eBay Item Specifics

Set using Single Edit | Set using Bulk Edit | Set using Attribute Mapping Mode

What are item specifics?

eBay item specifics are specific attributes or characteristics of a product that sellers can provide to provide more detailed information about their listings. Item specifics help buyers find exactly what they are looking for and enable sellers to provide accurate and relevant information about their products.

When listing an item on eBay, sellers can choose from a pre-defined set of item specifics based on the category they are listing in. These specifics may include details such as brand, model, size, color, material, style, condition, and other relevant attributes specific to the category or type of product being sold. For example, if you are selling a clothing item, the item specifics may include size, color, material, sleeve length, and so on.

Providing accurate and detailed item specifics is important as it helps potential buyers refine their search and find the exact product they are interested in. It also enhances the overall shopping experience by providing clear and relevant information about the product.

It's worth noting that item specifics vary depending on the category and subcategory of the item being sold. eBay provides guidance and suggestions for item specifics based on the selected category, making it easier for sellers to provide the necessary information.

Why should you include all available item specifics on your listings?

1. Improve your search ranking - The more item specifics you provide the higher you’ll appear in eBay’s search results
2. Increased visibility in search results - When buyers use search filters, you'll ensure your products can always be found
3. Reduce returns - More item specifics mean buyers can purchase with greater confidence that they’ve found the right product 
4. Find the right buyers - eBay will be able to more accurately match your products to associated search queries
5. Inclusion in new buyer experiences - As eBay continues to improve the buyer experience, you’ll ensure your products continue to be featured

Updating and managing item specifics in Shopify Marketplace Connect

We recommend always adding new item specifics to your website directly, rather than in Marketplace Connect. Managing item specifics through Marketplace Connect then becomes simple. If your existing product attributes directly match any of eBay’s preset item specifics (e.g. “Brand”, “Color", “Size”),  Marketplace Connect will automatically import and map to the corresponding field in the grid. 

If Marketplace Connect is unable to automatically match any of your product attributes with eBay’s requirements, you’ll need to create a custom item-specific field using attribute mapping and map your custom attribute to this newly created field. Once created, Marketplace Connect will map that field for ALL of your products with that attribute.

Set eBay Item Specifics using Attribute Mapping Mode

Enable the Item Specifics you wish to use (or create your own custom Item Specific).  This is done via Attribute Mapping mode (accessed either from the Home screen or from the Manage attribute mapping link on the Single edit or Bulk edit pages).

Make sure you are on the eBay site you are wishing to edit by using the drop-down at the top left. 

Navigate to Item Specifics and expand the rows.  The attribute mapping screen will show all the available eBay item specifics for all the categories of your items on eBay.  This list can be long due to how many eBay suggests and will vary depending on how varied your product catalog is.  At the bottom of the list, you can create your own custom Item Specific.

• Item Specifics required or recommended by eBay will show with an asterisk next to them.
• The reason you have to first activate some item specifics is that most item specifics provided by eBay won't always be necessary for your products, so we'll avoid saturating the Bulk edit grid with unnecessary fields

Set the value for the enabled Item Specific

The default value once enabled is "Shopify Marketplace Connect Grid".  That means you can edit in Bulk-edit mode as a column on the grid. It's also possible to map an attribute value at this point (or edit via the single edit mode).

Save via the button on top. 

Set eBay Item Specifics Using Single Edit

On eBay, there are four types of item specifics: required, optional, recommended, and custom. The differences between these types are as follows:

• Required: These item specifics are mandatory for all listings in a particular category. If you do not include the required item specifics, your listing will not be eligible to show up in search results.
• Optional: These item specifics are not mandatory, but they can help buyers find your listings more easily. If you include optional item specifics, your listing will be more likely to show up in search results that are filtered by those item specifics.
• Recommended: These item specifics are not mandatory, but they are highly recommended by eBay. Including recommended item specifics can help your listings show up higher in search results and attract more buyers.
• Custom: These item specifics are created by the seller and are not specific to any particular category. Custom item specifics can be used to provide additional information about your items that is not available in the standard item specifics.

Here is a table that summarizes the differences between the four types of item specifics:

You can click the button and it will expand to show the Item Specific fields. 

Enter the values for the Item Specifics. 

Click Save on the top section of the page.

Set eBay Item Specifics Using Bulk Edit 

To edit Item Specifics via Bulk Edit mode you need to add the relevant columns to the grid that you wish to edit.  You can add or remove columns to make use easier by clicking on 'Columns' and then toggling the options for Item Specifics. 

Scroll right on the grid and the activated Item Specifics will be there.

When you have finished, simply publish (by clicking Save) your changes to set them live on your eBay listings.

For further assistance, please reach out to marketplace-connect@shopify.com