my listing quantity available is changed automatically | Report eBay Technical Issues

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/Seller-Protections-for-listings-with-International-Shipping/ba-p/33778409

eBay has reportedly fixed the issue for most sellers.

On May 26, 2023 an update was made to listings with international shipping options. As part of this recent change, we inadvertently increased the quantity on some listings.

We understand that this may have caused sellers to cancel orders or issue refunds but weâ€™re working to correct these quantity errors. Hereâ€™s what you need to know about the recent update:
Weâ€™ve updated any listing to show the correct quantity available and quantity sold.
For listings where sellers manually revised the quantity, we wonâ€™t make any changes.
For sellers who had to cancel orders, received negative feedback, or had stockout strikes during our update, weâ€™ll ensure that their seller rating isnâ€™t affected.

The new announcement may indicate automatic defect removal, but that is not yet clear. If defects are not automatically cleared, sellers can request defect removal citing Alert (14709) :

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/selling/seller-performance-overview/appeal-defect?id=4871

marlik

·3 years ago

2693 View listings

I noticed this with one of my listings 3 days ago on May 27th 2023. I knew that specific item was out of stock from several months ago. I went through all my other listings ( more than 600 ) and had to revise them all. I checked here on ebay community and I notice I was not the only person affected.

Then I sold an item last night ( May 29th ) that was out of stock from October 2022!!! I had sold 29 of that item previously and with the one sold last night it says 30 sold and 28 available. So it means I had sold 29 and the glitch had added another 29 to a dead listing.

Now I have an order for an item that I don't have. I know the buyer would never believe if I said it was due to ebay glitch and ebay CS is never helpful also because those who respond do not have the knowledge, do not listen and do not care

Additionally I don't know when it's going to happen again. It is not possible to go through all listings contentiously.

I wish eBay sometimes took responsibility of the damage that they cause.

xray360

·3 years ago

62 View listings

@marlik

Buyers are understanding. I didn't have a single complaint for cancellations. Send a message saying, "This order has been refunded due to a site wide eBay glitch that caused out of stock inventory to be relisted. Sorry for the inconvenience. "

I was also able to save a few sales asking if they wanted to substitute for another variation. If you have a similar item in stock let the buyer know and they might want to switch.

To avoid another inventory disaster go to Reports / Uploads in seller hub. Click get template and download the one for changing listing quantities and price. Back up daily or weekly depending on sales volume. If this glitch happens again you can upload the file and subtract any sales made from the time of the back up was made which is a lot easier than fixings 100s of listings.

marlik

·3 years ago

2693 View listings

Thank you for the insight. I did sent a similar message to buyer and cancelled the order.

Before that I contacted ebay CS and after long waits and the representative having to ask her "advisors" for every single thing, they admitted the glitch had caused my listing to become available. They take no other responsibility as for contacting buyers themselves or removing the defect or any possible negative feedback related to this order without me having to call them back.

The ebay CS representative suggested I cancel order by selecting reason " buyer asked to cancel"!!!! Really unprofessional and unethical.

Even though it facilitate the revising using the method you advised, there is still a risk I sell something that is out of stock in between doing the updates. Beside having some customer that will get upset I also have to go through hours of call with CS explaining over and over like we have nothing else to do. All was fine if we didn't have to pay all the fees we pay.

Also we have no idea when exactly the glitch is going to affect us to upload the back up. As mentioned I accidentally noticed an out of stock listing came to life 3 days ago and I reviewed all of my listing then. It took me a day. Yet I sold something last night that was out of stock.

home-gym-bodybuilding

·3 years ago

Amazing...it looks like ebay has fixed this. I did have to go in to a few listings and manually fix qty's.

geek_barn

·3 years ago

Yes, my store updated with many fixes as well...but not everything. I still have a bunch that were not fixed, so I am still a bit worried and unsure exactly what they did?

jamestp365

·3 years ago

75825 View listings

Many of my item qty's seem back to normal but not all.

