eBay Expands Tagging with Phase 2 of Custom Item Specifics

On Thursday, eBay told developers it would release the second phase of Custom Item Specifics as it begins the process of migrating most ID-based attributes over to the new custom Item Specifics system. eBay launched Custom Item Specifics in 2007 as a way to expand Item Specifics (product attributes) in more categories and give sellers more control over the item specifics that are shown in these categories (similar to the Web 2.0 concept of tagging).

Item specifics are important since eBay's search engine uses them when finding listings to display in search results. "For example," according to eBay's website, "if Item Specifics are not used to specify an item's condition (such as New), that item will not be displayed to buyers who narrow their search to show only new items."

eBay said Custom Item Specifics Phase 2 introduces some new types of metadata for individual tags including Multi-valued tags, Required tags, Closed value list tags (where seller can only use values from a pre-defined enumerated set provide by eBay), and Tags in dependency relationships (for ex. State and City).

eBay said it expects to have fully converted all of the Clothing, Shoes and Accessories categories as well as much of Home and Garden by mid-June.

Link to announcement