No, it's not your imagination.
If you, like many other Canadian ebay sellers caught in the middle of rotating postal strikes, have extended your 'handling' time in order to pad delivery estimates (like ebay has recommended we do) you might have noticed one or both of two odd things have followed that change to your listings:
1. All your markdowns on those items suddenly died
2. All your auto-declines in Best Offer were wiped out
No, it's not your imagination. This is a long-standing bug with handling time as opposed to a one-time glitch. When the Markdown Manager became Markdowns as part of a much-abbreviated 'Promotions Manager' through Seller Hub on ebay.ca, there was added a check box added to stop items from being bumped off sale for any reason (I cannot verify it works on the handling time bug because I've never tested it) that is supposed to stop this from happening BUT nothing will stop your auto-declines from being wiped clean if your markdowns are forcefully removed by shifting your handling time.
It's a pain to be getting $1 offers on $500 items all over again but there's nothing to be done but grit your teeth and reset your auto-declines .... as well as all your auto-accepts.....
Interestingly enough, I believe you can 'save' the auto-accept/auto-declines if your items are not on sale when you shift your handling time. It's as if the act of forcefully inadvertently wiping clean your markdowns and changing their price also obliterates the auto-levels. Here's the shoddy evidence on which I base that theory: in the summer, if I am taking a trip for three weekdays and need to extend my handling time to accommodate that, I will schedule all of my markdowns to end on the day before I leave, and then on the day I leave I will I extend my handling time, and the auto-levels are saved; they are to wiped clean with the change to handling time.
But with the rotating strikes being impetus to extend the handling times, I didn't pre-plan it. One morning, I said, 'Hey, I guess I better extend my handling times to cover my butt and better pad buyer expectations because of any potential impact as a result of the rotating strikes' and then I did it and all my markdowns were lost as a result which I knew was going to be the case from previous experience.
Forty-five minutes later, I had re-established my markdowns to my satisfaction but then the crazy low offers started coming in. And I remembered: oh yes, this must still be a bug.
So if you've recently shifted your handling time yet cannot figure out where all your auto-decline and auto-accepts went, this may be your explanation.
You can reset them using the Bulk Editor. Or you can wait until your handling time will return to normal after the strikes are over and fix them for good again. Until next time.
