Dear Ina,
Topic: Repeated Changes to eBay Required Item Specifics as Late as July 8!
I'm an Australian eBay seller of approximately 14 years. I currently have around 1500 items listed in my store.
To enable prospective customers to locate and discover information about my items, I have always ensured that my listings are as discoverable as I can make them and as detailed as possible to enable potential buyers to make informed choices.
Without exception I have always completed the required item specifics, the recommended item specifics as well as adding as many additional item specifics as I considered to be potentially beneficial.
Within each listing in my selling category, there is one Required Item Specific, on the Listing Form, which is the Brand of the item.
Following this, there are four Recommended Item Specifics, which are
- Type
- Age Group
- Gender
- Vintage Yes/No
After this come Additional Item Specifics in which according to the listing form "Buyers may also be interested". These are:
- Features (Plus Size, Petite Size, Special Needs)
- MPN
- Decade
- Cut/Uncut
- Modified Item
Finally, there is also an option to add Custom Item Specifics
As I have mentioned, all of my listings include all of the applicable Item Specifics in all categories.
I was surprised, therefore, to receive the following menacing message from eBay on 11 June 2021,
"You have listings that need to be updated with required Item Specifics before 12 July. If you don't update these listings, you will not be able to create, revise and publish these listings"
After reading this message, I wondered what other item specifics I could possibly add to my listings. Quite confused, I contacted an eBay representative via Chat, as this is the only Help communication option currently available here in Australia. Despite explaining that I was unable to add any additional Item Specifics, I was told that my listings did not contain all of the Required Item Specifics. Moreover, I was advised that:
"If the required item specifics are not added then it might be possible that you could not revise the listing later or the listing might end afterwards. Please do not worry, your seller account would not be discontinued at all due to this. You would still be able to list the items afterwards also".
When I checked my listings, I discovered that eBay had selected four Item Specifics from within the three categories I listed above and elevated them to the status of Required Item Specifics, although there is still only one listed on Listing Form. eBay selected the following four for this elevated status. They refer to them Mandatory Fields. These fields are;
- Type
- Age Group
- Gender
- Features - Plus Size o Petite Size o
Although I had satisfied the requirements for the first three fields, I discovered that I hadn't filled in the Features requirement for most of my listings. The reason for this is that only a few of the items I sell qualify for this category and any information regarding size is already recorded in the listing title.
I contacted eBay for a second time and advised the representative that adding size information other than Plus Size and Petite Size was superfluous as it was already recorded in the listing title. Despite this, I was advised for the second time to complete the purportedly missing information.
I subsequently begrudgingly spent many hours over the last few weeks adding this duplicated information, finally finishing yesterday evening.
To my absolute horror, when I checked eBay early this morning, I was totally shocked and unprepared to find that many of my listings had again been identified by eBay as needing more Item Specifics to be added!! This list has been added to sporadically throughout the day!
Upon checking, I discovered that eBay had changed one of their 4 Mandatory Fields!
Instead of the earlier Features - Plus Size o Petite Size o, it was now Vintage Y/N !! not applicable to most of my listings.
I'm sure that you can sense my exasperation and dis-belief that such a major change could have been coerced four days before the deadline of July 12th!
Given that eBay is a virtual monopoly, if I'm to continue to trade I don't have much choice.
From Coby, an Australian eBay Seller
eBay Seller Tries to Keep up with Ever Changing Re