Important eBay Requirements May Be Reducing Your Sales

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Important eBay Requirements May Be Reducing Your
Sales
eBay has often been described as a garage sale
experience although with at least 25 million
sellers and 6 billion products on its Marketplace
platform, it is a fairly large garage. Like a
garage sale where one can poke around and find
great deals, eBay has followed a somewhat similar
format. The drawback to such a model is that for
those that are not looking to poke around or
spend a long time searching for a great deal,
eBay at time provided a frustrating customer
experience. 
Sellers on eBay need to manually enter all of the
relevant information which creates discrepancies
in data, making it difficult for buyers and
sellers to find products using specific keywords.
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Multiple sellers might list the same product, but
describe it differently, making the eBays left
hand filtering ineffective. As an example, a pair
of Ray-Ban sunglasses might be listed as Ray-Ban
sunglasses by one seller, while another might
have the specific model number listed, while a
third would list the UPC code and a full
manufacturer description. Finding a treasure at a
garage sale can be a rewarding experience, but
for those looking for a specific product, or
trying to compare prices, the experience can
prove frustrating. eBay is moving to address
this issue by requiring sellers to follow a
uniform structured data format when listing their
products. eBays goal is to transform its
gigantic marketplace into a uniform digital
catalog that buyers can easily browse through.
Price comparison will be more reliable since all
identical products can be compared using product
identifiers that are now mandatory in certain
categories. Sellers benefit by having their
products clearly attached and displayed in
relevant searches both within eBay and on search
engine results, increasing visibility, traffic,
and sales. What are these new requirements, and
what do they mean for eBay sellers?
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• First announced in March of 2015, and implemented
  in June of 2015,eBay began requiring sellers to
  include product identifiers (MPN, GTINs, UPCs,
  and ISBNs) for single items in selected
  categories.  On September 1st 2015, eBay expanded
  this to included products with variations as
  well. The categories that require product
  identifiers are
• Baby
• Books, Comics Magazines
• Business, Office Industrial
• Cameras Photography
• Clothes, Shoes Accessories
• Computers/Tablets Networking
• DVDs, Films TV
• Health Beauty
• Home, Furniture DIY

• Mobile Phones Communication
• Music
• Musical Instruments
• Pet Supplies
• Sound Vision
• Sporting Goods
• Toys Games
• Vehicle Parts Accessories
• Video Games Consoles

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The requirement is currently only for branded
products which are listed as new or manufacturer
refurbished items. Sellers who list used,
collectable, vintage or one-of-a-kind products
will not need to include product identifiers.
Around 80  of all products listed on eBay are
new, so this change will have a significant
impact on the majority of products sold on
eBay. As of February 29th 2016, eBay officially
started to enforce this requirement. Sellers are
able use the eBay app to scan a barcode and have
the full product information completed, including
brand, model, dimensions, etc. While this may be
helpful for new listings to ensure that product
identifiers are included (and help build the
catalog) , there are many sellers with hundreds
or thousands of existing product listings that
all now require product identifiers. Has eBay
considered the challenge this requirement will
place on these sellers?
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An initial look at how eBay enforces these new
requirements indicates that eBay has considered
the challenge this new requirement poses to some
of their sellers. Given that some eBay sellers
have hundreds if not thousands of products this
is not a quick process, however sellers also have
a vested interest in ensuring their products have
these identifiers aside for helping them
display better on eBay, these product identifiers
(which are universal) can also help achieve
better search engine results. Additionally,
product reviews can also be linked since the
reviews can be connected to the product
identifier. There has been some initial negative
feedback in terms of sellers complaining that
some of the products that eBay requires product
identifiers for are not readily available, or
that the eBay app has issues scanning some of the
codes, however we are still in the early stages
of the roll-out, and these may just be some kinks
in a new system. It remains to be seen if this
change will allow eBay to compete more
effectively with the likes of Amazon (or
Alibaba), but at the very least, this should make
for a more streamlined catalog like shopping
experience.
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