An interesting observation of a sold item only to reappear as unsold live listing

[quicksilverdiecast]

At first I thought it was me losing my mind....but after paying close attention to how and why this MAY have happened (when you spend 10-12 hours a day on ebay every day you tend to notice the little things that change) with that being said....follow along.  There has been a number of times where an item that has only a qty of 1 and sells is done and gone..sold, no inventory left...and only to have it show up sometime later when another buyer found the listing and purchases said already sold item!  I can accept on occasion I am human and make mistakes, but not repeatedly/consistenly! So I have carefully monitored this...and have come to this conclusion....ebay keep changing the platform constantly...and in order to do so they have at least two platforms they use...one that is live and one that is getting any changes that require it to be offline so to speak, so when they pulldown that platform it is a snap shot in time....meaning that when that platform was swapped with the mirrored one your item was still unsold. The current running live platform continues running and your items sells and is gone....but wait! Once ebay does whatever they needed to do to the offline platform and swaps it back out with the mirrored platform presto your item shows back up showing it as unsold and another buyer purchases it....and then the fun begins with the seller tearing his hair out trying to find the said item to ship...yet in the back of your mind you vaguely recall selling it!   How did I come to this conclusion, as I said I spend a great deal of time on here and notice little things as I go through my day..sometimes I update my listing and want to copy my own picture off the listing to do any number of changes I want do, which with what I will call the "OLD" platform I was able to do and save as a jpg. however on the "NEW" platform it is not possible to save your own picture form the live listing and when trying to do so it comes up as a .webp now rather than the OLD .jpg. This swapping of platforms happens occassionally...

I have also compared notes with a few other reputable sellers I know on here and they have had the same issue of items previously sold reappearing as unsold and then sold again to another buyer! (I polled them a couple days ago to confirm I was not losing my mind) Now this has happened a couple times in the past, but it has happened again recently where I now have 3 different items that were previously sold, back on my seller hub as being sold again, With 2 of them I am positive they were sold as they were odd balls one would remember selling. The 3rd one as I said in the back of my mind I vaguely recall it selling also. So when ebay swaps platforms for one reason or another I am sure they do not alter or change anything concerning a sellers listing including qty and when the board is swapped back it shows the qty again as being for sale AND any of the revised changes that the seller may have done while one platform or the other was swapped? The seller is oblivious to this until an issues crops up and is clueless at how it happened. In the end it creates a BBE for both the customer who bought the already sold item, and the seller.

[ittybitnot]

@quicksilverdiecast 

A lot of these can be attributed to 'user error' or use of the "out of stock option".  However, many are unexplained.  You might find this useful: 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/How-to-report-GHOST-LISTINGS/m-p/34527800#M2416901

[quicksilverdiecast]

After 30 years of ebay I do not think of user error is the reason, and when an item sells from my store the qty if it was only 1 item once sold will show 0 in stock and cannot be ordered unless stock is added for sale. And after doing considerable homework at how this happens I think my initial post pretty much narrowed down to how it is caused by ebay, as well as when they announce that the site will be down for maintenance on a certain date and time, and as I said when they swap the mirrored platform to make any internal system changes(not sellers changes) that while the "temporary platform" is up and your item sells the qty goes to zero, but when the main platform that had maintenance done goes back in place, it shows the sellers listing with qty as it was before the temp board was swapped in.  Maybe a less confusing way to understand this is this:  Main platform on say 7/22/24 is showing your listing with qty 1. ebay pulls down main platform for what reason they have to make changes, still holding your list with qty 1. Ebay puts up a mirrored platform to keep things running and while it is up your item with qty 1 sells leaving a zero qty ON THE MIRRORED platform. on 7/25/24 they swap back to the main platform after making the changes to it, and takes down the mirrored platform where your 1 item sold, yet the main platform that is back live still retains the listing as unsold and showing a qty of 1...seller will never know this has happened UNTIL they go looking for the item and cannot find it(I am sure there are cases of seller losing an item) but for those who keep good tabs on inventory/memory it is not their error. Yesterday I spent a couple hours talking with other seller friends on numerous issue on here and this was one of them, and they are experiencing it as well, so we all cannot be crazy at least yet. and then thankfully you "ittybitnot" posted the "ghost" listing issue pretty much confirms it and no real way for ebay to fix it, and very shady to only inform team leaders and not the seller community much less let the seller get demerits for "out of stock" that was caused by ebay.

[kensgiftshop]

That could explain items showing back up for sale after a few days, but what about the ones that show up months later?

[gwens*4saleitems*]

I see black on white blobbery here and have a hard time reading what it is you are trying to say.

PARAGRAPHS makes for easier reading.

[dbfolks166mt]

Paragraphs are you friend. It makes it a LOT easier to "follow along". As do structured sentences. 

