Selling Overview page says "Add recommended item specifics" to almost ALL listings!

[drenchfur]

This happened just today. In the selling overview page, it shows 5 listings with a grey box that says something like: "Recommended item specifics missing: 6 item specifics" with a blue box beside it "add item specifics" for me to click and add... what? In nearly every case, any "item specific" that matters (I sell mainly video games) has been filled in already. In many cases, there's not even enough blanks to satisfy the number of "missing" specifics! I am stumped.

And on my selling > active list, the warning is more dire: "Add item specifics that are required soon"... like what? The name of the video game is the only one I saw that was flagged as "required soon" when generating the listing - so I always made a point to add it - which is oddly unnecessary work because I've also chosen the specific title matched straight from eBay's catalog to begin with!

I know there are some things I haven't filled in (country of manufacture, mpn number, california warning) but I can't see that being of any importance to anyone looking for a certain video game. They're not even "recommended" just "additional" info.

All this began after making a bulk edit to the description of most of my listings. Then, while trying to figure it out, eBay invited me to "click here to use the new seller hub" and now that's where "sell" takes me... ugh... it's been a long day.

Anyone know what's going on here? Surely there's a glitch in the system?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@zee-chan wrote:

I have been ignoring them ever since this warning started appearing on my listings lol 

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@byto253 

On the overview page(same page that confirms sales to be shipped and messages from buyers) 2 flags will show up. One for Add specifics that will be required soon- Key word REQUIRED and Add specifics - Only a suggestion. Basically pay now or pay later. They can cumulate very fast if you don't address them regularly.

-Lotz

[byto253]

It just clicked you are getting a lot of required specifics on listings now.  All of the notifications I am getting are Recommended, as I was able to hit the required when I listed them as I am not dealing with your volume.   

I remove the specific colums as they are recommended and clutter up the page.  Item Specifics also shows up as the first choice under the always displayed Quick Filters so it is not totally gone.  

[liskeard78s]

Just one almighty big nuisance. Thanks Ebay for wasting so much of my time. You just sit there raking in the $. How do you think we feel about that? We'll vote with our feet and you'll feel it, believe me.

[g1v2d3]

Hi

I have been encountering the same problems as you. I list is the sports cards category and there seems to be alot of duplicate items specfics and irrelavant specifics to the category. Even if you try to fill as many boxes as possible - even ones that are not relevant to the listing you still get a "add item specifics" or "add soon to be required specifics". The new listing pages have way to much clutter of specifics which will inevitably lead to mistakes in the listing. I am all for improvements and some specifics are a good addition but there needs to be some consolidation especially the duplications.

I have also been notified that I have to change over 1000 listings that were previously listed and probably that will increase. This is impossible as it would take weeks to change all the required listings.

Improvements need to be made to make it more seller freindly.

Ty

Gerald

g1v2d3

[rainbow*rob]

The same has happened to me as well , just ignoring them for now , my problem is with relisting items it will not let me use '' bulk '' I have to relist 1 item at a time                thanks eBay

[brettjet38]

eBay has BROKEN again, what a mess that is...

You cannot relist in bulk, the categories are all combined, items specifics that do not apply.

I am going to enjoy the sun, the boat that was eBay is sinking faster each day & now they want to sell NFTs

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@liskeard78s wrote:

Just one almighty big nuisance. Thanks Ebay for wasting so much of my time. You just sit there raking in the $. How do you think we feel about that? We'll vote with our feet and you'll feel it, believe me.

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@g1v2d3 

Woke up this morning to this.  Normally it's just a couple. Maybe it had to do with the day being the 13th? Hmmmm?

On the even more annoying side, refreshing the page can cause these number to increase!!!!! A thank you card is NOT in the works.

Until these can be fixed FROM the listing this will be a major headache for sellers. Bulk edit DOES NOT work when you sell OOAK type items or completely fix any newly created conflicts/omissions. When sellers have 100's of listings they are unable to pull the "specific" information from the top of their head. The other observation I have made regularly is that many of the fields being added were there originally and have just been modified/re-named making this basically a do over and a MAJOR time waster for sellers who just want to be able to sell.

-Lotz

tyler@ebay 

[reallynicestamps]

You can insert N/A to many of those Item Specifics and do them in bulk-- since they will all be the same.

But the reason for not doing them in bulk is right in the name.

Item SPECIFICS.

For example in Books, I see Item Specifics for Author's Name, Book Title, Publisher and Publication Year.

SPECIFICS

My books are for readers, but I have had customers looking for specific editions. Those buyers would look for Publisher and Publication Year.

Some are looking for a specific writer.

Some for specific topics, even in Fiction, never mind non-fiction.

But we can ignore the request, if we are willing to drop in Search, and never be seen by customers with very specific wants.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

You can insert N/A to many of those Item Specifics and do them in bulk-- since they will all be the same.

But the reason for not doing them in bulk is right in the name.

Item SPECIFICS.

For example in Books, I see Item Specifics for Author's Name, Book Title, Publisher and Publication Year.

SPECIFICS

My books are for readers, but I have had customers looking for specific editions. Those buyers would look for Publisher and Publication Year.

Some are looking for a specific writer.

Some for specific topics, even in Fiction, never mind non-fiction.

But we can ignore the request, if we are willing to drop in Search, and never be seen by customers with very specific wants.

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When I set up my listings originally I added any specific options that eBay missed. Going back to fix some are still there. Some are now missing because of eBay's allowable total of specifics. Anything else was in the body of the listing. A buyer looking for something that specific would read the whole listing. The biggest concern is by constantly doing this eBay is corrupting listings that were correct and accurate originally.

