For a long time, eBay have wanted to shift to a selling environment that’s more catalog-based. That means they have to ask sellers to change their behavior and put in additional work, at least in the short term, which can make them feel overwhelmed and reluctant to play ball.
However, eBay says that once you’ve added product identifiers to your listings, you’ll be able to tap into a number of benefits including:
Increased exposure – according to eBay, sellers who implement product identifiers get better placement in Best Match as well as more merchandising opportunities.
Better ranking in search engines – listings with product identifiers tend to have a higher ranking when it comes to search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Faster listing process – linking to the eBay catalog means you can instantly access data to prefill your listing, so you don’t have to manually enter information.
Product reviews – product reviews are incredibly influential for shoppers and they depend on having a product identifier to know when the same product appears in different listings.
Trending price alert – listings that have been assigned a product identifier automatically get a “trending price” alert when they are priced below the typical level.
Better pricing advice – eBay can provide pricing guidance to help sellers compete and remain profitable.
Group similar listings – like Amazon’s Buy Box, eBay has now introduced an Our Pick feature that groups similar products together and chooses one seller to get the sale when a buyer clicks Buy It Now.