Preparing and Optimising data for a new e-commerce channel can be time consuming. Using the eBay Data Optimisation Platform you can upload your new listing data and get an output file of those listings ready to be uploaded onto the eBay Platform.

The data file should be a csv or text file less than 80MB

The data file should include mandatory columns

Ensure all of your columns within your data file contain data!

You can see an see an example file within the tool, before uploading your product data.

The eBay Data Optimisation Platform is a standalone tool.

Currently you can use the tool for the UK and Germany.

Allows the user to know where they are in the self-service journey, via the activity summary panel (Set up, Categorisation, Apply Variations, Product Optimisation, Review and Export) and becomes a guide the user gets redirected to, in order to establish the status, actions and support to complete each step in the journey with service details & support panel.

Data Optimisation Hub

Once purchased click on the eBay Data Optimisation Platform button.

This will take you into the Data Optimisation Hub here you can click on Upload Data button in order to upload your data file.

On the Region & Category Selection screen you will need to select your store region (currently available to UK and Germany). Together with your eBay Top Level Category or categories.

Please select the region you want to prepare data for. The region you select will affect the categories you have access to as these are determined by region. Once a region is selected choose the high-level category/categories that represent your products. If you sell in many different categories it’s best to select all to prevent missing anything. If your products fall into a narrow range of categories it’s best to pick the categories to allow us to suggest more categories for you.

L1 categories are the highest level of category that covers a broad range of products.

Scroll to the bottom of this page when you have chosen your Category/Categories and click on the green Save and Continue button.

At the Data Uploader screen you can upload your product data as a csv or txt file.

Rows in your data should represent individual products and columns should represent product attributes. Variations are supported and require you to have identified them by grouping variation products using a unique ID or Code often referred to as Parent SKU or Variation Group ID (without this the tool will not generate variations). See the example section above.

Once you have uploaded your data file the Upload & Continue button will turn green

click on this to Upload & Continue.

Attribute Mapper

Moving you to the Attribute Mapper screen.

The attribute mapper allows you to take your product data headings (seen in the dropdown lists) and map them to our Optiseller attributes. Doing this allows us to interpret your data file for categorisation, and optimisation.

Can’t remember what data you store against each header? Use the data preview to see a sample of your original file.

To preview the data file you uploaded click on "Preview your original file"

You can use the dropdown options in the Attribute Mapper to match your data file column headings to the Attribute Mapper as the example below shows.

Once this is done you can see your data file headings in the left hand Aspect Map.

You can then continue to map your data to the Attribute Mapper where appropriate and once you are ready you can scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Upload with Mapping”.

Your data will then be categorised and move into the categorisation stage. As we saw in the Data Optimisation Hub.

Times may vary in how long this process takes depending on the number of products and categories your data file includes, however, you will be emailed once it is complete.

If your product data file already contains variations in the Aspect Mapper screen select the checkbox and map the column in your data that contains the parent SKU that groups variants together.

The Data Optimisation Hub will show that the data is Processing until it is ready to Review.

Here you can map your original categories to eBay categories. Where we’re confident, we’ve applied the category but where we’re less sure we’ve made a suggestion.

If we leave a category blank it’s because we couldn’t find a match within the high-level categories selected earlier in the process. If you need help identifying a correct category you can use 'More Suggestions' on the right of the table or select 'Empty' to access the category suggester tool or access the category lookup tool by clicking . If eBay categories don’t directly match to your categories, you can select the value in the SKUs column to categorise all the products in your category at a product level.

Once the Categorisation process is complete you should receive an email notification.

Once you click on Review you will be taken to the Categorisation screen.

The categorisation stage will show based on your data file:

If we leave a category blank it’s because we couldn’t find a match within the high-level categories selected earlier in the process. If you need help identifying a correct category you can use 'More Suggestions' on the right of the table or select 'Empty' to access the category suggester tool or access the category lookup tool by clicking in the Market Category ID column. If eBay categories don’t directly match to your categories, you can select the value in the SKUs column to categorise all the products in your category at a product level.

Also in the Data Categorisation screen you can:

Once you are ready, click on Confirm Mappings and this moves you to the Product Optimisation stage.

Once you have completed the Categorisation stage you can apply variations (should your data include variations).

At the Variation Optimiser screen you can define the attributes that your products vary on. Products are broken down into categories to allow you to work quickly and apply bulk changes if required. Remember, listing your products as variants can reduce your listing fees as well as produce better performing listings.

Set Variations by choosing your varying attribute on the left and mapping it to an eBay attribute. If no suitable eBay attribute is available select ‘None’

Once completed click on confirm.

Again the time it takes to process your data can vary and again you will receive an email once this is complete.

Once you receive an email you can then Review and Export your data. Click on the Review button and this will take you to Aspect Finder + Summary screen.

Optimisation Overview Summary

The Optimisation Overview displays a summary of completeness for your products. Organised into categories, the table shows how many products have data missing per classification (e.g. Required, Required Soon, Recommended and Additional) as well as the total number of listings per category. You can also use this page to import additional data and export to a number of different pre-defined formats. To get started select the category name to view the report for that category.

You can drill into a specific category to gain further insight into how your Item Specifics currently stand and how you can improve them prior to downloading your data file.

Those of you who are new to Aspect Finder+ or those that could do with a refresh we have features within Aspect Finder+ designed to save you time and effort when updating and improving your Item Specifics.

I have also attached a few short videos that should help.

Bulk Update - Filter, Find and Replace (Item Specifics)

Update Recommended and Suggested Item Specifics in Bulk.

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