When the merger between eBay and PayPal, which lasted for more than a decade, called quits in 2014, many wise minds predicted that the journey ahead for the online marketplace would be full of thorns. But with an astounding jump in revenue from $2.275 billion to $2.325 billion in the last quarter of the previous year, it established a strong stand-alone presence in the market.
Organic search through search engines plays an important role in driving traffic towards your eCommerce Store. It plays an instrumental role in bringing new users to the site. But eBay’s product listings are not as consistently structured as the retailers would want them to be. This makes the job of search engines (like Google & Bing) of indexing eBay inventory an uphill task. In order to compete with other eCommerce giants like Amazon, eBay is making a serious effort in gathering a more structured data on its listings.
Efficiently structured data gives your products increased exposure in wider organic searches. It makes it easier for the user to find items on the site with more precise searches.
How Does It Affect The Seller?
eBay is asking sellers to maintain consistency in their listing information by properly filling all specific fields described in individual items. It also impressed them upon the mandatory use of product identifiers in listings.
Is It a Good Time to Revisit your eBay Strategy?
With eBay pushing the sellers to stick to the new guidelines, many are failing to address the platform’s requirement for more structured data. Apart from being more listing-centric and focused on selling a large number of your products, maintaining a structured data architecture keeps your listings clean and succinct. If you want your listings to be more effective, you need your eBay product listing team to focus on the following:
Item Specifics
To ensure that your item is classified into the right categories, fill out all the fields describing the specifications of the product. Shoppers search through left-hand filters. There is a good chance of them missing your item altogether if you leave these fields empty. If your item description is complete, it gives your customers the opportunity to make a more informed decision on their purchase.
Product Identifiers
If you are a seller of new or refurbished products, according to eBay guidelines, the inclusion of product identifiers is compulsory to complete listings in certain categories. Information like brand, manufacturer part number (MPN) and global trade number (GTINs) reserves a special category under product identifiers, and must be included. This increases overall visibility in eBay search results and improves your ranking on search engines (like Google).
Moreover, including identifiers gives you a couple of added benefits, like:
- Well defined pricing guidelines when you list your items
- The power to match your item with a product from the more robust eBay catalog
- Details you about trending price alerts – when your products are priced lower than the trending price, and vice versa
If you add identifiers, even if they are not exactly required for your category, eBay says that you’ll get early competitive edge.
If you have any eBay Listing Services to be catered to, please drop a mail at info@suntecindia.com to get a free quote.
