eBay is recommending sellers use a third-party tool called Optiseller to fill in product attribute gaps in their listings (aka Item Specifics).
Previously eBay had been pushing sellers to add UPC codes to their listings to help fulfill former eBay CEO Devin Wenig’s vision of having an Amazon-like product catalog approach to the marketplace.
In February’s Early Seller Update, eBay announced it was instead going to require sellers to concentrate on adding Item Specifics to help it organize listings:
We’re making it easier for you to take advantage of product-based shopping
In 2018, we introduced product-based shopping, which helps buyers find your items quickly and easily. Organizing the world’s largest catalog is a massive undertaking. Building on the work you’ve helped us complete so far, moving forward we are simplifying our ask of you. You will be able to optimize your listings for product-based shopping by simply providing complete and accurate item specifics when you list. Accurate item specifics will allow us to monitor which elements are most important to buyers within the shopping experience. As we identify key item specifics that contribute to increased traffic and sales conversion, we will highlight these item specifics in Seller Hub so check often to optimize your listings.
On Monday, eBay.com joined other international eBay sites in promoting a third-party tool called Optiseller “to help you identify listings with missing Item specifics.”
eBay explained in its announcement:
As previously announced, we’re gradually introducing requirements for Item specifics that will not only help your buyers find your products more easily, but will also help to increase the likelihood of your item selling.
Adding Item specifics to your existing listings can be time-consuming, so we’re introducing the Optiseller Aspect Finder Tool to help you quickly identify and correct your existing listings that are missing key Item specifics.
Optiseller & eBay have been partners for a year now, and the tool has proved very helpful for sellers to meet new item specifics requirements. The Aspect Finder tool has now processed 67 million listings across around 5000 sellers from 26 countries selling into 5 markets.
Optiseller Aspect Finder is free of charge until 31 December 2019, so for the next few months, you can use the tool to automatically review your listings, identify which ones are missing required Item specifics, find suggested values and easily update them. You can then use the report to update your listings directly on eBay in bulk or through your listing tool.
eBay linked to the Optiseller.com website where sellers could find more information.
In the past five years we can count on one finger how many times we have filled in the UPC code or any item specifics. Why waste my time when buyers don’t read beyond the title. It takes about 30 seconds to list an item that way instead of a few minutes.
It’s Oct 15 and eBay has removed the size item specific from all my listings. This is a huge Snafu. I hope they can retrieve them.
It seems eBay won’t be selling many clothing items today because a the size item specific is missing from the search pages as well.
One poster on the eBay seller forum posted the cost of using Optiseller, who eBay says they have been ‘partnered with’ for a year. The prices posted were in Pounds at 25, 75 and 125 pounds a month per store, depending on the amount of service offered. One purse seller later wrote that purses weren’t included in the fashion cat. so they dropped the service. It looks kind of expensive for something that eBay hasn’t gotten straightened out, yet..
I was relisting items to see this new update.
I sell clothing and it took a while on a couple of my listings that L (Large) wasn’t an option even though I place “L” in the size box. It would get kicked out.
I had to close down and login again and finally was given the options of all the sizes.
eBay is picking up the cost of Optiseller Aspect Finder Tool (item specifics) for its sellers through the end of the year. They have other seller tools as well. I have not used any of Optiseller’s tools.
https://www.optiseller.com/landingpage-aspect-finder-usa?utm_source=eBay&utm_medium=AB&utm_campaign=Aspect_Finder_USA&utm_content=Oct82019