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Sun Mar 4 2018 20:03:00

The Case of Vanishing eBay Listings

By: Reader

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Dear Ina,
We have been on eBay since nearly day one, a seller for the better part of that time. While we have had much success on eBay, I see an issue with eBay losing listings that started for us in 2017. By that I mean the listing vanishes as if it never existed.

It doesn't matter if it is a rarely moving listing sales wise, or a hot listing selling big numbers, it just vanishes. It isn't in the unsold. It isn't anywhere. My sync software could have a listing on eBay setting with large quantity or setting idle with zero quantity, it just simply vanishes at eBay.

eBay of course is no help as far as tracking a listing number and the wonderment of where it went. With the SKU count level we "try" to maintain on eBay, I have had to devote one of my team members to spend a significant portion of time checking or watch dogging this stuff.

Here is what is happening for example, in an audit of one small subset of our inventory consisting of 83 SKUs or listings, 18 of those SKUs have just vanished as of today Feb 27, 2018. This has happened since Jan 1, 2018. And that is a significant percentage of that subset of those particular listings. Each of these 83 SKUs or listing were newer listings built in eBay at or around a certain date in 2017.

I highly suspect that there is or was a problem in eBay's distributed resources, at least for those listings built in 2017. The 18 of 83 SKUs I mention are but a small number of the listings we have found missing in 2017 and 2018 so far. Jack the SKU count or listing numbers up to 5000 for our year 2017 created listings as an example, and it becomes a significant headache.

I've seen some pretty complex IT structure and can make reasonable guesses at the why of this, but who knows how really widespread this is, is it just a small few sellers that happened to be using a particular infrastructure resource at the time, or does it have much deeper reach or failure?

It isn't for just one eBay account either, we have several selling different things and it has happened across all of those accounts although to a much lesser degree. No one will probably ever know. And who knows if newer listings may suffer the same fate.

But the point of my letter, if you have loads of listings you MIGHT have unlisted stuff setting on your warehouse shelf that you think is listed.
Best regards!
D.

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Readers Comments

The Case of Vanishing eBay Listings

by: dander

Mon Mar 5 15:26:38 2018

I see that on occasion, what gets me is on my listings with multiple types, ebay doesn't always update properly when its relisting them. They need to fix glitches before becoming new and improved

The Case of Vanishing eBay Listings

by: BargainzBabylon

Mon Mar 5 16:27:45 2018

This has been going on for years - about every quarter I collect up the listings that have been lost (completely) and re-do them. I'm a little rinky-dink seller so if this happens to me, I can imagine the headache this causes for the big sellers.

This goes along with the mysterious 'ghost' listings where something will appear for sale within a few days after it has sold. It won't appear in one's listings in seller hub, it appears on the site. This results in a defect when the sale has to be canceled. eBay has been notified about this over and over - they acknowledge a site glitch but nothing is done - we take the hit.

I understand how these things can happen given databases, but on top of the other constant glitches and problems, it's irritating.

The Case of Vanishing eBay Listings

by: ladywoodspirit

Mon Mar 5 17:57:26 2018

I noticed quite a few of my listings had vanished several months ago. In looking for the couple of items I realized had disappeared, I decided to match my inventory to my listings. I was shocked at how many items I know I had listed, were simply gone.

The Case of Vanishing eBay Listings

by: geoffreymason

Mon Mar 5 20:08:48 2018

Paperegoy: You'd better check the new listings, as well. Age seems to have nothing to do with it.

The Case of Vanishing eBay Listings

by: Tiffee Jasso

Mon Mar 5 21:40:48 2018

Yes I have had this happen and I have no SKU numbers on my things. And over the years I have had numerous sold items relisted and I do not use Good until Cancelled sales. I find out about the relisted item when it sells again. One item sold twice and I found it relisted and back up for sale again. Frustrating considering most of my other stock gets any search engine exposure.

The Case of Vanishing eBay Listings

by: 2Tired4This

Tue Mar 6 15:46:08 2018

I wonder if our Vanishing eBay Listings are gone to the same place as our Vanishing eBay Shoppers and Buyers....

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