Item specifics
Item specifics tell buyers what you’re selling, and are crucial to your search visibility and sales. The more information you provide about your listings, the better we can match your items with searching buyers.
What are item specifics?
Item specifics include information that describes your items, such as the brand, make, model, size, colour and style. Adding these details is essential to helping shoppers find your items on eBay. Item specifics allow buyers to find your items when they use search filters onsite..
There are ‘required’ item specifics for certain categories on eBay. Once an item specific becomes ‘required’, you can only publish a new or revised listing when all the required information is filled.
To get the best results from your listings, add as many item specifics as you can and be aware of those that are required in your categories.
How to add item specifics to your listings
When you create listings on eBay, you’ll see a section to add relevant item specifics for your listing. As indicated by the lightning bolt, the more item specifics you add, the better your listing will perform.
We require item specifics in certain categories. You’ll see these highlighted in your listing flow. You can download a report on the Seller Hub Active Listings page so you can identify and update missing item specifics in bulk and re-upload the file to apply the changes to your listings.
Tools to help you update Item Specifics
Download/Upload file: This tool is available in the Seller Hub Active Listings page. It allows you to download an Excel file of your listings, identify and update missing item specifics in bulk and re-upload the file to apply the changes.
Edit item specifics in bulk: When you add item specifics from the Seller Hub Active Listings page, you can select multiple listings and click the “Add item specifics” button. This will load all of your selected listings into a pop-up window where you can cycle through each listing one at a time and add any missing item specifics.
Quick filters: If you have listings missing Required, Required Soon, or Recommended item specifics, you’ll see quick filters on your Seller Hub Active Listings page. These quick filters show you all listings missing those particular item specifics.
Required Soon feature: When you create a new listing or revise an existing one, you’ll see indicators in your listing flow above item specifics that will be required soon. These will include the date the item specifics will become required.
Task reminders in Seller Hub and My eBay: If you have listings missing Required, Required Soon, or Recommended item specifics, you’ll see corresponding tasks in Seller Hub, or corresponding modules in My eBay Selling Overview.
Item specifics rankings: These rankings appear in the listing flow and provide guidance on which non-required item specifics your buyers are searching for.
‘Required’ vs ‘recommended’ item specifics
As mentioned, we require certain item specifics for you to successfully edit and publish listings in particular categories.
We also recommend adding item specifics to optimise your listings and better match with buyers.
‘Required’ item specifics are details that are essential for buyers shopping for these products to be aware of. You won't be able to create or revise listings without entering these details.
‘Recommended’ item specifics are based on frequently searched terms. Including recommended item specifics helps buyers find your listings more easily and understand exactly what you're selling.
Item specifics requirements
To help you give buyers a better picture of your items, we’re continuing to expand item specifics requirements in certain categories. You will only be able to publish your new or revised listings in these categories once you’ve filled out the required information.