THEIR BACK AT IT AGAIN EBAY AND LISTINGS

[dobo5250]

they are back at it again ebay messing with my listings again how  many times does this have to happen --- lost 25 listings over night gone nowhere to be found --- has happened repeatly to me over the last year or so but iam top seller now so why punish me again-- when it was 1 or two a day i didn't mind now it was over 25 last night -- i am already down about 50 listings from where i should be -- where are they? why are they not there ?or anywhere to be found  -- this sucks again as ebay software i assume screwed up -- hope they are not punishing me like last time when i lost over 600 listings -- i really do wish another site would take the leadership role on reselling -- at least my sales have been rather ok for the start of august --- but only when i run deep discount free shipping and below my cost so iam losing money kind of sales do i get those sales -- but at least sales -- now if i could find those lost listings -- some of which i know where some of my best sellers --- where do they go anyone knows --- forget help desk -- they can barly speak english - to understand the script  they are reading to you - of pat anwers -- oh well back to the trenches maybe i  will do a inventory to see what is missing last time it took me a month of cross referencing item to listings   and i still have 35 items to relist from that mess  new pictures new descriptions etc.-- 

when i first started it was easy to sell here -- now its more trouble than worth -- but i have storage locker and ebay  store rent to pay  before i can quit- each month i bearly cover costs with those visa charges taking away any profit most times -- maybe  just maybe  this month will be better -- maybe --i have to hope i have nothing left but that now -----

[reallynicestamps]

devon@ebay 

What might be happening here?
I have had the odd item disappear, but since my listings are long tail that is more annoying than upsetting.
At one time eBay did remind sellers when a Listing had been up for over 16 months so we could make decisions about it.
Without that Notice, we could have shelves of unlisted goods which we don't know are unlisted.

I found one of those last night. (And the catalogue value had doubled!)

[fergua3]

are you sure they are disappearing?   They may be renewing after 30 days..... sometimes, it can take several hours for them to reappear on ebay.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@fergua3 wrote:

are you sure they are disappearing?   They may be renewing after 30 days..... sometimes, it can take several hours for them to reappear on ebay.

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@dobo5250 

@fergua3 

@reallynicestamps 

I've personally never gotten a message from ebay regarding longtail. I have a number of them. One accidentally sold the other day. Maybe eBay needs to find a way to give longtail a bump vs  brand new listings which for some sellers sell a few seconds after hitting send. I know. Those are items that buyers have put in their saved searches. A feature that is awesome when it kicks in!!!

The above reported issue by OP is one that  eBay refuses to properly acknowledge. Some of it may be lag time with repopulating but that is not the entire story. My current listing count and the number that shows it the search box for my store routinely vary. The 2 numbers "should" jive. This was reported a few months back as a known issue on the dot com board. Because of how ebay NOW acknowledges tech issues, the history of when it was resolved no longer displays on the discussion post that only eBay has access to. Makes it hard to know if it is an issue that never was completely resolved.

I am aware of another Canadian seller that had a running discrepancy with their listings with approx. 15 listings MIA at any one time. In speaking to Facebook help they were able to acknowledge the discreapancy and get the number to magically close to match. The discrepancy when speaking to the seller is now hovering around 15. They have been selling regularly close to 3 years. There are no holds as per CS with their account. They do notice if they create a listing in a category out of the normal day to day type items it can take a few days to automagically appear but those are 1 ofs. 

Sadly this is still a thing. Transparency as to the why and recognition at eBay's end would be great.

-Lotz

Current results. 1878 live listings in sellers hub. 1875 using store search. Testing most recently listed in search brings up the listing no problem. Tested in incognito and search found the item without problem. The missing listings are random.

[dobo5250]

well some good hope this morning 17 of lost listings showed up for no reason - so back to 1817 listings from 1800 lsitings yesterday  still not where it should be but at about 1850 but i take what i can get right now --  the tinkering goes on by ebay - sometimes against you sometimes for you -- strange strange 

[fergua3 · Accepted solution]

so again.  are you SURE it's not just listings rolling over and being renewed after 30 days?  With 1800 listings, on average about 60 would renew per day.  The ones that 'magically reappear' could just be the renwed listings re-indexing and showing up again.  And if it is listings renewing, you would, on average be down 50 or 60 listings always, since that many would be rolling over each day.

What might be happening is the roll over and re-indexing is much slower than usual, just like managed payment processing times, charges for ebay labels etc are slower than usual right now, so the 'missing listings' are more obvious to you because, during normal times, they may roll over so fast you just never notice them missing.

