Depending on your eBay region, there are different algorithms that optiseller try to source fitment compatibility data for your listings.
For cars, the tool runs the algorithms in a hierarchical order, and if a match is found then the remaining algorithms are ignored. For motorcycles, only MML matching is performed. The algorithms are explained in more detail in this document
General rule of thumb for using Optiseller's Parts Compatibility tools:
Scenario | Catalog Matching | MVL / MML Matching | Easy Product Matching |
GTIN information (EAN / UPC / BrandMPN) present on your listings | YES | N/A | YES |
Vehicle information (Make / Model / year) present on your listing titles | N/A | YES | N/A |
I'm unsure | Contact us! |
| = |
If you have the appropriate vehicle data (make / model / etc) or the GTINS (EAN / Brand MPN / etc) available, but these are not on your listings, contact us as we can still provide data for this!
The current configuration for each region is as follows:
Region | Algorithms |
UK, FR, IT, ES, DE | 1. MVL matching 2. Easy Product matching |
MOTORS (US) | 1. Easy Product matching 2. Catalog matching |
AU | 1. Catalog matching 2. MVL matching 3. EasyProduct matching |
Catalog matching
Ebay have a product catalog that can be useful for listing products. This is based on the GTINs (EAN, UPC, Brand MPN) and can provide compatibility data and additional data for your listing such as titles, stock images and item specifics.
For example, in the UK, eBay have over 1 million products in the catalog – details are explained here - https://www.ebay.co.uk/sellercentre/selling/motors/sell-motors-parts
Optiseller’s tools have an option to cross-reference your listing with the eBay Catalog, and this algorithm depends on having the relevant GTINs on your listing (EAN, UPC or Brand MPN).
Master Vehicle List (MVL) & Master Motorcycle List (MML) matching
eBay publish lists of known current vehicles and motorcycles that power the Parts Compatibility feature on the marketplace.
Referencing these on your listings, either by using the KTypes (Vehicles) or Epids (Motorcycles), are they key to allowing potential buyers to find your products that fit the relevant vehicles.
Optiseller’s scan your product listings to attempt to match the vehicles to information in the listing title.
The tool requires to match on at least Make, Model and Year or Year range, but the more information the tool can find, the more accurate the matches provided will be. Some examples are below, getting better going down.
"Ford Mondeo Hatchback" - this would not match as it does not have any year info
"Ford Mondeo 2004" - this would match on Ford Mondeo models that started to be manufactured from 2004
"Ford Mondeo 2004-2007" - this would match on Ford Mondeo models available from 04-07
"Ford Mondeo 2004-2007 Hatchback" - this would match on Ford Mondeo models available from 04-07 with the bodystyle hatchback
"Ford Mondeo 2004-2007 Hatchback 2.2 TDCi" - this would match on Ford Mondeo models available from 04-07 with the bodystyle hatchback and 2.2 TDCi engine
Years can also be provided using 2 digits e.g. 02-04 02 04 etc
The make can normally be derived from the model, for example “Mondeo” would be enough to identify “Ford”
An example of Motorcylce matching is shown below:
And a more detailed example which has matched on Make, Model, Year, CCM and Submodel
If the tool is not providing a match, or a potentially incorrect match there can be a number of reasons for this. However, to help us improve on this if you have any examples or questions please let us know.
An example of a non-match:
Centre foot board cover fairing Honda S-Wing 125 2007-2015
In eBay’s MML, the Model is setup for this bike as “FES” and unfortunately we cannot match on the model (which is required):
Another common scenario is that the year in the Title is either not available in the MVL or MML or is out by one
e.g. “Centre foot board cover fairing Honda S-Wing 125 2006+” would not match the years in the MML.
Easy Product matching
EasyProduct looks at similar listings to source potential fitment data. It does this by using the GTIN (EAN, Brand MPN) data on your listings. Consider the following example
In this case, EasyProduct searches for similar products using “Volkswagen Porsche 7L0959933C”. We can see that there have ben several similar products found.
Easy Product looks for products with the same number of compatibility records (i.e. they have the same number of compatible vehicles). In this case, Easyproduct has found 4 listings with 6 items (highlighted in bold), and as this meets the threshold of at least 3, one is selected.
The output for this product will be the compatibility on the highlighted listing.
For this algorithm to perform, it is important that you have quality EANs or Brand MPNs and there are other vendors selling the product.
Product Matcher (enhanced) matching - coming soon
Product matcher is an enhanced version of EasyProduct and we expect this to supercede this shortly.
In this algorithm, we look at each of the individual vehicles found for all the similar products, and we return the most popular vehicles. So, for example, if we found 20 similar products and 20 of those say that the item is compatible with a Ford Fiesta 2009 hatchback, then we will return that vehicle. However, if there are outliers (e.g. only 2 or 3 of the similar products list a vehicle) these will not be returned.
This is what also powers the Product Suggester tool for P&A
TecDoc matching
This is currently unavailable, but historically, this option allowed users to scan their GTINs against the TecDoc catalog.