Item specifics: have your say
by Sue Bailey
Love them or hate them, Item Specifics seem to be here to stay. If they’ve been recently introduced in your categories, eBay want to hear from you. Are there vital things missing, or things that shouldn’t be there at all? Now’s your chance to have your say.
And if you got a rather puzzling message this morning when you signed in, saying “categories you sell in are changing” and linking to what appeared to be a pulled thread from an eBay message board, this seems to be what they were trying to direct you to.
10 Responses on "Item specifics: have your say"
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Every time I hear the words ‘Category Change’ or attributes a small proportion of my soul dies.
Hell for ebayers using third party applications!
Hell for any eBayer that sells in those categories with or without a 3rd party app
of course I can only guess at the inner complications and workings of ebay
but I often wonder if those responsible ever list or sell
I’m sure they do list and sell, just not in volumes which allow problems to manifest themselves.
It’s easy to list the odd half a dozen items with item specifics and categories correctly selected. It’s not so easy when there’s a change and you have hundreds or thousands of stored auction templates to edit to make them useable again.
Though I totally agree with Chris, it must be a daunting task to update several dozen products at a time (Haven’t they thought on a way of bulk updating the item specifics of products that are or were published in a given category?), as a buyer I strongly believe the use of ISpecifics without doubt helps us buyers find that specific item we are searching for in the less possible number of page changes and/or product page visits.
Just wondering: what happens with the listed products and the unlisted products (the ones that you were selling but didn’t receive a bid) once eBay changes a category Ispecifics? Do they immediately roll out the capability of filtering the search results with the new ISpecifics? Or do they wait a certain time for you sellers to finish up your homework?
Regards,
“several dozen” – if only.
I had over 1000 items to change. I changed them all for the new subcategories in the Bead category. Then I had to change them again six weeks later for item specifics. There isn’t any way to bulk edit them live. My life is too short for this.
“Or do they wait a certain time for you sellers to finish up your homework?”
The problem is that they normally introduce items specifics in live categories. That’s the first time a seller has to edit all listings (live, ended before relisting, saved templates).
The biggest and major pain point is when a category change takes place it invariably DELETES the item specifics you carefully set for each and every product!
Helping buyers is a great thing, and item specifics will become more and more important in the future. Losing your item specifics and having to reenter them all is truly a nightmare scenario for a seller.
I worry if I dont get item specfics right my item may not be found
for example
A Doulton Toby jug is always made from a pottery earthenware materiel
but I am prepared to bet most buyers will look for one with a China Porcelain Item specfic
I contend that in many categories item specfics over complicate and confuse rather than help
date lines are also confusing
ebay gives a label of art deco 1920s30s or art nouvoue on items 1900s1910
art deco and art nouvoue are a very specific design style from those years, though not everything made then was of that style, its confusing and misleading