Don't you hate it when you sell something and can't find it!!!

[musicyouneed]

I sold a CD tonight around 6 PM and I just found it after looking for it for almost 6 hours.  Normally I am very organized as i sell CD's and I have about 10,000 at home.  I have 4 CD stands and also about 40 boxes.  Most of the CD's I list I put them alphabetically in one of the stands, well it wasn't there, panic set it.   I looked at my pictures to find out what I listed it with and when so if I found them I would find the missing one.  Sure enough I found them.  

Normally I wouldn't worry too much, I have a 2 day handling time but I like to get them out the next day.  Also I am working a full time contract job for the next 3 weeks so I didn't have much time to look. 

Have you ever misplaced anything you sold?

[femmefan1946]

Daily.

I am a blonde  senior.

What's your excuse?

[photosalp]

Oh man, way more times than I want to admit. At least 95% of my stock is well organized, but people only buy the other 5%. Once a year I go through my inventory to match it up with what's listed on eBay. What amazes me when I do this is how many listings have magically disappeared. I have the stock, and I know it was listed at one time, but it's no longer on eBay. Can't sell stuff if peeps can't see it. 

I'm a senior, but grey hair. Don't remember if I was ever blonde. Memory is the second thing to go, but I don't remember what the first thing is. 

[ricarmic]

I file by the item number.

Normally I use the last 3 digits of the item, that's how I file stuff, however I have different places for different sized things ie boxes in one place, wee envelopes in another, medium envelopes in another.

Usually panic doesn't set in until I've checked the various places and have run out without the item.

Then I start looking for the transposition errors ie 467 could be 476, or 647. I like doing that.

Then I have to check stuff from other sites as they're stored separately.

Then panic really sets in.

I have had situations where the "same" item had the same last 3 digits and I sent the wrong one to the first buyer.....ooops.

So far I'm only "medium old".....but it seems to be getting worse each year....

[sylviebee]

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@musicyouneed wrote:

Have you ever misplaced anything you sold?

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Yes.

When that happens it's always for items sold for a few dollars.  (Geez, I just made a few $s / hour selling that thingy it took me 3 hours to put my fingers on.  Yuck.)  Wish I could just walk away.

Hate when that happens.  

[momcqueen]

I can identify with that sinking feeling in the pit of one's stomach when it isn't in the first place one looks, and then the panic that begins to set in when it's also not in the second. Stage three is nausea. Stage four is hyperventilating. I've always found what I needed before hitting stage five. My inventory is organized like the Temple of Doom. I built this mess, and only I know where things are supposed to be and which places are booby-trapped. 

[lucitabby]

Oh yes, a nightmare feeling.

I have everything in one room so I know it has to be here somewhere.  OR - I do a couple antique shows each year, did I take it to a show and God forbid, sell it???  OR - did I get fed up seeing it and took it to Goodwill??

No - after hours searching and my husband thinking I'm insane as I rip through cupboards, boxes and envelopes, I find it.

Another blonde/grey/white senior having fun.

[recped]

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@musicyouneed wrote:

I sold a CD tonight around 6 PM and I just found it after looking for it for almost 6 hours.  Normally I am very organized as i sell CD's and I have about 10,000 at home.  I have 4 CD stands and also about 40 boxes.  Most of the CD's I list I put them alphabetically in one of the stands, well it wasn't there, panic set it.   I looked at my pictures to find out what I listed it with and when so if I found them I would find the missing one.  Sure enough I found them.  

Normally I wouldn't worry too much, I have a 2 day handling time but I like to get them out the next day.  Also I am working a full time contract job for the next 3 weeks so I didn't have much time to look. 

Have you ever misplaced anything you sold?

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I'm still looking for the Prince phone card I sold in 2004. I took a picture, listed it and sold it 7 days later (Auction),,,,,been looking every since!

[rosscd57]

Yep I hate it when I restore a vintage radio and then put it on the shelf until it sells 

Then when it sells,I plug it in to test if before packaging and it will not work.

Well - it gives me something to do.

[jt-libra]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

I can identify with that sinking feeling in the pit of one's stomach when it isn't in the first place one looks, and then the panic that begins to set in when it's also not in the second. Stage three is nausea. Stage four is hyperventilating. I've always found what I needed before hitting stage five.

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Funny!!  I`m very well organized but I`ve experienced that on more than one occasion.

[reallynicestamps]

What amazes me when I do this is how many listings have magically disappeared.

That one really threw me when I culled my stock before moving out West.

I had 10 bookcases full of books that had been described, scanned, and uploaded.

Yet somehow a good third of them were no longer on eBay.

