Offers being accepted then not showing up as sold creating havoc for sellers and buyers

[danra_1073]

I am a very active seller in the hobby/model train space with over 1000 transactions a month processed on Ebay.  Recently, we have noticed that when and offer comes on for an item that we accept, sometimes, and the key word is sometimes... the offer acceptance never processes as an actual order.  It disappears completely and the listing remains active.    Yes, I have reported the issue and opened a Case with Ebay.  No fix as of yet and this seems to be happening 2 - 3 times a day on my account which is frustrating and wasting everyone's time.  

The fix in the meantime is to relist the item at the agreed price and send the purchaser a message with the new listing ID number.  Be sure you DO NOT promote the new listing and use the "Sell Similar" option when doing so as this avoids any promotional fees that might have been applied since Ebay cannot seem to fix the issue, they certainly do not deserve my advertising dollars on the items affected.

All Ebay can tell me is they are working on it and no one seems to really be elevating the issue that is affecting my revenue, likely your revenue and of course the mother-ship.

Anyone else having this issue?  Work-around ideas welcome!  Happy New Year Sellers!  Wishing you all much success in 2024! 

[hav0c]

Wow, what a horrible solution to a non-problem.  When it happened to me I quickly thought that it was something intentional by ebay and not some error.  I'm jaded and cynical that way.  Sure enough, here we are. 

But a quick message to the buyer explaining the issue, and a few minutes later... sale completed.   

As both a buyer and seller on the platform, I don't like the pre-authorization of payment for offers either.  They should just go back to the way it was, which is of course what they won't do.

[ittybitnot]

As both a buyer and seller on the platform, I don't like the pre-authorization of payment for offers either.

@hav0c 

You are requiring this from YOUR buyers.  Why have you not turned it off?  

https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements

Buyer Payment Requirements

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they place a bid.

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they make an offer.

Click submit.

[loria2z]

No, then you would find the sale in “awaiting payment”

[scrapinators]

I have had this same thing happen on 4 orders.  Each time, the buyer was sent multiple offers by me.  I do not require immediate payment, and  I offer free shipping with orders over $35.

The buyers could accept some offers, but other offers required immediate payment.  So I'd end up with different combos, like:

1. Buyer wanted to accept 12 offers.  7 were accepted and automatic combined shipping worked.  Each of the other 5 came through as separate sales with full shipping cost.  And all of these were paid with one payment, but broken into 6 different sales.

2. Buyer accepted 3 offers with combined shipping.  4th item came through separately at full shipping cost.  Total of all 4 was over $35, and her shipping should have been free if combined shipping was working right.

3.  Another buyer wanted to accept 31 offers.  9 were available to accept.  2 came through at the accepted rate but with full shipping.  The other 20 offers came through at full price as one order with free shipping. 

4.  Another buyer had 5 combine, 7 separate, and then when she went to pay, it showed paid on her end and "awaiting payment" on my end.  But the payment never came through, and when she checked her purchased items, the purchase wasn't there.  She paid a 2nd time, and then the payment came through as separate orders again.

I can go on, but this is a total mess.  During this same period, I had many orders that came through fine with combined shipping, so go figure. 

I get a lot of my sales by sending out offers, but I'm not sending any more until this is RESOLVED AND CORRECTED.

[good.luck.chuck]

I am so mad about this new change.  Of course there was no notification to sellers about it at all, which just leaves a lot of confusion when you don’t understand why you’ve accepted offers on the same item multiple times and then the sale just disappears.  How can they not see the negative affects of this new dumb idea? I could have sold multiple items but didn’t.  My sales have tanked since this.  It makes zero sense! I haven’t had a single unpaid item in years so what is the point of this??? This is just plain stupid.  I’ve turned off “or best offer” on every single one of my listings because it’s absolutely pointless now.  I just lowered my prices, buy it or don’t buy it I guess? 🤬🤬🤬 EBAY - GET A CLUE. 

[ittybitnot]

@good.luck.chuck 

@scrapinators 

eBay has apparently decided on a new plan for SELLER GENERATED OFFERS as stated in the recent seller update: 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/2024-Winter-Seller-Update/Reduce-unpaid-items-when-sending-offers-to-b...

When you send an offer to a buyer, their only choices will be only to CHECK OUT, DECLINE, or INGNORE.  The opportunity to 'accept', add to cart, and request a total for multiple items will not be an option.  All will be separate sales at full shipping.  

For a while, buyers were sent another option that did have an "accept" feature, but the seller had no control over which one the buyer would receive, which results in the crazy "combos" that @scrapinators  describes.  Only those with the 'accept' feature could be added to the cart and a combined shipping/invoice could be used. That can be illustrated in this discussion should you care to read it: 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/I-don-t-think-eBay-really-wants-us-to-make-sales/m-p/34216592#...


It is important to note that eBay also rolled out to more and more users similar actions when a BUYER sent an offer to the seller.   That resulted in the previously described "disappearing"  transactions and all sorts of mayhem for both buyers and sellers.   

When a buyer sent an offer, and the seller accepted, no notice was sent to the buyer.  The accepted offer by the seller was renamed YOU SENT AN OFFER (to the buyer), thus becoming a seller generated offer.  Buyers did not get notice that their offer was accepted, and assumed their offer was just being ignored, unless they happened to look and see that the seller SENT YOU AN OFFER.    If they found that, depending on the screen they received, they could proceed to accept if that option was presented,  or if it was not they could PAY if they wanted the product, decline, or ignore. 

Understand it is has been weeks with no explanation from eBay.  In the seller update thread linked above, they are asked again,  if these buyer generated offers will continue to be renamed into seller generated offers.  The replies from any eBay staff have seemingly stopped there as well as of this writing.   

Whether this action is really about "unpaid items" is somewhat questionable.  Indeed it is to eBay's advantage to collect multiple non-refundable transaction fees (now raised to 40 cents each)  and have a higher GMV transaction count for individually paid transactions when combined shipping is removed.  

eBay will say that they are "working on the combined shipping problem".  At the same time mobile app users have been asking for the "Request Total" option to be available for the last three years, which lends little credibility to eBay's "working".  

[southcarolinaflips]

This is another moronic thing eBay has done. Back when I used to sell on eBay in the late nineties (under a different username) it wasn’t so ignorant. Plenty of times buyers make impulse offers and will buy the item when they make an offer but by bouncing it around as another offer back and forth it just gives someone time to change their mind and not commit to the purchase.  Not to mention how does this punish those who make offers and do not pay? Sounds like this lets them do that with impunity. eBay is a dumpster fire anymore.