Bulk Selling Inventory Problems

[quitesomething]

About 20 times in the last month, Buyers have purchased stock from me...THAT I DON'T HAVE!

When products are purchased, it appears that the true count of my inventory is wrong after the sale.

The purchased products are sometimes not subtracted from amount I have left.

This results in buyers purchasing an item that was not subtracted and showing I have some left when it should show Zero as the last Buyer bought all of that product.

Quite frustrating to refund Buyers who think you have the product, purchase it, and I don't have it to send.

This can result in negative feedback because the Buyer sometimes doesn't believe you.

I have thousands of cards for sale and can't keep going through them all looking for eBay glitches, I did some yesterday and it took 13 hours and I hardly made a dent.

It was amazing how many cards shown as in stock were different amounts than what I physically had, multiple times I had 3 less than what was shown on my Bulk Listings.

Also when you edit the listing, the pictures go missing!!!

Apparently other sellers are having the same problem?

[femmefan1946]

While I rarely have more than two of any given product, it is not unusual for a one of a kind item that has been sold to mysteriously relist itself.

This has been going on for decades and eBay does not seem to know how to stop it.

Since my items tend to be OOAK, I can from time to time put them in alphabetical order and scan the list for duplications- which show up together making the scan easy.

This would not work for someone who has five or 20 of a single item on a variation listing, but I'm sure others will be reading this thread, since it is a very common problem.

Worse.

EBay hands out Defects for cancellations of  Out Of Stock items. Faced with the problem, the only out I can think of is apologizing to the disappointed customer and asking if HE wants to cancel.  If he does this turns the OOS into a Buyer Request  and keeps your seller account "clean".

[femmefan1946]

Another thought-- If you have 20 items available, do you list all of them? Or do you list 15 available and then when you get down to five in stock and a (probably) closed listing, relist as Sell Similar with the correct number? 
This might also have the effect of making your item appear rarer and more attractive.

It's annoying that we have to use such subterfuges.