Variation Listings quantitities being updated by ebay randomly AHHHHHHHH!!!
I've seen this pop up on the message board a couple times. But the only responses I see are other people saying they have had the same problem and ebay saying contact us. To refresh: the issue is I am doing nothing, happily enjoying my day, then look at updating a listing and the quantities of the items are 22, 35, 12, 17, etc. A bunch of unusual numbers for items I have 0, 1, or 2 of. Major problem of course. Can ebay fix it using a restore to before they messed it up or do I have to go through one at a time and do it myself hoping that it doesn't happen again like it appears to have happened to other users?
20 comments
dptedora
·3 years agoGot this yesterday.
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 of some of your listings.
We understand that this may have caused you to cancel orders or issue refunds and we’re working to correct these quantity errors.
What you need to know
We’ve updated any listings to show the correct quantity available and quantity sold.
For listings where you’ve revised the quantity, we won’t make any changes.
If you canceled orders, received negative feedback, or had stockout strikes during our update, we’ll ensure that your seller rating isn’t affected.
If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch. We’re here to help
Thanks for being part of the eBay community
knownobob
OP3 years agoMay 31st update: On May 26th the bad update happened and I started all the urgent tickets. Ebay never responded to any of my tickets. Today I received a generic message from them pasted below. I don't want them touching my quantities and contacting them to help is nice to say but they actually are so slow/disconnected over there that complicated issues are very difficult to actually get help with. Anyway, here's their message:
We understand that this may have caused you to cancel orders or issue refunds and we’re working to correct these quantity errors.
cosmetiscents
·3 years agocustomers have been purchasing items that I haven't had in stock for over a year. Had to refund a handful of people today, what a mess my inventories are all messed up. I hope no one leaves me a negative feedback over this ugh!
secondlifeserver
·3 years agohttps://www.valueaddedresource.net/ebay-glitch-increases-quantities-relists-sold-items-5-27-23/
Seems to be listings with MV and international shipping program are affected
toomuchstuffagain35
·3 years agoSome have reportd single listings and MQ listings being affected.
We're still trying to figure out the common denominator.
knownobob
OP3 years agoUpdate: I understand their listings usually work well for most people (and me) over a majority of the time. However, If you're a doubter and think I am doing something wrong please leave the discussion. Seriously, I know how to update my listings and don't change my quantities to crazy numbers. The quantity available changes to the number sold I noticed after taking a closer look. They have some algorithm glitch that does this. I have about 50 variation listings and about 15 of them were affected. I have fixed them all now, I couldn't wait and leave incorrect quantities out there. Here is an example of one I fixed: https://www.ebay.com/itm/114696519567 It showed 31 battery covers available.
I contacted ebay at 9:45 pm PST and they said they're sorry and the department that could help me would be around at 1 am PST. I contacted them again at 1 am and they said they were sorry and only the IT department could fix it. They would put in an urgent request and the representative would call me at any hour of the night with the update if it could be fixed or not and the US team would contact me at 7am to check if it was resolved. I woke up at 6 am to no news from ebay and gave up on them. I spent the next hour and a half updating the broken listings, digging out my actual supplies and checking what I had. I finished and went back to bed. It is after 3 pm next day now and I have yet to hear anything from ebay. When I contact them I get these apologies and tickets started, but there is no follow-up on the tickets and the representatives don't take ownership of the issue. So, at least in my experience if you run into this you are wasting your time to try to get ebay to undo it. You drew the unlucky straw and need to get to work fixing it.
barkel0202
·3 years agoConnecting this with other similar thread with helpful info: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Share-eBay-Technical-Issues/Available-Quantity-randomly-changing/m-p/33769986/thread-id/112040
dptedora
·3 years agoJust got this from eBay. Thank you for much. I have already submitted the report on your behalf. Rest assured this will be on our top priority list. Alternatively, kindly revise your listing and change the quantity to the actual item quantity. Guaranteed we will have this resolved in 24-48 hours
teklifestyle
·3 years agoThere are a few reasons this can happen. First make sure when you are updating just quantities dont edit your listing. Just do it from the Active Listings tab and clicking the variations button under the title. The only time you should have a issue with inventory adding in quantities if is you take a item out and add it back in or let your listing end then relist it. If you relist a item or sell similar from your own listing the quantities added in will be for the total you have sold. Example the person above mention inventory going from 0 to 92 they most likely sold 92 of that item in the previous listings they ended and relisted or sold similar from a ended listing not to keep the listing alive after it was purged for being 0 quantity for 90 days.
Now if you have active items in stock in your variation listing and something is 0 qty 1 day and the next has a qty I have no answer for that we have been using variation listings for years and never experienced that issue before.
toomuchstuffagain35
·3 years agoPretty sure sellers who use MV listings a lot are already aware of the dangers with relisting.
jbcoutfitters
·3 years agoThis is also happening with single item listings as well. And for example, I had one single item listing change from quantity three to quantity 92.
inhawaii
·3 years agoBUMMER!
I don't have the time (or energy) to double check all my variations listings for inventory count accuracy.
wilsonharborsales
·3 years agoThey sent out at least 5 warning emails saying that they were going to make changes to variation listings. Everyone had fair warning about this in my opinion.
wes-4507
·3 years agoAre you claiming that “fair warning†of changes to the format gives eBay free rein to change the quantities a seller is offering for sale? That’s absurd. Maybe you think they should be allowed to change the prices too?
Unbelievable.
dhbookds
·3 years ago@wilsonharborsales
I have variation listings and never got any "warning"..........what changes were they going to make?
toomuchstuffagain35
·3 years agoSame here. I never received even one warning email.
wilsonharborsales
·3 years agoYes, I misread the issue you were having about the quantities being changed automatically. I have heard of others having this problem as well. Please disregard my previous comment.
toomuchstuffagain35
·3 years agoNever received any and I use MV a lot.
Care to show us one of the emails you purportedly received about this?
supercharger-parts
·3 years agoYes!! Here is another post I saw regarding it, it seems it may be a glitch and one person on that thread gave some info that may be helpful. Good gravy.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Available-Quantity-randomly-changing/m-p/33769986
inhawaii
·3 years agoI have many variations listings.
I've never had this problem.
If you are 100% sure it's not an error on your part, then it's a glitch.
Your only option is to let customer service know.