[dobo5250]

thanks for the inout some good ideas in your post --- since the support people haven't a clue  that could a cause you talk about indexing  being slow -- yesterday i relisted s few items took hours befor they where posted -- iam up to 1817 listings right now so still down about 25 listing from what should be -- i will keep hoping it is what you say and they will turn up someday ------- by the way sales are prety avg this week -- so iam keeping my fingers crossed it continues 

[dobo5250]

MONDAY AUG 12 -- listing at 1800 listings  should be at 1870  so down about 70 listings today --  and i can only put on sale 1785 lsitings today for a four day sale i was running  on my whole store -- wow things are sure screwey -- but at least sales are consistant  with one every other day - that at least is better than before --- on with the war with ebay 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@dobo5250 wrote:

MONDAY AUG 12 -- listing at 1800 listings  should be at 1870  so down about 70 listings today --  and i can only put on sale 1785 lsitings today for a four day sale i was running  on my whole store -- wow things are sure screwey -- but at least sales are consistant  with one every other day - that at least is better than before --- on with the war with ebay 

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devon@ebay 

Could you please address this issue. It had a ticket in the USA that was open for a number of months and has now been closed as considered resolved. It is still happening. Unsure how widespread it is  but I have heard the same issue reported by other Canadian sellers. It gives the impression that sellers listings are being physically hidden by eBay for no reason. 

Below are my current displays. In the past few days I've created 2 listings. Before creating those listings system was showing 1870 to buyers

Sellers Hub:

View Store:

Active Listings list format:

(Listing totals should be actual not approximate)

 In speaking to another seller who has had this ongoing discrepancy with their listing totals, (It was hovering between 15 and 7) they spoke to CS who was able to confirm and see similar results. They(cs) were able to cause that 15 number  to drop to 7 but they were unable to explain why and where those missing listings were and what they did to make the totals almost match. For them It's been going on for them for approx. 4 months. Neverending game of catch up. It does not appear to be listings rolling over when they are not adding new listings or selling new items when there is always a discrepancy is constant.

Relating to the report regarding technical issues, was there a reason for removing the fact that issues in that list had actually been resolved with the associated date? That was very helpful information for anyone STILL seeing the same problem or when it reoccurs so they could connect it to the original Alert.

-Lotzofuniquegoodies

@dobo5250 

[fergua3]

guys, i reiterate, it's probably just listings rolling over that haven't fully re-indexed.   They ARE actually vanishing and probably can't been seen on ebay while they reindex, at least not by everyone on every device, until they reindex.   Down 70 listings is about right when you have 1800 listings since approx 60 listings per day, on average will roll over when their 30 day period expires.   Some days it will be more, some days less, depending on the number of listings that were coming due on each day.

I've noticed this too, in the past, on a much smaller scale since i have fewer listings and was able to figure out what listings were 'missing'.  Sure enough when i looked a day or two later, they were back, at the bottom of the ending soonest list, where they should be.

The problem is most likely that Ebay has gotten slower at reindexing the listings that are rolling over, so instead of vanishing for a few minutes or hours, as in the past, they are now vanishing  for many hours, so it's more noticeable that they are gone.  They then reappear but by the time they do another set of your listings has expired and are being rolled over and reindexed etc etc.  It's even very likely that some listings are reindexing faster than others, so only a portion of the ones rolling over seem to be missing and you just see small numbers like 17 or 9  missing  even though you have so many listings.

[flipistics]

Go to Reports and download your listing report. Wait 2 days. Go to Reports again and download your listing report. Compare the two.

If the two reports are not the same, then check the missing listings in a day or two and see if they've appeared again.

If they're the same, then look at your current listings and see which ones are not displaying, then check again in a day or two and see if they are displaying again or still missing.

Alternatively, sort your listings by End Date and write down a few that are about to roll over. See if they disappear when they roll over, then see if they appear again in a day or two.

That will allow you to figure out whether it is a indexing / rolling over issue that you can ignore or whether it is something bigger.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@fergua3 wrote:

guys, i reiterate, it's probably just listings rolling over that haven't fully re-indexed.   They ARE actually vanishing and probably can't been seen on ebay while they reindex, at least not by everyone on every device, until they reindex.   Down 70 listings is about right when you have 1800 listings since approx 60 listings per day, on average will roll over when their 30 day period expires.   Some days it will be more, some days less, depending on the number of listings that were coming due on each day.

