eBay

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

Beginning yesterday we noticed an issue of our stock management software reporting an error. Our software adjusts stocks automatically to match our stocks in warehouse. We were receiving an error: "Error: A return option is missing or not valid. Update your return options.".

To be very clear, it's not saying these items are set to "No Returns". It's saying they have NO return policy found, period. It seems that eBay has lost the return data.

All these listings were set to 30 day Free Returns originally.

After doing a little more browsing, I found further issues:

Our items are still showing up properly as Free Returns in search.

Yet in our listing directly, it's saying "Seller does not accept returns".

This is a 2-fold issue for us. Right now, our stock management software can not update correct stocks, so items we don't have may still be up on eBay listings. Also, if these listings are still showing up as "Does not accept returns" in the listing itself, that removes our protections offered by Free Returns on eBay!

Another forum member suggested this may be related to eBay removing the old return policy options as that was announced recently. But all of these listings were 30 day Free Returns prior to this. It seems that the removal of return policy options may be targeting listings with valid return reasons!

If anyone is experiencing this issue, please report it to make sure it can be fixed ASAP!

I will be testing things further to see if I can find anything else regarding this issue!

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

So I started bulk updating our items and you can see the issue here:

After updating to return policies, it seems the listings go back to functioning as normal.

Seems confirmed at this point that return data simply got corrupted somehow.

I can not say if the return data is still being lost continually, but it was definitely lost, although it seems it can be easily repaired.

berserkerplanet · ‎02-14-2019

We cross posted while I was looking at/searching your listings and thinking - I guess nevermind what follows. It looks like it was corrupted or possibly deprecated item specifics and other listing settings and maybe a tangleup with the API.

Out of curiosity: how are you able to find the messed up ones? Only through the your IM software errors, or some other way?

Nothing specific, but I vaguely recall this issue a while back (last year), and suspect it is something tangled up in perpetually relisting GTC listings that may have had 14 day return policies. Something got "stuck" when the new return policies kicked in, or became an issue recently for some other (related?) reason.

I had a heck of a time finding one of your listings with the issue. 1 out of the random dozen I checked in the first 3000 best match results showed no returns. Out of another 20 randomly checked in "ending soonest" searches with various keyword narrowing, zero had the issue.

~~Can you provide item numbers for a half dozen that have the issue?~~

~~What happens if you manually revise one of those listings?~~
~~Does the error message also pop up then? Does the revised listing still show no returns?~~

~~Throwing stuff against the wall experiment:~~
~~Edit one of the affected listings to change return policy to "no returns", then revise again to change it back to free 30 day returns, and see if that gets the proper settings incorporated.~~

A problem may be that there is no way to determine which listings are affected through the eBay web interface that I'm aware of, and using a method of your inventory management software throwing an error when it happens to run across one isn't optimal.

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

@berserkerplanet wrote:

Out of curiosity: how are you able to find the messed up ones? Only through the your IM software errors, or some other way?

Originally we noticed it through our software, but after playing around on eBay a bit, if you use the bulk tool to edit listings 500 at a time, you will get errors about no return policy or invalid return policy.

I wondered if it could be something software related, but it seems as if other users are having this issue too that don't use any eBay API software. Also, it seems that once we manually edit the listings in bulk on eBay, there's no more API errors.

Basically seems as simple as the return data got corrupted, so I highly recommend going through all your listings in bulk and correcting return policies, just in case!

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

Update:

So the bulk updater does work to fix the return policies, but it takes MANY attempts to go through fully.

For example.

Open bulk updater for 500 listings and it says 50 don't contain a return policy, 25 invalid return policy.

Attempt to bulk update all, and it updates to "42 don't contain a return policy, 22 invalid".

Then on the top, it has the red/yellow indicators with the test for the "42 don't contain a return policy" message. You can hit the checkbox next to this error, and then set return policies for those items specifically.

Then it updates to "12 don't contain a return policy".

