eBay

mitch_collections · ‎05-23-2021

Howdy. I am guessing that this is a Canadian issue since I have not seen Twitter explode on this issue from my American friends. I have over 3000 items created. Recently, e-Bay (Canada) has changed many of the categories when listing. There are now many duplicate categories and many useless categories (at least for me based on what I sell - sports cards). The issue is that sales have slowed down quite a bit. I am concerned that if I ignore the action required "to add item specifics" will create issues on existing listings. The challenge is that I have over 3300 listings. Anyone faced with this problem?

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎05-23-2021

@mitch_collections

Ongoing issue on both dot ca and dot com. There is numerous discussions on the topic. Most recent ones below.

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Hey-Ebay-you-need-to-fix-this-quot-Add-Recommended-Items...

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Community-eBay-Site-Issues/Book-search-is-broken/m-p/458985#M5376

Briefly addressed in the weekly discussion

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Hey-Ebay-you-need-to-fix-this-quot-Add-Recommended-Items...

-Lotz

femmefan1946 · ‎05-23-2021

We are told Item Specifics are designed to make us more visible on Google. Possibly.

There are (at least in my categories) two sets of Item Specifics

The first is REQUIRED. Some of these sound dumb

Book Title ? But that's already in the title of the listing.
Title changed to Book Title and the previously filled box is now empty? Grrrr.

but they sorta make sense if you go with the Google excuse.

EBay nags us if we don't fill these.

Sometimes we can use n/a and the nagging stops.

The others are Suggested.

You can ignore those.

I notice there is at the bottom of these two Item Specifics sections there is usually a link allowing you to NOT be reminded of this again. I haven't used it, so I'm not sure how useful it is.

I have found that opening my Active Listings a few times a week, and putting them into About to Close order, allows me to correct the ones with Required IS a few at a time.

Not in batches, but manually, which is sensible because most of my items are one of a kind.

Between all my IDs, I have about the same number of listings as you, and doing a few a day works for me. YMMV.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎05-23-2021

@femmefan1946 wrote:
We are told Item Specifics are designed to make us more visible on Google. Possibly.

There are (at least in my categories) two sets of Item Specifics
The first is REQUIRED. Some of these sound dumb
Book Title ? But that's already in the title of the listing.
Title changed to Book Title and the previously filled box is now empty? Grrrr.
but they sorta make sense if you go with the Google excuse.
EBay nags us if we don't fill these.
Sometimes we can use n/a and the nagging stops.

The others are Suggested.
You can ignore those.
I notice there is at the bottom of these two Item Specifics sections there is usually a link allowing you to NOT be reminded of this again. I haven't used it, so I'm not sure how useful it is.

I have found that opening my Active Listings a few times a week, and putting them into About to Close order, allows me to correct the ones with Required IS a few at a time.
Not in batches, but manually, which is sensible because most of my items are one of a kind.
Between all my IDs, I have about the same number of listings as you, and doing a few a day works for me. YMMV.

That tab only works if you have all the required specifics are filled in. Sometimes the missing required fill in the blanks are extremely well hidden. If you open the listing, that tab is not built into the listing so you are unable to check off there. Only with the tool. When you close the listing or even use sell similar that listing will re-populate as having required missing specifics. Each time eBay adds a new and related or unrelated field that and other similar listings will repopulate to hub page as requiring updating. So you have to go back into the fix tool and re-click or fix. Depending on the particulars.

I'm not sure how often you check your traffic reports but majority of my OOAK items are found with eBay search. Not Google. Very many sellers this is much work with very little benefit. In passing speaking to a seller that sells DVD's and CD's exclusively they had 900 listings to repair. They brought up a very interesting point. How will these specific updates & modifications apply to the larger high volume DVD, CD & Book sellers.

-Lotz

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎05-23-2021

@femmefan1946

Item Specific for updating antique books has major perils.

Example:

Vintage World Atlas (1953) had several non mandatory fields for updating. The only one that was holding it back was an unmarked field for Bundesland: Name of the German federal state the product references. All the other ones that were marked required soon had previously been filled in. "Bundesland" was not flagged in any way.

-Lotz

femmefan1946 · ‎05-23-2021

I may have to take a minute to get over a 1953 publication being in 'antique' books.

I was in Grade Three with Miss Healy. We might have used it.

Better now.

Can you use N/A for that since it is a world atlas? I had to look it up (high school German is way back). Bundesland is a descriptive term like confederacy or federation or perhaps even monarchy. A little knowledge.

I wonder if some of these terms had been used once or twice as Custom Item Specifics and some programmer who is not quite as well- informed as he thinks decided it sounded cool.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎05-23-2021

@femmefan1946 wrote:
I may have to take a minute to get over a 1953 publication being in 'antique' books.
I was in Grade Three with Miss Healy. We might have used it.