Most of the ones that had a sale since the glitch are not fixed yet. Not sure if that's common thread.

irockcase

OP3 years ago

im still waiting ebay to fix this . hopefully tomorrow.

please keep posting updates here

thanks

stuff4divas

·3 years ago

7583 View listings

@irockcase yes, just posted it b4 reading about it here

valueaddedresource

·3 years ago

5 View listings

Fun fact to keep in mind for when Q2 2023 earnings are reported in a couple months....based on eBay's definition of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), all orders that are paid for are counted in eBay's financial reports to Wall Street even if they are later refunded and cancelled. ðŸ’°

home-gym-bodybuilding

·3 years ago

OK so do we start to revise the listings that were revised on the 26th, or do we wait for ebay to fix this?

geek_barn

·3 years ago

I'm giving it this week, calling eBay on Tuesday morning first thing. Will try to speak to some higher ups, and get to the bottom of this. It is way to severe for some sellers to have to go in and manually fix this. That is insane. Some of us are at 25,000+ listings here, with variation. Those stores are, at present, destroyed. I'm taking the hit in pay to see how this unfolds without diving in rashly and fixing it myself, which could take weeks/months. Keep these threads bumped and make eBay aware of how serious this is!

home-gym-bodybuilding

·3 years ago

Thank you! Please let us know what you find out. Try to enjoy the rest of your holiday.

shipscript

·3 years ago

Putting listings on Time Away could save sellers from selling fixed price out of stock items until the issue is resolved. But that is a big hit on sales for some.

@geek_barn

Please let is know about your conversation with CS supervisor. Particularly whether it can be rolled back, what will happen if sellers fix on their own, and what relief is available to sellers hit with out of stock sales.

shipscript

·3 years ago

@irockcase

@kopykatcom

@cardthrone

@lakefor94

@geek_barn

eBay keeps two numbers: starting quantity and quantity sold. The "quantity remaining" is calculated. My experience with the code is that when inventory is manually updated, the difference between quantity remaining and the new updated quantity is added to the starting quantity. It sounds like eBay pushed the wrong value onto the wrong stack.

I would recommending downloading two reports at the same time to get a snapshot to work from:

On seller hub > reports > uploads

download the "price and quantity" template.

Then, on seller hub > reports > downloads

download the sales report spreadsheet for the past several days. I assume the glitch was introduced on the Thursday update, so capture the past week or two and look at the data from at least Thursday onward.

I don't have any advice at this point because we don't know when this will get fixed, but at least be prepared with some backup data. If it seems true that EIS sales corrupted the numbers, then only the items with international sales would need correction.

If CS said the the programmers will fix this, then your main concern is selling items that are out of stock, and I would hope that eBay would give you a pass on the out-of-stock strikes.

If you have too many out of stock items and can't wait for the fix, use the "price and quantity" template to correct your inventory, but be sure to keep an audit of what you are changing, in case eBay also backs out their mistake.

geek_barn

·3 years ago

Thank you @shipscript !!

I have also heard that there is a way to see your revision history. If this were possible to view in bulk, it would be a massive help and pretty much solve my problem. I just don't know how to view this in bulk. I would need to easily review any revision history after the update occurred, but I'm not sure how to do this. Thanks again!

skilto

·3 years ago

21023 View listings

When I contacted ebay on May 26th about the increased quantity numbers, I was assured that it was a computer "glitch" and that it would be corrected within 24 hours. The incorrect quantities are still on my listings.

I have already had to cancel 2 sales that resulted from incorrect quantity amounts. Now ebay has hit me with 2 defects due to having to cancel items that are out of stock. I appealed the defects and was told they will stand as defects because I didn't control my inventory quantity, (see above paragraph), and invited me to read their tips to maintaining accurate inventory.

I think should this happen again, I will select buyer requested that I cancel item rather than item out of stock and see what happens.

shipscript

·3 years ago

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/selling/seller-performance-overview/appeal-defect?id=4871

@skilto

I would recommend another attempt at defect removal.

eBay staff suggests that you contact the defect team to file both the defect removal request and the tech ticket, since they can do both.

