Items not showing up in store for days

[sesundew]

  I activated my vacation settings awhile back and after turning it off none of my items are showing up in my store even though they are active.  I understand there is a glitch that happens from time to time with the vacation settings and I'm hoping someone can give me some advice.

[eburtonlab]

I can see 82 listings in your store at the moment.

[baxterbog]

I'm in Alaska, as well, and can't see your listings without altering my zip code to one from the lower 48.  This has been the case for us for well over 1 year now.  We have not been able to find our items in a search or see them in our store since June 2017.  We have reported this issue a number of times.  Last response from ebay was 'thank you for your patience but we do not have a fix as of yet'.  That was about 1 month ago.  

[berserkerplanet]

As baxterbog pointed out, if you are in Alaska, you probably can't see your listings (or most any one else's for that matter).

Try this: @sesundew

See if you can see my listings https://www.ebay.com/sch/berserkerplanet/m.html
If you can't, then it's the Alaska/Hawaii/Territories/APO/FPO bug (viewers in those areas - except sometimes for Hawaii - can't see any listings on eBay.com that don't have some sort of international shipping option)

Bring up any eBay listing from search and change the zipcode to 90210 in California on the shipping and payments tab, and hit "get rates".
(Leave the tab open so you can experiment with others and then change it back to yours when done.)

Now go look for your listings: https://www.ebay.com/sch/sesundew/m.html
If they appear then it's the Alaska/Hawaii/Territories/APO/FPO bug.

Look at mine again. If they didn't appear before using your default zip code but now appear then it's the Alaska/Hawaii/Territories/APO/FPO bug.

[sesundew]

Thanks for the information, that explains why a friend in the same town as me keeps saying they can't find my listings when they do a search. I sure hope tech support comes up with a solution soon....

[sesundew]

You're right, I can't see any of your listings or mine until I change the zip code. Thanks for the tip. Any news about an upcoming fix?

[berserkerplanet]

The simple, but klunky workaround is to use a US zipcode to be able to see your own listings as a seller, and maybe inform any Alaska, Hawaii, Territories, APO/FPO buyers that ask to do the same (or MAYBE add a note about it in your listings). With the understanding that a buyer using a lower 48 states zipcode to get around the bug will see incorrect calculated shipping amounts unless an appropriate lower 48 zip code is chosen (doesn't work to obtain correct calc shipping charges for FedEx and UPS shipping though)


One thing that might work would be to add any? international shipping option to your listings.

Never did figure out if there was some specific country eBay thinks Alaska is, but with an Alaska, Hawaii, etc viewing zipcode, listings do show up when sellers offer "worldwide shipping". Maybe offer international shipping to only a single, obscure, Pacific Island where you would never have to worry about an international snowshoe or beartrap sale , exclude the rest of the world in the exclusions list, and see if that makes your listings visible to Alaska, Hawaii, etc zips.


No info on an eBay fix, and I wouldn't expect one in this lifetime. Has been an issue for at least a year, and baxterbog's posts about eBay responses make it sound like it is zero priority.

With all the other broken website eBay issue, affecting far more users, it will be a cold day in Alaska before it gets addressed (unless accidentally fixed while they are working on some other shipping calc issue).

See here for my rough calcs on populations, and therefore likely priority for fixing Alaska, etc issues:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Just-a-quot-pain-point-quot-what-would-you-do/m-p/28446735

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/I-am-in-Hawaii-but-search-insists-I-am-International/...

[wendy168178]

Same thing happened to me.  I tried to call local eBay.  No one answered the phone.  eBay services is very disapponited  

[baxterbog]

As Zerker stated, it is unlikely that we will see any movement on this issue.  We worked with a dedicated support rep for 8 months.  Ebay waived our Anchor Store subscription fee while they tried to solve the problem.  In February 2018, Ebay concluded that they might have a fix ready to go at the end of the year.  And they discontinued waiving the fee.  Our support rep was then nowhere to be found, as the rep would no longer respond to our emails.  So we downgraded our store.  No point in paying that high Anchor Store subscription fee for a flawed service.  Not sure how ebay justifies charging us full price for less than full service.  

[baxterbog]

It is a shame that your fellow Alaskans cannot see your listings.  My next door neighbor can't see our items.  And I can't see hers.  Just pathetic.

[sesundew]

Agreed, and I'm selling some items that would be of interest to residents in my home state. I'm waiting for a call back right now and will make it my mission to keep calling on a regular basis. I will be asking that they waive fees as well since my store is not functioning properly. Thanks again for the input, if there's a breakthrough I'll be sure to share.

[sesundew]

Thanks for the input, I have quite a few listings that offer international shipping so I'm at a loss there. I sure hope I that whole "Alaska is a state not another country" conversation that I'm all too familiar with doesn't come up in this process.

[berserkerplanet]

I played around with adding worldwide shipping to only Kiribati to one of my listings and then tried to search my listings using Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and an FPO zip code.

It made no difference. I get zero search results with or without that worldwide addition when I change my zipcode to one of the above (except Hawaii - it wasn't suffering from the bug today which often happens). I also tried allowing all of Asia with same negative result. (Also searched for baxterbog's listings with same negative results)

It is uncertain if me in California trying Alaska and other zip codes is the same as actually being in those locations. I think it has been indicated that registration? address and IP geolocation may play a role in this, so me changing my zip may not be the same thing (although I get similar results to Alaskans when I do)

Anyway, looks like my theorized Worldwide shipping workaround isn't a workaround even though it seemed to be a while back in some circumstances, Back then when I used an Alaska zipcode, I could see US seller listings that had some type of international shipping on them. If a seller had no listings with an international shipping option, then seller search returned zero listings. If some had it, only the international ones appeared.

Also, it may not be actually offering Worldwide shipping options to some/many/all? locations that did the trick, but instead just not having blocks in the exclusions list for some/many/all locations

(Gah. This gets confusing. Going to have to look at it again and maybe try removing all my excluded countries and see. Maybe it will turn out that eBay actually thinks Alaska is Nigeria or something similar)

[baxterbog]

Hello Zerker.  If you recall, the last time that you looked at this issue on our behalf you could see 10-12 of our items using an Alaskan zip code.  The rest you could not.  The odd thing was that, if I sold similar from one of those listings that I could see, I could actually see the new listing.  This oddity was disclosed to ebay in my thread.  Ebay tech got right on it, making those few listings that I could see vanish with the others.  That is right....not fixing the invisible ones but adjusting the few listings that could be seen to being invisible with all the rest.  Absolutely insane!

[sesundew]

Here's an update:  I got a few responses from different ebay reps after emailing and calling.  None of their suggestions helped.   On July 11th I once again replied to their email which asked if it was fixed and if not to send a screen shot.  I have not heard back from them since even after reminding them it was still an issue.  I will be calling them again soon.  I know someone else indicated after awhile they started ignoring attempts at communication which is disappointing to say the least.