On June 29, 2015, eBay began requiring Product Identifiers on products in certain categories. Take a look at eBay's Spring 2015 Update for more information.
What you need to know:
- Affected items include: business/industrial, camera/photo, cell phone, clothing and all apparel, computer, electronics, media, eBay motors, health/beauty, sporting goods and more.
- This means you need to enter a UPC, MPN and Brand, ISBN or EAN.
- If you list new items that are considered white-label, custom manufactured, samples not for retail, or other types of new or refurbished products that do not have product identifiers, eBay requires "Does not apply" in the UPC field. There is a switch in SureDone that will set the appropriate settings.
When this is on, it will override the value of the UPC field with "Does Not Apply" before sending to eBay. It does this for EAN, ISBN and UPC mapped fields too. It only does it if there is an actual value in those fields, otherwise it behaves just like there is nothing in that field to begin with. The toggle is off by default.
eBay Regulations:
If the product identifier does exist and you enter "Does not apply" in the required field, your item will lose search visibility—meaning, shoppers will have a harder time finding your item on eBay and on external search engines.
If you are receiving a message that the UPC is invalid, a product identifier would only get rejected if:
- Not a valid product identifier
- Already associated to a different product.
- If you're having trouble with a UPC, you can validate them online (search for 'UPC validator' online).
- If you are entering a confirmed, valid UPC and it is not conflicting with an existing product already in the eBay catalog, please contact eBay Customer Service to troubleshoot.
Adding to a bulk upload:
Use the header “ebayupcnot” to list Does Not Apply on UPC required listings.
- TRUE – ON
- FALSE – OFF
- This is set off by default. So you can either leave it blank if you want it to be off.
Warning: If items are already listed and you are trying to update the live listing with this, or if you already have bids on an auction-style listing, you cannot edit the listing.