Markdown Manager meltdown: item prices still reduced after sale has ended

[momcqueen]

Has anyone else noticed a peculiarity with their Markdown Manager? I had a sale end last night. It was for ten per cent reduction and applied to between 130 and 140 items.  

The items in question are all still for sale but the sale is over. Markdown Manager sees the sale is over because it allows me to filter the items via 'excluding items on sale' BUT they are, in fact, still on sale despite the sale being concluded at 11 pm last night. The listing itself gives the discounted price but no indicator as to when the markdown ends as is usually the case. 

Should I wait this out and hope it self-corrects? I am reluctant to add the items which aren't on sale but still show as on sale to another sale if it's going to cause some kind of catastrophic Markdown Manager meltdown. 

Examples:

331680403568

231709849476

331672358615

[fmwsells]

FYI. I spoke with the ebay advanced appliactions department. I was told that the problem is fixed. So, going forward we should not encounter a similar problem. The bad news is that the only solution provided to fix the affected listings is to manually edit the prices of the items in order to end the promotion. The bulk edit tool can help, but it is a lot of work.

[momcqueen]

True. Revising Shipping Preferences will also put a hasty end to markdowns.

I, however, don't have much luck with the bulk relist editor lately. It was stripping item specifics from my listings, moving items into the wrong categories, and adding incorrect product catalogue details to my items... so I won't touch most things with it using a ten-foot pole. 

At this stage, I might just ride out the still-on-sale-but-not-on-sale markdowns until the listings come to their natural 30-day conclusion. 

Thank you for the follow-ups.

[momcqueen]

Now I can't delete any inactive sale: the dropdown menu button is dead. The v. Whatever it's actually called, the thing which is supposed to show you the option to delete. 

[momcqueen]

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m10/i21/s01

eBay Fails to Notify Sellers of Costly Glitch By Ina Steiner 
EcommerceBytes.com 
October 21, 2015

Sellers say eBay failed to notify them of a glitch this week that is impacting the prices of their goods. eBay Store subscribers who use a feature called Markdown Manager to run a sale, such as a percentage off on certain types of goods, discovered that eBay was not ending sales ....

[ricarmic]

Hmmm my sale runs until the end of October, theoretically I should be ok then since mine has not yet ended??

If not I have a problem, my on sale items are very old (like 5-7 years) so if I change them I get zapped having to update the stuff that has been grandfathered.... and there are 250 items on sale......uggghhhh

[momcqueen]

When I tried again to delete the inactive sale(s), the drop-down menu appeared in the top left-hand corner of the page when the button I was attempting to click was at the bottom right. I raised this at Board Hour and R said it was being sent to the proper team for a fix. See it there under the Marketing Tools header? I wonder if that's where it had appeared this morning as well. I certainly wasn't looking in that spot. 

[momcqueen]

AHEM. 

Why was this only posted to the EBAYDOTCOM Announcements and not those of ebay.ca? Like, thanks but I am a registered buyer and seller to ebay.ca and this affected me. 

http://announcements.ebay.com/2015/10/ebay-stores-subscribers-weve-identified-an-issue-with-the-mark...

eBay Stores subscribers: We’ve identified an issue with the Markdown Manager functionality, and are making things right 

On Friday, October 16, we updated the eBay Stores Markdown Manager feature. Due to an error within the update, price markdowns and free shipping offers that should have ended between 8:30 PM PT October 16 and 6:30 AM PT October 19 did not end as scheduled. Note: New offers created with Markdown Manager during this time were not affected, unless they were scheduled to end between 8:30 PM PT October 16 and 6:30 AM PT October 19.

We have identified—and corrected—the error that led to this situation. Know that no action is required by you, and we are working diligently to make things right, as follows:

• All active promotions that should have ended during this window will be fixed by 11:45 PM PT today, Wednesday, October 21.
• All impacted listings will be protected from receiving defects for cancelled transactions—if this error caused you to lose money on a transaction, you can cancel it, without penalty.
• Affected sellers will receive refunds, as follows:
  • If you had an impacted listing that ended in a purchase after your intended scheduled end date, you’ll have your final value fees refunded for the transaction.
  • If you ended and relisted an item in order to solve this issue, you’ll have your insertion fees refunded, as well.
  • We will communicate with sellers receiving refunds by the end of this week.

Please know we are doing everything we can to correct this situation for everyone that was impacted. We apologize for any disruption to you and your business.

As always, thank you for being a part of the eBay community.

Sincerely,

The eBay Team

[momcqueen]

Don't get me wrong: I am thrilled to see ebay has taken ownership of the situation but this again makes it look like no one ever really cares about the sellers on ebay.ca. I would also love to bring attention to a well-said comment/question by another member made last night on the 2015 Fall Seller Update thread that highlights this as well and it would appear that, despite that thread remaining open, ebay.ca staff has stopped responding questions there. 

Is anyone listening?

[momcqueen]

ebay has obviously been working on this still, behind-the-scenes, because the first of my markdowns to NOT end has magically reappeared this morning. In the span of editing my other sales, the phantom ten per cent reductions turned themselves off. Everything is now 100 per cent back to normal with my markdowns, I am pleased to report. I'm left unsure as to how many of my recent transactions were affected by this. 

[momcqueen]

IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN.

Markdown ended on 133 items at Oct 28 at 23:59 EST and they went off-sale as per usual yesterday but automagibay have all gone back on sale today. Right now, those listings are 25 per cent reduced again. 

I'm really starting to lose my cool with this. 

[ricarmic]

Arghhh. My sales close on the 31st. I'll advise what happens with them after they "close"....

[momcqueen]

Back to normal this morning. 

Argh.

[momcqueen]

Back to messed up this morning. One long dead (inactive) sale resurrected after being deleted. Another that should have ended and saying 'inactive' still going strong. 

[ricarmic]

Hi Mjwl! I checked mine, mine closed on Oct 31st and I restarted them on November 1.

All the closed ones are closed as they should be, and the new ones are running as they should be.

Mine were "rolled over" so to speak before the latest problems which is likely why I'm ok... but I thought it worth checking and advising....

[kiralicious]

I guess this is an ONGOING issue as I woke up today to find all my items are still on sale even though my sale ended at 23.59 November 15th 😞 . 

[momcqueen]

Mine misbehaved sporadically in the weeks that followed it being 'fixed' too with the difference being the markdowns would go past the sale end date but then fix themselves fairly quickly without my having to intervene. It's kind of incredible (in a not-good way) that this would be an ongoing issue for so many of us. I dearly wish that they'd stop trying to do stuff like this -- updates, improvements, whatever -- in the fall when all our livelihoods are on the line for the holidays. Early March... fine. Late November? Not so fine.

[ecgt]

I just had this happen to me today (for the second time since October). However, the markdown ended last night properly and then about an hour ago everything went back on sale for half an hour. I only noticed because an item sold when this happened. I will take the sale, but am not impressed by this. All of my items are now mysteriously no longer on sale.

[momcqueen]

Are you around on Wednesdays at 1 pm EST? You might want to raise this at Board Hour. When the Markdown Manager first went awry, I seem to recall that ebay was telling sellers they could cancel any purchase that was made when the item was on erroneous sale without penalty BUT if you actually wanted to do that you'd be best to check that ahead of time. I would not want to you cancel on my advice and then find out the pledge won't be honoured any more. 

[ecgt]

I've dealt with Raphael and company on Wednesdays multiple times in the past with great success. I won't be able to this week because of a flight that I will be on. I have no interest in cancelling any transactions, but am concerned about the glitch. If others are still having this happen to them please take the time to bring this up on Wednesday, as they may not realize that there is still a problem.