Item specifics
Item specifics are the labelled details of an eBay listing, such as Brand, Colour or Material, each one a name paired with a value.
- Aspects
- eBay item specifics
What it means
On eBay, every listing carries a set of structured details called item specifics. Each one is a pair: a name, such as Colour, and a value, such as Grey. Which names a listing needs depends on its category, and eBay UK marks each one Required, Recommended or Additional.1
They decide who sees the listing. In eBay’s own words, “When buyers apply filters to search results, only listings with matching information will be shown.”2 So a throw with no Material is invisible to every buyer who filters on acrylic.
eBay’s developer documentation calls the same thing an aspect, and the two words mean the same.3
Think of it like this
They work like the labelled drawers in a hardware shop. A screw in the right drawer is found in seconds. The same screw dropped in a box marked “misc” might never be found at all.
For example
A supplier’s spreadsheet has a column called Composition holding “100% acrylic” and one called Col. holding “Grey/Charcoal”. On eBay they become the item specific Material with the value Acrylic, and Colour with the single value Grey, which a buyer can filter on.
Why it matters
A new or revised listing that leaves out a Required item specific is blocked until it is added.1 Beyond that, every specific left blank is a filter your listing drops out of, so complete and consistent values are how it gets found.
Not to be confused with
Item specifics are separate from the description. A description is free text for people to read, while item specifics are the fields eBay’s search and filters match on.
Sources
- eBay UK Seller Centre. Item specifics.
- eBay UK Seller Centre. Product identifiers.
- eBay Developers Program. Finding categories for a listing.