New Mandatory eBay item specifics requirements for March 2020

eBay are today announcing new mandatory eBay item specifics requirements which will come into effect at the end of March 2020. The good news is that there are no major name changes or new attributes, this is a mandate to use already existing Item Specifics.

Throughout 2019, eBay have emphasised the importance of item specifics and how they increase the visibility of your listings on both eBay and on external search engines. The more data you give eBay about what you’re selling, the better they can match your item to what a buyer is looking for. This is either through query search (which as well as titles makes use of Item specifics), left hand navigation filters and on category merchandising pages.

With this in mind, eBay are continuing with their requirements for item specifics in March 2020 in a number of categories and giving you at least 8 weeks notice for you to prepare accordingly. These Item specifics values are available now in eBay listing flows and eBay encourage you to add them ahead of the deadline on the 31st of March.

You’ll be forced to add them for new listings or when you revise existing listings in the future. Although Good til Cancelled listings will continue to renew if you don’t add the new mandatory eBay item specifics requirements, when you go to add new stock in the future you’ll be unable to do so until you add the Item Specifics so we would recommend you get this task done and out of the way as soon as possible, preferably before the end of March. The alternative course of action is of course to do nothing and just deal with each listing as and when you’re forced to.

New Mandatory eBay item specifics requirements for March 2020

In March, eBay will be introducing mandatory Item specifics in the Home & Garden and Electronics categories. These requirements will be live from 31 March and apply to all new and revised listings.

A full list of the required Item specifics and affected categories is available in the eBay Seller Centre with downloadable excel lists. I’m also pleased to report that eBay have done some review and consolidation of values, for instance for Processor Speed in Laptops, the values you will see will all be in the format of ‘1.7GHz’ etc. only. Other variations of values from the past (e.g. 1700MHz were added as synonyms to these standardised values (they will be mapped behind the scene). This should help sellers use the most appropriate values from drop down lists whilst at the same time not requiring sellers to change work they’ve done in the past. As you create new listings we’d recommend checking the suggested values to pick the current most appropriate value and format for attributes.

Use Optiseller Aspect Finder to find missing Item specifics

Optiseller’s Aspect Finder tool has proven useful for eBay sellers in 2019 and so eBay have announced that they have now extended free use of Optiseller until at least the 30th of April. We recommend making full use of Optiseller, courtesy of eBay, to automatically review your listings, identify missing and required Item specifics, find recommended values, and easily update (either directly on eBay or through another listing tool).

This eBay offer includes access to the Optiseller Aspect Finder tool for sellers until April 30th 2020. No commitment is required from sellers beyond this date, no payment details are required to redeem this offer, and sellers who redeem the offer will not be charged for the use of the tool during the offer period. Optiseller does offer other paid-for tools, services and plans which can be purchased separately, these are not included in the free offer.

Mandatory eBay item specifics requirements on other eBay sites

Mandatory eBay item specifics requirements are rolling out on all other eBay sites across Europe. If you sell in other countries on eBay, head over to Seller Centre pages to find out more information about additional local changes.