Appeal defects here:

Provide this info for the tech ticket:

Incorrect available quantity shown in the listings (May 30, 2023)

Reference ID: ALERT14709

Provide Seller ID:
Provide Item Number(s):

cardthrone

·3 years ago

16867 View listings

Same here, nice spaghetti code ebay, compensation for the added days of work fixing inventory quantities would be nice.

kopykatcom

·3 years ago

4247 View listings

yep...same here ..fixed it manually

dhbookds

·3 years ago

1700 View listings

One seller in this thread:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Share-eBay-Technical-Issues/Available-Quantity-randomly-changing/m-p/33771472#M112100

says CS said NOT to change quantities, that they will be corrected........

I did try to call in our Blues to see if that is universal advice........but no answer yet.......

castle_ridge

·3 years ago

11479 View listings

Thank you

geek_barn

·3 years ago

I suppose we can't call eBay until Tuesday morning?? Fingers crossed they are actually working on this and will have a fix. I have been hearing also that this has happened in the past with no fix. Really terrible

lakefor94

·3 years ago

122 View listings

@dhbookds wrote:
One seller in this thread:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Share-eBay-Technical-Issues/Available-Quantity-randomly-changing/m-p/33771472#M112100

says CS said NOT to change quantities, that they will be corrected........

I did try to call in our Blues to see if that is universal advice........but no answer yet.......

I dont know if eBay would have the capability to pull this needed data from backup or reverse what has transpired.

Can't say that I have ever read or heard of eBay fixing listings that have been altered by a faulty program they ran.

Remember the photo debacle from the summer of 2018? When items automatically relisted, all photos but the main photo were deleted. They never restored anyone's photos that were deleted and this issue was quite widespread. I got hit pretty hard and it could have been worse had I not went ahead and manually ended my scheduled relists before they automatically relisted. That was a mess.

Had to retrieve the photos from the cached eBay listings on google. EBay did nothing to retrieve the photos.

Just a heads up. @shipscript helped us out with that one.

I had opted out of EIS a couple of weeks back so I am not seeing the effects of this debacle.

kopykatcom

·3 years ago

4247 View listings

yes this happening..all my sold was listed as available....

geek_barn

·3 years ago

Has anyone been able to reach eBay for an update on this? This is an absolutely devastating glitch for sellers and I am sure many were affected. It is shocking to me that there is no announcement from eBay so far. If anyone has any additional information, or tips for how to deal with this, please share. This is affecting the lives of people!

irockcase

OP3 years ago

guys any update from ebay ?

my listing still showing increased quantity

irockcase

OP3 years ago

please keep contacting ebay and let them know the issue , they do work over weekends and holidays.

also please keep posting here about any update and if more sellers having same issue

thanks

home-gym-bodybuilding

·3 years ago

Same issue here.... if a listing shows a total of 156 sales, ebay is showing I now have 156 in stock when actually its ZERO. just sold 2 items I don't have. CS was inept, said no technical issues. so I just put the store on vacation.

geek_barn

·3 years ago

Does anyone have a fix for how to determine ONLY the affected listings? In case eBay does not provide a solution, I am trying to prepare how best we can fix this on our own effectively. I have noticed that it seems it took how many of an item have sold, and transferred that number to quantity available. So, if you have an item that had 1 sold and was sold out, it may now be set to "1 sold, 1 available". I have any active listings that have sold and this glitch did not affect them, so that is interesting as well.

It seems to be random which items were affected. I have a recently sold item that was restocked as 2 available, and another recently sold that had 2 previously sold, but has remained at 0 in stock.