You basically have to repeat this over and over until it's fixed.

Annoying, but at least there's a way to fix it...

partsngo · ‎02-14-2019

We have had the same issue for a week and a half now. Tried everything. Bulk edit, individual revisions, updating our file exchange... Does not do anything. We can go update the ones we just fixed and we get another 30 to 40 listings with the same issues. Our return policy has never changed and all 10,000 listings have the same policy. We have about 2000 of them now showing we do not accept returns. I have been talking to ebay for a week and half and the issue persists! Very frustrating!

partsngo · ‎02-14-2019

If you go back and try bulk editing the same ones right after are they all clear? Every time I do it comes up with different ones with the same issue.

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

Okay I have an updated visual example of this issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGXzK-O_6PQ

Let me walk through the steps of what happens in this video:

1) Attempting to edit 500 listings, it says 14 with return policy not supported.
2) Set all 500 to Free Returns.

3) Now 22 with return policy not supported, 7 return policy not specified.

4) Attempt again, now 17 return policy not supported, 10 not specified.
5) I attempt to edit only the 17 items not supported, results are 1 not supported 1 not specified (even though I did not touch not specified).

6) I submit the final ones not specified, and successfully have 0 listing errors.

7) Submit Listings: Result - 7 listings did not update.

😎 Attempt again. Result - 1 not specified.

9) Attempt again - 0 listing errors.

10) Submit again. Result - 2 listings did not update.

You can clearly see the pattern/issue.

Now, I highly recommend everyone reading this, please check the bulk editor to see if this issue is affecting you. I was straight up told by eBay, "we're not getting any other reports of this, unless many people report it, it may take months for them to fix this issue".

Even though it seems others on here have this issue, and have reported it...

I hope this does not indicate any larger issues at hand 😕

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

@partsngo wrote:
We have had the same issue for a week and a half now. Tried everything. Bulk edit, individual revisions, updating our file exchange... Does not do anything. We can go update the ones we just fixed and we get another 30 to 40 listings with the same issues. Our return policy has never changed and all 10,000 listings have the same policy. We have about 2000 of them now showing we do not accept returns. I have been talking to ebay for a week and half and the issue persists! Very frustrating!

Well eBay is claiming to me that "nobody else reported this issue".

Basically, unless more people start reporting this, they aren't going to prioritize it.

What you describe is what I'm worried about - this isn't an issue that "happened already" - this is a corruption that is still happening.

It seems that just revising or using bulk tools is what is causing the returns to be corrupted.... so unless they fix this it's going to keep up.

Similar issues were happening last year after the Spring update... I really hope this year isn't going to be a repeat....

dtexley3 · ‎02-14-2019

I just tried bulk editing 500 listings and did not get any errors. HOWEVER, I switched to 30 day policies several months ago and I don't use GTC listings so that may make a difference.

Member of the Grumpy Old Man crew

zamo-zuan · ‎02-15-2019

@dtexley3 wrote:
I just tried bulk editing 500 listings and did not get any errors. HOWEVER, I switched to 30 day policies several months ago and I don't use GTC listings so that may make a difference.

That would make sense, as the times they had issues with data being lost similar to this (for example, images being lost) it was during GTC listings when they were renewed.

It seems in this case, revising may also be a cause, as this does happen to us when revising listings manually as well.

zamo-zuan · ‎02-21-2019

@partsngo wrote:
We have had the same issue for a week and a half now. Tried everything. Bulk edit, individual revisions, updating our file exchange... Does not do anything. We can go update the ones we just fixed and we get another 30 to 40 listings with the same issues. Our return policy has never changed and all 10,000 listings have the same policy. We have about 2000 of them now showing we do not accept returns. I have been talking to ebay for a week and half and the issue persists! Very frustrating!

It seems this issue has been resolved now. If you edit your listings in bulk and set return policy, it should work okay.

I hope it is resolved for you as well!