A tale of messing up...

[sin-n-dex]

So this weekend I sold a few New Zealand coin sets. I was packing the order last night.

I found out that two of the sets I was supposed to ship were not there. I checked everywhere. I knew what it looked like, so that made it easy to focus my efforts on the containers that contain items of that shape and size (I file like items together for easy pulling, so the photos help).

In one case, I had a replacement set that hasn't been listed yet. All good.

For the other set... I'm at a loss. I investigated to find out if anything weird happened (like I sold it and it relisted). Then I remembered. A bunch of New Zealand sets went back to the B&M store because when I was photographing I noticed cracks in the blister. After this happened I checked all the sets and a bunch went back. Most weren't listed because I spotted the damage right away, but the two elusive sets got listed and I forgot to take it down before giving them back.

So I apologized to the buyer. I refunded him for the set and gave free shipping on his other items. (They like to combine shipping and save money, if an item is missing that can be very disappointing for the combined shipping factor). This buyer has been purchasing almost weekly for the past few months and he understood the mistake and was happy with the free shipping this time.

This worked out OK. I'm glad that usually when an item is missing, it's an inconsequential bit in a lot of several items, so the free shipping really works to make up for an item not being there. Occasionally I find the item later and relist it for the buyer (these buyers buy all the time, so it's not like I'm bugging someone to purchase one thing and pay shipping on that one thing... in most cases they will buy the item provided they didn't already get one somewhere else).

Most of the time I don't find the item, but I investigate thoroughly to find out what happened to it. I've been very thorough in looking for anything that's "missing" ever since I relisted the wrong item (and it had already sold at auction), and a buyer was very disappointed. He told me other sellers say they can't find stuff because they aren't happy with the sale price. When I told him it sold a month ago and was relisted by accident then everything was OK because I had a valid reason for not having it. Unfortunately unscrupulous sellers make it much harder on the rest of us when there's an error.

C.

[clemowbooks]

The eBay relists of Sold items has been going on since the Turn of the Millennium.

Glad this one turned out well for you.

EBay seems unable to control the unwanted relists. And the unwanted dropping of long-tail listings, I shipped an item today that had been listed since 2008!

[sin-n-dex]

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@clemowbooks wrote:

The eBay relists of Sold items has been going on since the Turn of the Millennium.

Glad this one turned out well for you.

EBay seems unable to control the unwanted relists. And the unwanted dropping of long-tail listings, I shipped an item today that had been listed since 2008!

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I've heard of the unwanted relists, but I suspect a lot of it has to do with quantity related listings (where the quantity goes to zero, but somehow gets relisted with a quantity of one).

I don't think I've actually had a relist of a sold item. I used to go through my inventory item by item to check for listed things that I no longer have, but I don't think I've done that since I moved into this house (1.5 years ago).

In this case, the items that I couldn't fulfill were listed about six months ago with no evidence of them having been sold. I do recall two NZ sets from the 1980's going back because they were broken (the store tries to pawn them off on me again every time I pick up merchandise to photograph), I suspect if the other sets are not here and not sold, that they went back to the store alongside the others...

They may turn up next time I'm at the B&M store looking for merchandise, but if I've turned them, there must have been a good reason. I never return anything I've only had for a few months unless there's a gross disagreement in price (like the coin they wanted $50 for, but the top sold price was $45). I couldn't be bothered trying to list it for a higher price, it won't be high enough to make it worth my while.

C.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@sin-n-dex 

@clemowbooks 

I've had listings as of late, cancel for various reasons. Mostly customer paid and changed mind or just refused to pay. I've seen messages where it says it will either relist for free or that for some reason it doesn't quality for relisting. (Unsure of why it could be either for similar situations.) I've had it happen where they did relist as they should and other times they didn't. And it's not like you get any sort of confirmation email with a relist. My only concern is knowing what happened and that my inventory is correct. So always best to monitor just to make sure what needed to happen ends up happening. It's also supposed not be possible to relist an item twice. That too can happen. That's when doing a sort by title can be most revealing to find any issues.

Just takes some major detective work to get to the bottom of things. Glad you were able to cover your sale in this case. Not how it always turns out,unfortunately!!!

-Lotz

[carolynnq]

I had one unwanted relist maybe 10 years ago. It was obviously an error. The item had been sold 6 mos or so earlier and it was relisted with the original item #  (if I had relisted it, it would have had a new item #). eBay immediately acknowledged it was their error and took care of contacting the buyer, etc. There were a lot of other sellers reporting the same issue at the time, but a relatively small number. It's always puzzled me how a glitch affects only relatively few people - a glitch that affects everyone, I understand.

[chapeau-noir]

I've had relists of sold items - one was a computer mouse I had sold about 10 days previously, another was a top - there have been more, but thankfully not as many as get dropped (not even long tail).  Checking inventory does nothing - the item will exist on the site but will NOT exist on one's listing page.  These were OOAK items.

[clemowbooks]

And it's not like you get any sort of confirmation email with a relist.

That would be helpful, annoying, but helpful.

Since I have several IDs for different product lines, I would be getting dozens of "relist" emails every day.

I would still appreciate them.

[chapeau-noir]

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@clemowbooks wrote:

And it's not like you get any sort of confirmation email with a relist.

That would be helpful, annoying, but helpful.

Since I have several IDs for different product lines, I would be getting dozens of "relist" emails every day.

I would still appreciate them.

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Thing is, from what I've noted in my experience one still wouldn't get a relist email because the item is re-indexed on the site, but not in one's own listings, and I believe the emails are prompted by a new listing in one's own store or group of listings. 

It's really infuriating because the last time this happened, I sold a certain mouse, then like a week or so later this SAME mouse sells again - I had even remembered packing it and entering its sale on our spreadsheets - sure enough, same exact listing. I certainly hadn't relisted the mouse, I hadn't listed any computer equipment since that sale. I got smacked with a OOS defect for canceling the sale.