Better now.
Can you use N/A for that since it is a world atlas? I had to look it up (high school German is way back). Bundesland is a descriptive term like confederacy or federation or perhaps even monarchy. A little knowledge.

I wonder if some of these terms had been used once or twice as Custom Item Specifics and some programmer who is not quite as well- informed as he thinks decided it sounded cool.

Antique....No longer in print....Older book....No ISBN...Potato...Potatoe. Like being forced to update wifi standard on something manufactured Pre 1997. IT DIDN'T EXIST!!

From past experience in most cases N/A is not an option for required fields. For some it is totally hit or miss. This was one of them. When you think you have discovered a pattern to item specifics eBay will throw you a curve. In many situations for older items when no matter how much research you've done or can do, confirming required specifics is a flip of the coin or needle in a haystack.

Note to @femmefan1946 Please remember to breathe. From the many many many similar posts, fields chosen for tinkering involved very little proofing after the fact. I'm guessing there was a very large quantity of Betty's and Bob's with time on their hands, on their balcony with a beer/wine cooler in one hand and a tablet in their other plugging away, thinking to themselves, "Which seller should I mess with next" and "I get paid for this"?

-Lotz

intimewithmusic · ‎05-23-2021

The theories and reasoning about this has been discussed for about 2 years. I only have 300 listings. Almost all of them have "Required Soon"s due to changed labels in Item specifics. If my stuff was only in a category or two it would be a matter of mindless re-entering data. My stuff is spread out over about 50 categories

I'm glad I don't have 3500 items to deal with! 300 takes hours and hours. I hope these new data "sets" are going to stick around. It seems like when everyone gets through this eBay will find a reason to change it again. Maybe Google changes their search system and then Item Specifics stop working.

Of course we can't worry about something that may never happen. What does worry me is that all of this data re-entry is going to lead to costly mistakes. For example in many of my musical instrument listings the original Country of Manufacture has now been deleted because the new IS label is called "Country/Region of Manufacture" not country of Manufacture. An item made in Japan is not one made in the USA. Ebay encouraged us to make up our own "Item Specifics". Anyone selling vintage or antiquities probably put a lot of descritive details in custom boxes that are now gone.

OK but why didn't eBay simply move the data from "Country Of Manufacture" to "Country/Region of Manufacture". Sometimes this data was entered years ago and was difficult to determine at that time. Now it's gone. This could impact the purchase ending up in an INAD as the descrition is now incomplete.

If Sellers rush through the data re-entry process and make mistakes or leave out important description data that was once in the listing it will certainly bite them in the butt. It would be much better if eBay left all the original data from the previous Item Specific sets intact and added the new windows next to them. At least the description details would cover the Seller in the event of an INAD.

ITWM

femmefan1946 · ‎05-24-2021

If you open the listing, that tab is not built into the listing

Why would you make the changes from the listing?

That may be the problem.

Go to your Active Listings.

Go to the note that there are IS missing.

Click on that.

It gives you a popup with all the Required IS.

Fill those as best you can.

Then scroll down to the Suggested IS.

Fill in those that apply.

This takes minutes.

In a few cases, (like date of publication) the information is in the Description but clicking on the title opens the Listing and I can read it, add the information and close the Description. That takes me back to the popup.

Am I misunderstanding something?

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎05-24-2021

@femmefan1946

For active listing you should be able to repair from the listing. You should not require a tool. In many cases the seller included the required information in the body or created a descriptor/discriptors to meet their needs. You should be able to update from the listing. The information is either there or you never had. There should be no need to have the listing open along with eBay's tool. For the sellers with hundreds of listings to fix it is a time consuming problem.

The second part of the equation when you create a listing you should get an error message before the listing is completed if specifics are missed. Not after. Made more annoying of nuisance because you never know when ebay may suddenly decide to add another specific to a category. Forcing the seller to start over again.

The last part N/A does not work for all fields. Difficult to impossible to fill in an unknown. Plus for Mixed lots you would need to add additional fields for each variation. There is a limit for the number of fields allowed.

@intimewithmusicstates it perfectly in their post below 05-23-2021 5:31 PM!!!

-Lotz

PS. I had close to 150 to fix and each one was slighly different. Sellers on dot com have exactly the same concerns regarding IS's. The only difference is there are more of them and they yell louder.

PS#2. Mention minutes to the seller with 900 CD's to fix that were created correctly originally and get ready to duck!!

femmefan1946 · ‎05-24-2021

You don't have to open the listing.

The link on your Active Selling (and actually on you Unsold too) opens without the listing opening and when the Required IS are filled and the popup is closed, the Note disappears and the listing is "corrected".

The second part of the equation when you create a listing you should get an error message before the listing is completed if specifics are missed.

With you on that one. But so far none of my new listings have missed any IS so I can't say if it happens or not.

I have 946 listings on this ID and at a quick check of the 100 coming up for renewal in the next two days, about 30% have a Note about some weakness. I guess the lawn won't get mowed today.