Watchlist recent oddity

[captkirk42]

I have noticed in the last few days an odd thing happening with my watchlist. I think it has something to do with some recent update. or maybe change in the nature of the watchlist? Now it used to be unsold items that rolled over past their 30 days of listing and get automatically relisted stay on the watchlist. Well I think now watched listings are not being renewed.

Everyday without my removing anything from my list, the number of Items I'm watching has dropped for the last 4 or 5 days. The first day I figured something sold, or the seller removed some old listings, but then the next day almost a dozen items dropped off my list, then the next day another 3 or 4 items.

I don't know off hand what has been dropped. I watch many different things in several categories. Sure some are collectibles and probably sold, but as I said at the beginning of my post items that sell usually don't just drop off the list. 

I often watch things for a long time before finally purchasing. In the past there were many times that I had a huge watch list and was watching the maximum number of items you can watch. Back then items rarely dropped off the list on their own. In recent months I have whittled the number down to under 100 items and have bought things more frequently so I only had 70some items on my list. Now I have 62 items down from 67 just yesterday and 69 the day before.

[nobody*s_perfect]

I have an item on my Watch list that has been there since August.

[eburtonlab]

I have not kept close track of my Watch List lately, but I have seen a couple of messages posted from users indicating that they think items may be disappearing from the Watch List. It is difficult to measure that, since items can disappear via several different mechanisms.

One user went so far as to copy all the Watch List items to another list, and apparently noticed items dropping from the Watch List but not the other list -- seeming to indicate there was an issue specifically with the Watch List itself rather than the individual listings.

Some general Watch List item relisting/expiring info about how it should normally work:

An item should stay on your Watch List as long as it is active. If an item is automatically relisted, it will remain on your list.

If an item listing sells or ends and is not automatically relisted, the item listing will expire after ninety days, at which point the listing will disappear from eBay entirely.

If an item listing ends and is manually relisted by the seller with a new item number, you will have ninety days to use the "relisted" link to add the new item to your list before the old listing and the link disappears.

If an item listing is removed by eBay for a policy violation, the listing will just disappear.

[reallynicestamps]

It's my belief that if we repeat a given Search several times, that the algorithm 'decides' we didn't like the first few and changes the ones we see to others that were slightly less exact.

For example, you have seen the same Search for Purple Doodlehickeys three times without buying any of the 75 you were shown.
So on your fourth Search, half of those were ignored but a different 25, perhaps Violet instead of Purple or located in Canada instead of the USA, were added.

And of course some items will be sold or removed by the seller. And others will be added.

[captkirk42]

Something is definitely going on. My list is now down to 59 items down from 67 or 68. Technically now the number is 58 because just I removed a listing for another copy of something I was watching that I got in yesterday. But that does not apply to the other dropped items. 

I find it very unlikely that all the items dropped from my list were sold items. They aren't relisted items either because those you get a notice that the seller relisted and I take care of "rewatching" the new listing in those cases.

Maybe I'm watching a lot of sellers that have gone rogue and Ebay is finally removing all their listings?

Or has Ebay started putting a timer on how long you can watch things? I do tend to keep watching things for a long time. Hmm.

[astronautf]

Yes this is clearly a serious defect in place since December 5.  There are several threads now in the user forum, and ebay is doing nothing - they still report all Buying services as normal on their dashboard!

I have lost 80 out of 300 items within 9 days, items which I watch routinely.  They are gone forever.  I don't keep a record because I expected ebay to keep my list!  And these 80 deletions are NOT due to sporadic policy violations, like ebay's canned answer tries to assert in the current forum threads.   My list alone represents several lost purchases.

I've heard users recommend keeping a personal list now so we can rebuild our lost items when they continue to be deleted.  Does anyone know how to obtain a system correction from ebay to revert or receive a list of our Watchlist on December 4, 2021?   And, of course, we need the acknowledgment and fix for the problem first, ebay.  

[astronautf]

Another user in another thread (same issue) is replying that Sold items are removed from the Watchlist.  Not Correct - Not ever - and if you read the Help files this is not true.  This problem is still not reaching anyone knowledgeable in eBay.  So frustrating that there is no direct communication with technical specialists.

Ended items remain on the Watchlist after being Sold or Expiring.  This is the critical design function of the VIEW SIMILAR ITEMS button.  It performs a search based on a Sold/Ended item to replace these with another wish listing on the Watchlist.  

The defect is still in progress - on Dec 15 I lost 5 more items.  

It really is not helpful for users who are not seeing or experiencing this issue to keep posting generic Help text - this needs to be acknowledged by ebay.  

[eburtonlab]

Ended items remain on the Watchlist after being Sold or Expiring.

That is not correct. If an item sells or ends without being relisted automatically, after about ninety days the listing is no longer viewable on eBay using a direct link, and therefore cannot appear on a list.

If you sort by ending soonest and examine the last items on your Watch list, you should see that none of the sold or ended items are more than ninety days old.

[astronautf]

I think most users understand the point.

Ended items remain on the Watchlist after being Sold or Expiring for 90 days. 

Items are not deleted as soon as they are sold. 

[eburtonlab]

But items that are removed from the site for a policy violation or that end and expire after ninety days are removed from the Watch List as well.

If users do not account for items that are removed by eBay or items that expire after ninety days, it may be difficult to demonstrate that other items are disappearing from the Watch List for another reason.

[captkirk42]

Maybe they are fixing things. Today I noticed that my list jumped UP by 10 items not down.

[astronautf]

IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN.  Started about the same time in February - about Feb 5 2022.  I'm down 13 items now with no explanation, and they were not expired items.  All my oldest items remain on the watchlist.  

I see Sold items and Ended items, so I can't figure out why so many items are disappearing.  Are they being taken down from ebay?

When this happened in December, eventually some items were restored without any notice or explanation (they just re-appeared on the Watchlist), but it was only half of them.