If you’ve been subscribing to my weekly eletter for a while you’ll know that, along with your eBay listing title, your product description should also be as comprehensive as possible. And that includes filling in those boring, fiddly ‘item specifics’ bits!
For me, with the kids off school and a slightly more relaxed daily routine, this is the time to go over my product listing descriptions, check keywords and item specifics and ensure everything’s up to date and working as it should be for maximum benefit. I suggest you are best off keeping on top of this task too.
What are ‘item specifics’?
This term refers to the brand, style, colour, material, size and other particular details of the product you are listing.
When you create a new listing, you’ll find a section called Item Specifics on the Sell Your Item form before you get to the long description part.
This is where you should provide the really important information about your item such as the brand (if there is one), including type, size, colour, style and any other information relevant to your product.
Once you’ve filled them in, these details appear at the top of your live listing description making it much easier for buyers to see all the facts about your item at a glance. Even more importantly these specifics can be used by eBay to determine where to show your product in the search results.
Depending on the category you’re listing your product in, you’ll see a series of drop-down boxes where you can fill in the details specific to your product.
Here’s how to include item specifics in your listing:
1) In the Item specifics section of the Sell your Item form, enter the relevant details. For example, select your item’s brand from the ‘Brand’ drop-down menu, size from the ‘Size’ menu and colour from the ‘Colour’ menu.
2) If any of the item specifics have been filled in for you already, simply confirm they are correct. If they’re not, you can revise them.
3) Add other relevant item specifics by clicking the ‘+’ sign next to the pertinent element. Or to add your own custom details, just click the ‘+’ sign next to ‘Add your own item specific’.
4) Remove any details that don’t apply to your item by clicking the ‘Remove’ link next to any of the item specifics.
Why include item specifics if it’s all in my main title and description?
Many buyers search on eBay using very brief, simple details such as style, size, brand and condition when they are typing in their search words.
So by completing the item specifics sections for all your products this will help you increase the visibility of your listings in search results, and potentially increase your sales.
eBay uses its own search engine called Cassini to filter results when a potential buyer searches for a product – and Cassini likes detail – so it’s important that you give as much detail as possible within the relevant sections.
This means that if you complete all sections to the best of your ability, buyers will be able to find your item that matches their search terms much more quickly and easily.
The advantages to adding item specifics
Firstly, it’s actually compulsory, so you have to do it and in which case you might as well do it properly!
By providing specific information you will make it far, far easier for buyers to find your products and make a purchase and this can only be a good thing.
Item specifics help buyers FIND your item in the first place, so make sure you use them. For example, as a buyer, if I was looking for a black cardigan in a size 10, I might type these keywords into the search box: ‘Black Cardigan 10’.
As the seller, if you have a black cardigan in a size 10 listed and you have filled in your item specifics correctly then your item will appear in front of me… and there’s a good chance that I will consider purchasing!
If however, you have not filled in your item specifics correctly then I won’t even see your item, therefore I can’t buy it.
So by adding item specifics you are making your listing more relevant to the buyers’ searches, bringing it closer to the top of the search results.
Remember…
Fill in as many item specifics as you possibly can. The more you complete the more chance you have of matching buyers’ searches and the higher you will rank in the returned search results.
When you select certain item specifics such as the colour, size or style of your item and you are given a choice of options provided by eBay, always try and pick one from eBay’s selection rather than adding your own.
For example, if the colour of your item is blue, choose ‘Blues’ as the colour and then select from the next drop-down box for an exact colour match – for example ‘Navy’.
Do this rather than adding your own shade description. The simple reason being that eBay recognize their own options rather than custom options and you’ll end up confusing matters and possibly not appearing as high in the search results as you could have done.
So, if you’ve been a bit lax about your item specifics, please take this opportunity to update your listings. There are absolutely no disadvantages to doing so, only advantages, so please consider it now.