Changes are coming for you Home & Garden sellers, and they’re coming soon! eBay's latest set of mandates were announced last month and with around 5 weeks to go until the 12th July deadline, it’s best to get moving on this sooner rather than later.
If you’re new to eBay, you may not be sure what these mandates mean and why they happen. Essentially, eBay monitors how their customers are searching and filtering to find the items they want to buy. They then mandate the Item Specifics that have been regularly used to filter for certain products. So, in short, if you are affected it means your products are being searched and filtered for. If you populate these Item Specifics you are more likely to boost ranking and increase the likelihood of a sale.
Let’s take a look at some of the H&G products which will be impacted by these mandated changes:
| Category |
Product |
| Garden & Patio |
Benches, Garden & Patio tables, Garden kneelers, cushions & seats |
|
| Home, Furniture & DIY |
Pillows, Chests of Drawers and Decorations & cake toppers |
|
Here are all the Item Specifics that could be required across the Home & Garden vertical:
- Item height
- Item length
- Item width
- Type
Bear in mind that not all Item Specifics will be required for every product and category.
We know that these changes can seem intimidating and time-consuming. However, it will be worth taking the time to get ahead of these changes now, before the deadline passes.
Fortunately, we have the very tool that will automate this lengthy process for you. Aspect Finder+ is the tool that helps you optimise your Item Specifics, recommended by eBay themselves. In fact, this tool is free for you to use until 30th September 2021, courtesy of eBay.
Additionally, our Aspect finder+ tool has a handy Buyer Demand Indicator which helps you to see the benefits of making these changes. It detects what buyers are regularly searching and filtering for and gives each Item Specific a rating of 1-5 stars.
You can find the exact number of filtered searches from the last 30 days in our Category Lookup tool. This means that although something isn’t currently required, it may well be worth your while populating them anyway. In the example above, ‘item height’ and ‘item width’ are soon to be required, and ‘material’ remains recommended. However, ‘material’ has a 5-star rating, meaning that it is highly used as a filter by customers. This goes to show that going above and beyond what is required will help your boost your likelihood of being found in search.
Ensure you put the work in now and reap the benefits when it comes to the 12th July deadline. You won’t regret it!
Please note that all the category examples are based on UK changes. Generally, these changes are the same internationally.
To fully understand how these changes affect you, please contact us.
For an overview of the mandates across all categories check out this blog post.
If you're a seller in any of the following verticals, we have blog posts to help you:
Sporting Goods
Media
Musical Instruments
Parts & Accessories
Business & Industrial
English