I've noticed this too, in the past, on a much smaller scale since i have fewer listings and was able to figure out what listings were 'missing'.  Sure enough when i looked a day or two later, they were back, at the bottom of the ending soonest list, where they should be.

The problem is most likely that Ebay has gotten slower at reindexing the listings that are rolling over, so instead of vanishing for a few minutes or hours, as in the past, they are now vanishing  for many hours, so it's more noticeable that they are gone.  They then reappear but by the time they do another set of your listings has expired and are being rolled over and reindexed etc etc.  It's even very likely that some listings are reindexing faster than others, so only a portion of the ones rolling over seem to be missing and you just see small numbers like 17 or 9  missing  even though you have so many listings.

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@fergua3 

The above screenshots were taken approx 5  hours ago. The same discrepancy is showing now and very similar to what was displaying last night.

As mentioned eBay confirmed this as being a Technical issue approx beginning of Jan of this year. Then when they revised the format of that report it was suddenly was removed. In between it was passed on to Devon with the suggestion the other seller I was in contact with to touch base using Facebook. Which they did. Indexing was not mentioned when they spoke to Facebook. It's a problem for some sellers where it just has never been resolved.

From a sellers perspective they are paying listing fees(store fees)  to have ALL of their listings show in a timely manner and then roll over as per scheduled. Not most of them. It would be similar to running an auction for 3 days but that auction only being visible for 2 days. 

-Lotz

PS. Here is one of the dot com discussions mentioning an alert that was opened around  beginning of Jan 2024. Because as the report gets constantly updated, new issues get added and old ones get poofed so historical data is no longer a thing.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Active-listings-count-is-wrong/m-p/34227042

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@fergua3 

devon@ebay 

I sale overnight. Sellers hub number has decreased by (1) listing(1879). Available listings to buyers still shows 1871 as per original screenshot. (Message 9)Definitely a case of hidden/MIA listings taking place. Totally get @dobo5250  pain with this unresolved eBay issue.

-Lotz

[fergua3]

well the only way to be sure is to: see what listings are ending today, note them and see if they are there after their renewal time.  If not, figure out how many are 'missing' and then compare that to how many listings total should be there.  Otherwise, you could be seeing a case of  a different 9 listings that are absent, by coincidence...

So do my above test and see...

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@fergua3 wrote:

well the only way to be sure is to: see what listings are ending today, note them and see if they are there after their renewal time.  If not, figure out how many are 'missing' and then compare that to how many listings total should be there.  Otherwise, you could be seeing a case of  a different 9 listings that are absent, by coincidence...

So do my above test and see...

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@fergua3 

@dobo5250 

Just checked a listing that rolled over in the last 5 minutes using store search. Came up after 2 screen refreshes no problem. It's not reindexing. New total in store search is NOW 1867. Sellers hub is still 1879 with the 1 sale. The 2 data sets should jive. 

Another potential possibility for others sellers would be missing REQUIRED item specifics. Not the situation in my case.

[fergua3]

well, another possibility is that while the rolled over listngs are reindexing and showing up quickly, they may not be COUNTING in the store for a long time.  There are many cases on Ebay, especially these days, with some Ebay functions working much slower than others....so the listings may actually be present , but Ebay's counter isn't registering them yet.

So, another test, ableit a tedious one, is to actually physically count how many listings you have showing in both seller hub and store.  Not quite as imposing as it sounds since each page has a set number of listings on it, so you only need to multiply the number of pages by the listings per page for all except the final page, then add the number of listings that are on the final page (you'll have to count these yourself as the last page will have fewer listings on it most probably) and that will tell you how many listings are showing in total.  Compare that to Ebay's number and see if they match.

Of course even if this all gets worked out, there is absolutely no guarantee how many of your listings are actually showing up in Ebay search at any one time, which is really where it matters the most.

[ricarmic]

In my own experience:

My store is on hidden time away right now, has been for over a month.

My item count has "always" been 4,914 whilst I've been off.

This would infer that the rolling over aspect isn't affecting the counts, as I have over 100 items rolling over every day.

This doesn't mean there aren't other problems, or problems when items are being added/sold, just that if a store is stable, the rolling over isn't affecting the counts (at least for me).

I'll confess that I've never really paid attention to the item count as I didn't figure it was 100% anyway. I did note it because I've FINALLY gone through and fixed all my grandfathered missing required specifics items (1300) so that I could change my handling time from 2 days to 5 - another step ahead to a more relaxed retirish experience, although I may have to adjust it if the bots punish me too much via poor search results. Won't know that till September when the store reopens.