[quicksilverdiecast]

Hi Ken and the more I think about this issue the more aggravated I get....and the fact that they are clueless at how and why it is happening....and then we, as sellers take all the heat and blame, and to rub salt in the wound ebay considers it an "out of stock" demerit against a seller account! And even possibly end up with a neg feedback that ebay refuses to remove neg feedbacks anymore regardless if they are accurate/truthful or caused by ebay itself...After 30 years on here I still get lost and confused with figuring out issues and aspects. I must say that I really feel sorry for noobies who get caught up in it...I scroll through this forum and just shake my head.  As I said earlier Ebay used to be stellar and THEE place to build a great business, but now whoever is running the peanut gallery is driving it into the ground, they have lost the concept of keeping things simple.

[luckythewinner]

in order to do so they have at least two platforms they use...one that is live and one that is getting any changes that require it to be offline so to speak, so when they pulldown that platform it is a snap shot in time....meaning that when that platform was swapped with the mirrored one your item was still unsold.

If that were happening on eBay, wouldn't there also be millions of buyers and sellers "repeatedly and consistently" reporting that high bids had mysteriously disappeared without any retractions or cancellations?

And aren't there sellers claiming that they have very old listings that also reappear, which would not be affected by this "hot swap" scenario that you are imagining?

[quicksilverdiecast]

"That could explain items showing back up for sale after a few days, but what about the ones that show up months later?"

That in itself is a mystery...as to when/how/why ones show up months later...There is really no way to figure it out. A seller will be clueless until it shows up on the seller hub sold items...Maybe for sellers who do not have a lot of listings and is aware of this issue and can check their listings...but when you have 1000's of listings it is impossible to do so. Of the 3 I had recently, 2 I knew I had sold earlier being oddballs...but the 1 I only vaguely recall it being sold as well, but no idea as to when I checked the sold archives and found nothing, so I would assume it was more than 90 days ago.

[kensgiftshop]

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@quicksilverdiecast wrote:

"That could explain items showing back up for sale after a few days, but what about the ones that show up months later?"

That in itself is a mystery...as to when/how/why ones show up months later...There is really no way to figure it out. A seller will be clueless until it shows up on the seller hub sold items...Maybe for sellers who do not have a lot of listings and is aware of this issue and can check their listings...but when you have 1000's of listings it is impossible to do so. Of the 3 I had recently, 2 I knew I had sold earlier being oddballs...but the 1 I only vaguely recall it being sold as well, but no idea as to when I checked the sold archives and found nothing, so I would assume it was more than 90 days ago.

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One of the last ones I had, got the sold email, so checked to make sure everything was ok and ready to ship.

Went to get the item and it wasn't there.

I've got 12 boxes where I stored everything, so checked all the boxes and nothing.

Didn't remember it selling before, so checked solds on Ebay and there was nothing but the recent sale.

Went through my old email and there it was, it sold 6 to 8 months ago.

[ten_o_nine]

I doubt it, this would have been a major defect and would have been caught on the first release.

Moving code changes from test to production will not cause an item to reappear.

[quicksilverdiecast]

Pretty good bet ebay is using 2 different platforms as yesterday the "Save up to 5%" etc shows up on listings, today same discount is offered yet does not show up on listing?!

[quicksilverdiecast]

You have a better explanation?👂

[chapeau-noir]

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@quicksilverdiecast wrote:

You have a better explanation?👂

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I think it's just a database event - indexing and updates with periodic errors. I used to help run a small server farm and we periodically would get old replicate files.

[evry1nositswindy]

This is from a fellow mentor and this has been discussed.  I am copying and pasting the information for you:

The first thing to check is do you have the out stock setting turned on in account settings>

https://www.ebay.com/uas/selling-pref  Multi-quantity listings>Listings stay active when you're out of stock.  If you do then the item stays active when sold but the quantity should be zero if you only had one of an item.  

If that's not the problem then you may be experiencing what sellers call Ghost Listings.  You should report this to eBay as they have been trying to track down this bug for a long time but since it's random it's been hard to do.  

A ghost listing occurs when an item that has been sold reappears for sale without the seller's intent to relist, seemingly relisted by eBay. 

When faced with a ghost listing, sellers are put in a difficult position. They must either cancel the transaction due to the item being out of stock, which unfortunately results in an “out of stock” listing defect on their account, or they must find an alternative solution, such as sourcing the item elsewhere to fulfill the order for the buyer.

eBay is actively working to address and prevent these occurrences, and your detailed reports are invaluable to our efforts.

To ensure eBay can address and resolve ghost listings efficiently, eBay requests your cooperation in providing specific details when you encounter these issues. Here’s how you can help:

Note down the Item ID of the ghost listing.
If available, also record the Item ID of the original listing.
Utilize the feedback form located within the “Advanced Listing Tool” (pictured below), and include the following information:
Both Item IDs as mentioned earlier.
Include the phrase “ghost listing” in your feedback to help us identify the issue.
Provide as much detail as possible about the listing to aid in our investigation.