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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@vintagenorth wrote:

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.

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Because the tool does work from within a listing to confirm information you have to have a listing open in 2 places to repair/or have each item in front of you. 99% of the information is in the body of the listing. Information you cannot view with the tool. Not so good work around would be having to re-research any listings requiring mandatory specifics.

One seller on dot com reported today that for 1 of their listings they were unable to update to NEW.  Only option was USED.  Maybe these types of updates should only be applied to New or Relists/Sell Similar going forward.

-Lotz

[doc_scribe]

Re:

"Until these [eBay 'Add recommended' specs] 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."

In the Home Media category, the eyebrow raisers for me were the now empty-by-default fields

"Studio", "Type", "Features", "Cinematic Movement", and "Subtitle Language" . I have at least 100 legit All-Region studio Blu-rays that include 4 to 7 different language tracks, and/or up to 15 subtitle options. Even with that info included in my description, what are the downstream impacts of not capturing all or most of those  options in the Item Spec fields?

In this massive relational database called eBay, I suspect those specs are not all merely "recommendations", and should not be shrugged off as optional without risking downstream impacts on Product Authentication, Not as Described Claims, and Search Placement etc.

[doc_scribe]

Re:

"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."

I'm currently sitting at 477 listings with recommendations vs. 0 - as in zero, zilch, zip - a couple of weeks ago.

I take this seriously, because in the database world  the impact of on-the-fly modification or renaming

of fields is rarely just local. The IT term for this is "deprecation of data", which occurs whenever a new

database 'call' to a field or dropdown selection now delivers a 'null' result because the target

field has been renamed, repopulated, or reset without correctly 'mapping' (cross-referencing)

original  content to the new field and dropdown.

Unfortunately, there's no magic wand for fixing this. Manual intervention is almost always required to re-target any data that is still valid, but now widowed/orphaned in the database. And once again, most of that otherwise unproductive drudge work will be up to us folks.

It doesn't even appear as if they have finished revising yet...

[doc_scribe]

Re:

"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."

But here's the risk: That potential buyer might never even see your listing if eBay's new fields are

left blank, even if that info has been captured elsewhere, such as body text. With databases, I never take a

new field or dropdown for granted. I mean, who among us knows - or ever can know - precisely how

that metadata is being used in the background (e.g. its availability and completeness affecting Search Placement)?

Even "N/A" does universally mean "Not Applicable" (a neutral value); it could just as easily be interpreted as "Not Available" (a negative value).

"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."

In aggregate, all of these seemingly superficial Item Spec tweaks will amount to an imposition of days/weeks of tedious, unproductive drudge work by Sellers to unbreak all of the now-broken calls in

the Item Spec form. And I agree, what do we do with mixed lots/bundles? Item Specs already

didn't work very well with multiple UPCs, diverse disc specs, and an inconsistent mix of features. Now

they make even less sense.

"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."

...just like "Studio", "Type", "Features", "Cinematic Movement", and "Subtitle Language" for media. Aren't most of these new Item Specs capturable by the UPC anyway?

For me,  this is deja vu...all over again. I feel like Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day."

[ricarmic]

As a note, as long as you're running GTCs they are all grandfathered, I have over 2,000 items running (some for 10 years) that have a number of grandfathered things, including required item specifics.

New items or revised items will require them.

In my own world a number of the required ones are nonsensical (because I sell groups of items) but I have to fill them in anyway.

As others have said I've always totally ignored the recommended specifics just like I've ignored the "no activity in 16 months or whatever the warning for that is, for many years now....

[doc_scribe]

Consider yourself lucky indeed ricarmic.

During the rollout of Item Specs for home media these were also initially "recommended" and "optional"....up until the day they weren't. I still recall my sudden inexplicable reduction in views/watchers/sales, and never since have treated new or modified fields on the SYI and Item Specs forms quite so cavalierly. Admittedly, I do have a bias here.

BTW folks, apologies for the unfortunate typo trashing my point above: "Even "N/A" does not universally mean "Not Applicable" (a neutral value); it could just as easily be interpreted as "Not Available" (a negative value).

[kh-leslie]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.