!natedog

·3 years ago

7188 View listings

Multi-variation listings that had international shipping as an option.

geek_barn

·3 years ago

I don't have any variations on my listings, just multiple quantity available. It really appears to be random to me at the moment. All of my items are also set to international shipping. I'll have one item that sold recently remain at 0 inventory, while another of the same exact sell similar will have 3 in stock from the glitch. It makes no sense.

geek_barn

·3 years ago

OK, it looks like it is any item that SOLD internationally. Going through my brothers smaller store, only items that have sold recently through an international sale have been restocked by the glitch. Everything else is normal and not affected.

geek_barn

·3 years ago

This is devastating, and if they do not have a fix, I do not know what I will do. I have an enormous inventory and my quantity is just all over the place now. This is insane that this can happen, and that this did happen. Please update us, anyone, if you gather any more information on this. In the meantime, I think it might be wise for some larger sellers to set their store on vacation mode, hide the listings, and resolve this with eBay. What timing also? The glitch starts on the Friday before memorial day weekend? So no one can call eBay, and customers will be hanging out potentially surfing eBay for your inventory which you don't actually have in stock? This is complete madness.

irockcase

OP3 years ago

i spoke with them any they said there IT team is working on it and should should fix this .

please let me know if anyone listings get fixed or any solution

thanks

msfloridasunshine

·3 years ago

2589 View listings

Same exact thing happened to me simultaneously 1100 items were added to my existing listings. I contacted Ebay for Business on Facebook and they were useless. They said "Rest assured the information on our end shows the correct number of listings and quantities." Totally inept. They will do nothing. It is absolutely impossible for me to have instantaneously and simultaneously added 1100 items at exactly 6:36:07PM on every listing affected.

But "rest assured they will make sure everything is resolved and post it here once it is." Are they going to come here and re-inventory everything they corrupted in my store? And what happens when the defects start rolling in for items sold that aren't in stock because ebay randomly decided to add 1100 items back in that were already sold?

Mark my words. First it will be to try to gaslight us that we ourselves did it to our own listings. And IF, and I mean IF, they ever take responsibility, absolutely NOTHING will be done to help us. 20 plus year old platform that is patched together with duct tape and bubble gum and apparently cookie cutter responses meant for us to simply go away while they collect their fees.

yep_roc

·3 years ago

21351 View listings

They just added 13,000 previously sold items to my inventory... Probably have to close the whole store now. This has happened before.

tpowers1971

·3 years ago

63296 View listings

I highly doubt they have the ability to fix it as once they drop the egg it's kinda already broken.

Yes, hopefully they resolve the glitch but in the meantime I have 500 or so listings to manually update the counts. I'm pretty sure everyone else will have to do the same as I doubt there is "Rewind Button" fix and atop that I'm seeling from those listings so a majority of listings rolled back to the correct account would still be wrong. Closer. But wrong. The only fix for that is a rewind button that then does the math for sold items after the rollback and Ummmm

irockcase

OP3 years ago

ebay will fix this automatically ?

irockcase

OP3 years ago

how to fix this ?

lakefor94

·3 years ago

122 View listings

Have not seen it on my account. I did go in and do a cut and paste into excel, all listings and current quantities. 1200 listings.

Screwing up your quantities. Talk about something that can create days/weeks of extra work.

wickerjay

·3 years ago

4726 View listings

Seriously. This happened to me as well. It has affected literally hundreds of my listings, all of which have this change in their revision summary pages: May 26, 2023 06:10:37 PM PDT Shipping Terms Quantity Worldwide

irockcase

OP3 years ago

https://www.facebook.com/ebayForBusiness/

did u talk with ebay ?

dptedora

·3 years ago

33084 View listings

Yes just checked mine and a lot of them have last updated on May 26, 2023 17:19:35 PDT and May 26, 2023 17:19:34 PDT. I was going to change my password but wanted to check here first as how can so many listings change at the same time. Now to try to get customer service right!!!

ckimodog

·3 years ago

9204 View listings

@irockcase

This is the second post I've seen with the same issue. Suggestion...use this link for customer service to get more positive results:

These are US CS agents who actually work for Ebay and may better serve you and your problem you're experiencing. Many positive positive posts on this forum with their ability to be helpful.

Hope you get the help you need and good luck.

jbcoutfitters

·3 years ago

89871 View listings

Itâ€™s a system glitch. My inventory practically doubled due to this.

irockcase

OP3 years ago