Email a copy of 'eBay Delays Rollout of 'Required' Item Specifics in 2 Categories' to a friend
Loading ...
Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.
We haven’t used an item specific in the over 6000 listings in one of our stores. No change in how much sells and Ebay never bothers us. Thats what the DOES APPLY BUTTON IS FOR.
I would really question if all of these additional item specifics are going to result in any new material sales. It just sounds like more work imposed on the sellers with the prospect of little or no return in added sales. Didn’t we go through this with all the photo requirements a few years ago that was supposed to give us a 10% sales boost? At some point the law of diminishing returns is going to apply if it hasn’t already.
Mandatory item specifics for Stamps category left panel filters failed to include catalog number, likely the most common search term used by collectors to find stamps. Collectors who search by catalog number hate getting irrelevant results, especially electronic and motorcycle parts.
The required values “Certification”, “Grade”, “Place of Origin” and “Quality” are problematic. Some of the built-in values do not match accepted stamp marketplace terminology or lists are incomplete. Will item specific value not matching a built-in filter work at all or will dealers give up and not fill them in?
• A certification is a credential that you earn to show that you have specific skills or knowledge. They are usually tied to an occupation, technology, or industry. The proper term would be “Certificate”. Only a small percentage of stamps have certificates. The built-in values do not include enough choices. If the stamp has no certificate is the term “Uncertified” likely to be chosen to describe the stamp or does it imply that the stamp is defective?
• “Grade” is in the eye of the beholder unless the stamp has a graded certificate. Only a small percentage of stamps have certificates and fewer are graded. Buyers can judge centering of stamps from images. Why allow sellers to misrepresent what buyers can already see clearly?
• “Place of Origin” seems redundant. The item specific “Country/Region of Manufacture” already exists. Buyers are likely to search by country, state or locality based on where the stamp was issued, not where it was printed.
• “Quality” may be the most useful but is redundant if “Item Condition” was enabled in the Stamps category. At one time eBay supported values of “Unused” and “Used” that would now map into ID = 1500 for “Unused” and ID = 3000 for “Used”. The value “New”, ID = 0 could apply to stamps still in shrink wrap, not a common occurrence. Some eBay built-in values for unused hinged stamps misuse the term “Mint”, borrowed from coins. If additional Item Condition values are defined, they should follow usage in the Scott Catalog. Finally, not supporting Item Condition in the Stamps Category forces sellers who wish to include the “Condition Description” at the top of listings to label every stamp as “Used” even ones that are unused.
All in all, mandatory item specifics in the Stamps category are ineffective marketing and may cause buyers who attempt to filter searches to miss some of the items they are interested in. Potential buyers in the Stamps category hate to miss anything they believe to be relevant.