Multiple-Variation Listings MORE PROBLEMS

[gopetersen]

The bugs just keep mounting.

1) Today I created a multiple-variation listing. Before making it live, I needed to change one picture. When I entered Edit Mode for the second time, ALL the uploaded variation pics were gone AND some of the price information was gone. Had to add it all back.

2) Tried to make the listing live (it took almost two hours to create this listing) and the message Duplicate Custom Variation appears and eBay refuses to publish the listing.

Do you see any duplicate variations in here?

Jars_Red_BG,

Jars_Green_BG,

Jars_Blue_BG,

Big_Jar_Green_BG,

Big_Jar_Red_BG,

Happy_Dill_Green_BG,

Happy_Dill_Blue_BG,

Rustic_Blue_BG,

Rustic_Light_BG,

Starburst_Blue,

Starburst_Green,

Starburst_Light_BG,

Starburst_Aqua,

Blue_GIngham,

Green_Gingham,

Light_Gingham

This is copy and paste from the listing, so it's the exact variation names.

Up until about three months ago I NEVER had problems with variation names. Now, if I take an old listing that worked in the past and duplicate it EXACTLY, I get a duplicate variation error (there ARE no duplicate variations).

Recently, I tried putting hyphens instead of spaces in the names. That didn't work.

This time I tried underscores instead of hyphens. It won't accept the names, even though each one is technically unique when it has an underscore.

What is the matter with you people? WHY DO YOU CHANGE SOFTWARE THAT WORKS?

These are VARIATIONS. The names will always be similar. It USED to work (I've been using variation listings for years).

Would someone at eBay please get this fixed or TELL US a WORKAROUND for naming the variations until it gets fixed? What am I supposed to do to get my listing published? I have buyers who have requested this product. Doesn't eBay WANT us to list new products?

We can't make money (and thus eBay can't make money) if the bugs keep piling up on a weekly basis.

[gopetersen]

I tried again today to make the listing live. I have buyers ASKING for this product.

Same error message:

It looks like there's a problem with this listing.

• Duplicate custom variation label.

There are no duplicate variations. I cannot simplify the pattern names without causing buyer confusion since each variation is quite similar.

Could someone at eBay at least PROVIDE A WORKAROUND until the problem is fixed? Is there some way the names can be formatted so it doesn't trigger an error message?

I am NOT listing these as separate listings. It's ONE product with small variations and buyers prefer to see them all together so they can compare them.

[mikgile-39]

Perhaps you should call them for assistance and if this is a issue get it reported so they can get it fixed in the next 2 to 3 years.

[gopetersen]

When this problem first appeared, I used eBay's official Feedback system within the listing (for reporting listing problems) and THAT didn't work. Months have gone by.

So now I post here on their official Technical Issues forum and no one has provided a workaround or even an acknowledgment.

I think the only way eBay is going to realize HOW BAD this venue is getting is if I sit down and start making videos of all the bugs and posting them on YouTube for all the world to see (including stockholders). Then maybe they will pay attention and start fixing these problems so we can make some money together.

[gopetersen]

The problem is much deeper than just variation information that disappears if you go into the variation details more than once while creating the listing, and deeper than the problem of variation names (which used to work)...

it also scares sellers away from using Multiple Variations which, in turn, leads to Search Result bloat. Buyers do NOT want to scroll through hundreds of listings of slight variations within the main search window (especially those on mobile devices).

If eBay doesn't FIX the problems, it not only inconveniences sellers and causes them to give up using the Multiple Variations options and listing certain kinds of products, it also annoys buyers who hate having to scroll through 1,000 pictures of essentially the same items (items that could and should be listed together instead of separately).

[mikgile-39]

Perhaps you could call paypal since their site works fine and they have good tech support. Oh wait ebay splite from them and has constantly gone from bad to worst. With ebays stock dropping like flies maybe Paypal can buy back Ebay and fix the problems lol.

[gopetersen]

It has gotten worse.

It's not just that photos and variations get wiped out, or that they changed the software so it reports duplicate variation names when there are none, now eBay is reporting error messages on things that eBay sets as defaults. I tried to create a DEAD SIMPLE variations listing, the simplest one I've ever done in all the years I've been using the MV listing form and even that won't work:

It looks like there's a problem with this listing.

• Variation Specifics provided does not match with the variation specifics of the variations on the item.
• Missing name in the variation specifics or variation specifics set.
• Variation specific name "Style" used for pictures does not exist in variation specific set.

The first error message doesn't even make sense. Read it!!

Not only is it incoherent, but the variation specifics I used were eBay's defaults. I didn't even add my own. And it was eBay that populated the variations, I didn't choose to do it myself.

I've never seen it this bad.

[bigdeals.etc]

Yea, currently the MV listings is a total feeces storm. It's sad that I'm still hearing from other members that eBay CS reps are still denying them refusing to acknowledge the issue. I'm still going to press the issue with my rep I've been communicating with and add your glitches here too. Hopefully they are all linked and the fix will solve them all. 

Btw @mikgile-39 you are HIGH-larious with your replies. Ever think of taking your show on the road? Haha

[danger_curves_ahead]

Hello I am experiencing very similar problems. All my listings have about 250 variations. If I go in to make just a change to quantity, save and finish, I click on the listing again to view it live and ALL the photos are gone. I spent 5 1/2 hours today just making a few simple quantity changes and then having to reload all the photos. I have called 3 times so far to get ebay to address this issue.

[lasantino]

I highly suggest sellers with multi variation listings back up all of their photos before the end of the month,, I'm getting a sixth sense...  another major ebay technical glitch and thousands of sellers losing the pictures in their listings....   it's happened the last two months ..   before it  happened to listings that had good til canceled selected.

I bet it's going to hit MV listings now.... what a nightmare,,

BACK UP YOUR PHOTOS if you use MV listings...   there must be some app or program you can download that will do that automatically.. (if you don't already  use one,,like Turbolister and the like)

[lasantino]

@mikegile-39

YES! DO THIS, remember a few years back people were posting their customer service calls dealing with comcast , and the impossibility of trying to cancel their accounts... !!.. canceling your account and dealing with call center CS reps miraculously got a lot easier shortly thereafter.

[gopetersen]

Today, for the first time in three weeks, I was able to create and publish a Multiple-Variation listing BUT only if I started COMPLETELY from scratch (I still can't get Sell Similar to work, it's still severely broken).

I tried to keep it as simple as possible.

HOWEVER, even this listing is only showing 3 of the 9 variation photos. The rest are simply not there. The buyer has no idea what the item looks like and since they are buying based on design, the listing is useless.

[gopetersen]

After three revisions, the pictures "stuck" (they are visible).

What I did with quantity was to set it very high, since I have unlimited numbers of these, so I don't have to revise it. But, this will NOT work with listings with limited quantities. I don't know how sellers are going to deal with that, since the quantities and price are sometimes wiped out when you revise something as simple as one of the pictures.

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

Oh boy. Looks like I got my answer to the question I posed here https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Everytime-I-think-it-might-be-safe-to-quot-go-back-in-the-wate...

Too bad. Shame they can't get anything to work right .

[gopetersen]

They must have been working on it.

Today I was able to edit variation listings for the first time in almost a month. The information didn't revert to defaults, the pictures didn't disappear, I was able to rearrange the variations without problems.

Huzzah! I hope it stays that way!!