There is still the major concern of eBay corrupting additional previously correct information with their tinkerings like colours (light blue gets changed to blue) and numbers (7.25" becomes 725"). You have to watch very closely to catch these modifications. I and others have spotted these problems many times. There are numerous ongoing discussion on dot com to substantiate this!! I feel very sorry that list routinely in Clothing, DVD's, CD's, Books and Electronics. It's the nightmare in those categories that never ends. If you sell as a mixed lot these update specific request reappear daily.

-Lotz

[reallynicestamps]

I was wrong about inserting N/A in bulk. Sorry.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

You can insert N/A to many of those Item Specifics and do them in bulk-- since they will all be the same.

But the reason for not doing them in bulk is right in the name.

Item SPECIFICS.

For example in Books, I see Item Specifics for Author's Name, Book Title, Publisher and Publication Year.

SPECIFICS

My books are for readers, but I have had customers looking for specific editions. Those buyers would look for Publisher and Publication Year.

Some are looking for a specific writer.

Some for specific topics, even in Fiction, never mind non-fiction.

But we can ignore the request, if we are willing to drop in Search, and never be seen by customers with very specific wants.

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For a listing to suddenly need the book title, publisher etc when it was in the orginal listing created many moons ago and had that information from the get go is very annoying.

-Lotz

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

I was wrong about inserting N/A in bulk. Sorry.

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Sometimes N/A can work if the system is only looking for 1 or 2 specifics. If the system is looking for many specifics it can be a needle in a haystack search to confirm the specific that is causing the problem.

The other thing that happens regularly is you create a listing. After you have completed you will get the alert telling you that you missed a specific. If you got the "error" message when you were creating the listing it would be much more helpful than having to go back and trying to locate the answer after the fact.

Best example I can think of is if you choose US tracked service and a weight of 2.05 KG you get an error message when you attempt to complete the listing. You have to remove US Tracked as an option because it is truly N/A before the system will let you complete that listing.

-Lotz

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

To anyone contemplating updating those add specifics/required or otherwise, you may want to hold back temporarily. It appears to be a major work in progress. My most recent numbers 35/88....37/90, so the count is going up steadily. They're attacking a variety of item categories. I've run across the same item(s) that required updates multiple times in a 1 week time period.

-Lotz

tyler@ebay  Can we get a We're done, please and thanks?

[lady.stark]

Yesterday, I had 9, done 2 or 3 (and the specifics that they wanted me to add - they were already there! They just changed the format - tick off a box instead of a drop down). What a waste of time!! Today : 54 to do. Are they crazy??

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@lady.stark wrote:

Yesterday, I had 9, done 2 or 3 (and the specifics that they wanted me to add - they were already there! They just changed the format - tick off a box instead of a drop down). What a waste of time!! Today : 54 to do. Are they crazy??

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I'm finding them in a variety of categories but majority are books/magazines....at least for me.  Some have 6 +- to update. Publisher is one they've renamed and it would have been added to the original listing. Many if you even wanted to confirm would require locating and confirming the info to update accurately. Very labour/time intensive.

One collectable magazine has 16 fields requiring updating. My guess what was there before/originally has all been purged. I would never leave that many fields blank.

-Lotz

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

From todays mini-series on dot com regarding item specifics.

"I see the same thing. Even more annoying is that the sold listings are also asking for soon to be required item specifics. "

You can't make this stuff up!!! 🤣

-Lotz

[reallynicestamps]

Do you mean the IS is already filled in or that the information is elsewhere in the listing?

If the former - uggghhh. Your suggestion that there is a halfcocked format change underway makes sense.

If you mean (eg) the title has the information but the IS isn't filled in, I think the IS are connected directly to thirdparty searches which the Title is no t.  Maybe. I am a technodolt.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

The IS in many cases could have been either created originally by the seller, be under a different name but in most cases, if it wasn't there originally it was in the body. Something eBay's system would never catch and port to the specific field.

Probably stated this somewhere else already but found 1 listing missing 16 IS's. Not sure if that would be a system catch up or info has been purged by the system.

What has happened/I've witnessed is new fields being created and updated incorrectly directly from info in the listing title. In just speaking to a clothing seller who has been fighting this issue even longer than I have, they are letting things play out by crossing fingers, hoping everything catches up to itself. A concept with  no guarantees.

-Lotz

PS. The big concern is information getting corrupted during this merry-go-round and SELLER's being on the hook for NAD's especially when the listing was correct/accurate originally.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

In reviewing Item specific requirements this morning new numbers as follows:

Required Soon: 51 Listings

Recommended: 117

In opening up the tool and checking numerous listings, multiple fields (Between 95% & 100%) are now blank. They were NOT blank when the listing was created originally.

tyler@ebay 

Is this still a work in progress from eBay's end? Will the fields filled in originally get re-populated? Or are we required to go back and fix all these listings manually? On dot com a seller reported working to fix their listings was up to 10 hours and they were not done yet.

-Lotz

PS. This is very much looking like the eBay purged photo issue that affected 1000's of sellers several years ago that eBay promised would never happen again.

[vintagenorth]

I read on .com that eBay made a lot of changes to categories in May and when the category is changed and a listing moves to a new category the item specifics disappear and you have to add new ones specific to that category. Possibly this is what has happened? I was lucky (so far) and only had a few listings change. I think I managed to change most prior to May, the changes were posted in the Spring update.