my store on 4 devices a while back and got 4 different results on available items. Many of the affected categories will take a long time to recover imo.  Let's face it ebay encouraged us to copy other people's listings(especially item specifics).  Now that is all gone and some stores are going to tank as a result because they will be editing instead of listing which ROK(ebay's maniacal rogue computer)will not like and will reduce the search standing on those sellers.  Oh another thing is Ebay essentially relisted our items sans item specifics.  In my experience edits do not have immediate impact. I'm not sure if the system really resets when an item is relisted but in reality(ROK's)the listings are stale.  I actually think a seller needs to delete all their listings and sell similar and do the edits there or ROK will yawn and ignore them.  This is quite a backstabbing.  

[katzrul15]

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@skeletonstore wrote:

What I'm noticing is the prefill item specifics are less now.  Ebay wants us to pretty much manually re-enter everything so they can advertise more/better with our fees(which will increase).  I rarely used google for example but from what I remember they're very strict about item specifics.  Ebay has already stated and from what I can tell not show our listings and that is exactly what they are and will do.  I have a few shoes available and they removed the shoe size from item specifics. A few days ago I had to cancel an order and shipping label because some customer was under the impression it was a size 7 not a size 5.  I don't know if the new broken system caused that.  so if you don't fill in item specifics I think ebay will just ghost your listings like they've been doing for years.  I tested my store on 4 devices a while back and got 4 different results on available items. Many of the affected categories will take a long time to recover imo.  Let's face it ebay encouraged us to copy other people's listings(especially item specifics).  Now that is all gone and some stores are going to tank as a result because they will be editing instead of listing which ROK(ebay's maniacal rogue computer)will not like and will reduce the search standing on those sellers.  Oh another thing is Ebay essentially relisted our items sans item specifics.  In my experience edits do not have immediate impact. I'm not sure if the system really resets when an item is relisted but in reality(ROK's)the listings are stale.  I actually think a seller needs to delete all their listings and sell similar and do the edits there or ROK will yawn and ignore them.  This is quite a backstabbing.  

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I wondered about that - so you think all these listings were re-listed vs moved?

I wondered last night if it would not be quicker to do "sell similar" vs trying to edit.

It woukd sux to edit 700-800 listings and they are still not optimized for search.

Really hope you are wrong.  I am at 91 revised.  Ugh.

[divwido]

You should come read the answer center every once in while. 

Right now, Item specifics are the big one.  We enter them, more are added or the entered answers are removed so we can 'put in the answers eBay wants".

[divwido]

I don't mind entering the data asked for-but if I come back to edit something, they tend to add another fifty or so duplicated and sometimes useless questions.

Don't ask me what a perfume bottle is used for.  Cut to Clear is so bad I copy and paste it.  Design-paste, type of glass-paste...