Better than selling something and having it magically relist itself, I suppose.

[triber]

Been there, done that! I HATE it. I have searched and searched for items, and even got up in the middle of the night to search again in all the same places I have already searched several times before.

I once lost a leaflet and had to refund the payment and explain the problem. Months later, I was checking a book and the leaflet had slipped between the pages.

A couple of times I have had a second sale of something that I had already recently sold because it had stayed in my store, but it took a lot of searching to discover that.

I think I am very organized, but I sell such a variety of items and live in a small bungalow, so things are stored all over, so being a senior (and blonde), I sometimes forget where I have carefully stored something!

[musicyouneed]

What are we all seniors?  I'll be 65 this year, where did my life go, seems I have misplaced that too?  

I could especially relate to the seller who has 95% of his stuff organized and 5% not and wouldn't you know it, the items in the 5% sell.

I really enjoyed everyone's stories about lost items and the emotions  we all go through from "oh, I find it, to Oh no, how will the defect affect me". 

[ricarmic]

If we weren't (remember I'm only "medium old") and if us posters were our kids age, our responses would all be written quite differently, mine would have been like this instead:

heh

I fil by #

last 3 digs, in man placs

pan if can loct

bad nums, u no WIM.

sums bad other num WTH

but alls good

[zee-chan]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

Daily.

I am a blonde  senior.

What's your excuse?

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Doesn't happen with me daily, maybe every couple months.

My excuse? My mom calls my room a dumpster. 

It rarely happens with my books since they are all in boxes specifically for books.. If it's not in Box 1, it'd either be in Box 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5...) but I'll usually find them within 15 minutes. My other items are usually the ones that catch me because sometimes I sold them locally and forgot to take them off eBay... so if it's custom-made items I immediately send an order to my maker to ship directly to the buyer (results in no revenue because it's much pricier to make and send only one), if it's something else that is out-of-print I either ask my buyer if they could pick a similar item or full-refund. So far my buyers have all been nice about it. So far I have had only one instance of finding the item months after the sale (after I sent a new one from the maker to the buyer).

And I also have the problem of older listings disappearing from eBay... I'd say probably at least 50-80 listings disappeared throughout the years and I have been too lazy to relist those because I can't find my photos in my computer...

[westernstargifts]

Senior?...yes.  Gray?...my daughter said I am blonde at heart and that 'blonde' is beginning to come out in my hair.

I lose 1 or 2 things a year which usually show up at some point, usually where they are supposed to be but stuck in with another item.  I take deep breaths to stifle off a panic attack while checking to see if I filed rings with earrings, etc.  If I can't find it after many searches I usually offer the buyer a discount on a similar product or a full refund.  Most buyers are very cooperative when I admit that I either misplaced something or relisted it in error.  And even if they don't take me up on the discount offer they are much more likely to leave good feedback.

And I have also noticed that some listings just "disappear" from eBay.

[Anonymous]

Yes it happened to me a few times once in a while.  And that is why I started to organize them in categories and hopefully it is working this time.

[momcqueen]

Is it possible that some of the mysterious missing ebay listings stemmed from Unpaid Item Cases that closed?

I've always found the workflow to relist an unpaid item that has closed without payment to be sort of silly. It vanishes once the case is closed without payment: not active, not sold and awaiting payment, one has to dig into the Resolution Centre and find it there but not even obviously, Relist is part of the dropdown menu. Auto-Relist on Unpaid Item cases should be considered. The ebay listings I've had that disappeared were all Closed Unpaid Item Cases that I missed digging out to relist manually for whatever reason.

It is frustrating to find closed unpaid case items that vanished from ebay while looking for sold items that have moved themselves. 

[zee-chan]

Not for my listings. I haven't had to open a lot of unpaid cases (probably 10 tops over all these years). My "missing" listings are all very old... I got a bunch of my older collection of books that I started listing when I was new here and most of them have disappeared. And the ones that are still surviving, probably 1/3 of them don't have descriptions (eBay ate them then left behind a few jumbled letters) but luckily the pictures are there so it's still somewhat self-explanatory. I used turbolister often back then so it might have been the turbolister that messed them up?

Time is limited so I usually dedicate them to posting newer books from my ever growing collection... and sometimes when I decide to spend a day adding listings, I get called from work because someone's sick so I end up working instead of updating listings lol. 

[reallynicestamps]

Since books can be slow sellers, I often see those 'no sales for the past 16 months' notifications.

At first I just ignored them but then I took to closing them and relisting with Sell Similar.

The disappearing listings may have been removed without notice (and erratically) by eBay before their legalists mentioned they probably should be giving a heads up to sellers about those elderly listings.