eBay Jeans Sizes Review after eBay final update on 15th October SNAFU

With eBay having announced that the majority of issues caused by the 15th October item specifics and classification changes have been resolved, we are once again taking at look at eBay Jeans sizes to assess the state of listings. Whilst we are focusing on Jeans as the previous category we looked at, we are well aware that other categories are in a similar state.

In particular, we will look at the item Specifics eBay copied over to the new fields as well as how easy it is for buyers to narrow their search and discover products they wish to purchase.

As a comparison, look at the image of a Levi Jeans label – it tells you everything you need to know: Brand (Levi), Style (501), Waist Circumference (33), Leg Length (32). That’s how men buy jeans!

Missing values – We have now completed copying the hidden item specifics you previously provided into the Required item specifics fields.
– eBay

eBay Jeans sizes in ‘Men’s Clothing’ category

The first thing to note is how the most useful Item Specifics are displayed. A search for ‘Jeans’ in ‘Men’s Clothing only shows two size related specifics – neither of which are useful for buying jeans:

• Size Type

  – Regular
  – Big & Tall

• Size

  – XL
  – L
  – M
  – S

Let’s be clear – men generally only want two size attributes when buying jeans – Waist size and leg length. All the major jeans brand sell their products in this format e.g. W34L34 or similar. There are three other attributes of interest to the majority of seller – Brand, Colour and Condition (New/Used) and these are present.

eBay Jeans sizes in ‘Men’s Clothing – Jeans’ category

It is reasonable to expect that if a buyer is looking for jeans, that they will narrow their search to the ‘Men’s Clothing – Jeans’ category so this is where we will focus. For reference we have taken a screen shot of the Item Specifics eBay display.

Inside Leg

The first thing to note is that ‘Inside Leg’ is top of the search bar. Top marks for getting a useful measurement front and centre, but it does open the question as to what happened to ‘Inseam’ which appeared on the 15th October and sellers were told was the new name for this attribute.

The Inside Leg attribute is presented as numbers with no description of what these numbers are (although they are obviously inches). There are 385,407 listings out of 647,860 that have no entry for this Item Specific – approximately 50% of jeans won’t be found if buyers narrow their search by ‘Inside Leg’.

Fit

The second eBay Jeans sizes Item Specific presented in the ‘Men’s Clothing – Jeans’ category is fit. Fit is categorised as Slim, Regular, or Relaxed with the additional options Athletic, Classic, or Extra-Slim available if a buyer clicks the “see all” button.

We appreciate that this could be a useful attribute for buyers to narrow their search by, but it’s not as important as waist size.

“Let’s be clear, you can present a buyer with as many beautifully attractive and fantastically priced pairs of jeans as you like but if the buyer is too fat to get into them, or is so slim that they’ll fall down as soon as they put them on, then they don’t want to buy them.

It’s better to show products that fit the buyer before you start worrying which style they’d prefer.”
– Tamebay

Other size attributes

We then come to the size attributes which eBay consider so trivial to the buying process that they don’t have any options available to choose from unless the buyer clicks the “see all” button:

• Size Type
• Size
• Waist Circumference

Size Type only has two options – Regular or Big & Tall so is not particularly useful. We are going to focus now on ‘Size’ as this was eBay’s new mandatory Item Specific and ‘Waist Circumference’ as this perhaps the most critical measurement for a pair of jeans.

Size

eBay insisted that Size was to be the new field, standard across all clothing categories for both Men’s and Women’s clothing. With that in mind (and noting that eBay removed the mandate so that listings could be launched), ‘Size’ is currently the most ridiculously useless attribute available with measurements literally ranging from 0 through to 110. Size ‘0’ (size zero) is a Women’s clothing size and size ‘110’ is a child one hundred and ten centimetres tall.

Irrelevant item specifics values – The cleaning of irrelevant values is complete, sellers should now be seeing the appropriate values in the drop-down menus.
– eBay

The ‘Size’ attribute, now containing around 135 different values for buyers to choose from, is crazy. Anyone who thinks that buyers can easily find their correct size from this abomination clearly needs to take a second look.

 
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’ll see recommended values in the drop down on the Sell Your Item Form or other listing tools – they are just as big a mess as those displayed to buyers.

Waist Circumference

Waist circumference is clearly important when buying a pair of jeans. Whilst you might prefer a slightly longer or slightly shorter length leg, if you can’t zip your jeans up then we have a problem!

The ‘Waist Circumference’ Item Specific now has a set of reasonable values: 26 in; 28 in; 30 in; 32 in; 34 in; 36 in; 38 in; 40 in; Not specified. 208,778 listings out of 647,860 (roughly a third) have no waist size specified.

We do wonder on the logic of defining a waist size specified in inches with the Inside Leg size being a just a number. This is just sloppy considering it’s supposed to have been cleaned up – some consistency would be nice, but this isn’t our biggest complaint….

Critical Error – the Sell Your Item Form

When we look at the Sell your Item Form for eBay Jeans sizes, where is the ‘Waist Circumference’ Item Specific?

The answer is that it’s hidden against a myriad of ‘Additional’ that you have to click to see – eBay say “Buyers may also be interested in these item specifics”. eBay consider the ‘Waist Circumference’ to be as trivial as “Accents ‘Beaded'” and “Theme ‘Anime'”.

Whilst eBay might be telling us that instead of using ‘Waist Circumference’, ‘Size’ is the now all important Item Specific to use, with 135 largely irrelevant attributes in size the only way a buyer can find a pair of jeans than fits is Waist Circumference and, unless you know to look for it, the waist size isn’t likely to get filled out by the average seller.

eBay Jeans sizes are a disaster area

Overall, with Black Friday week now in full swing, we can only conclude that eBay Jeans sizes are a disaster area and a lot more work is required both to help buyers find a pair of jeans that fits around their waist and sellers need guidance in order to know which Item Specifics are most useful.

Any clothing seller worth their salt will know that men mainly buy jeans by Waist size, leg length, brand and colour. They may prefer a zip closure to buttons, but if the jeans don’t fit, no matter how great a pair of jeans are, there’s no point presenting them as a buying option.

This should be really basic stuff, it’s time it got sorted once and for all.