Compensating for the upcoming Daylight Saving Time change on 11/3

[a_c_green]

Somebody check my math, please, because I'm going bonkers trying to do this in my head:

I have 7-day auctions that will begin on this coming Sunday night, October 27th, to end a week later on November 3rd. We turn the clocks back at 2:00 a.m. on the morning of the 3rd. ("Spring forward; Fall back")

Sooo... if I want an auction to end at 10:00 p.m. Chicago time on the 3rd, I need to start it at 11:00 p.m. this Sunday, right? Start it an hour later than its intended ending time, right? I know it's going to run for 7x24 hours regardless.

[wellingnorth]

Apologies for resurrecting the thread if that is bad forum etiquette, I was hoping some of the discussion above might help get this resolved. 

I found a recent listing now and it looks to me like this may be happening again, I don't know if someone could check my logic, but for example this listing spans the daylight savings change

https://www.ebay.com/itm/297066011899

On watchcount (https://watchcount.com/live/297066011899/-/all?site=EBAY_US&sortBy=price) it says 

Start: Thu, 27-Feb-25 23:37:10 UTC (14 minutes ago)
Auction ends Sun, 09-Mar-25 22:37:10 UTC (9 days left)

So the start and end hours in UTC again differ where they should be the same, this time it's an hour less rather than an hour more so the auction runs for 9 days 23 hours only.

If someone could try starting a 10 day auction you should see it starts and finishes at the same hour in your time zone before and after the change and my hunch is that as soon as it starts it will jump to say 9 days 22 hours remaining.

[wastingtime101]

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@wellingnorth wrote:

I found a recent listing now and it looks to me like this may be happening again, I don't know if someone could check my logic, but for example this listing spans the daylight savings change

https://www.ebay.com/itm/297066011899

On watchcount (https://watchcount.com/live/297066011899/-/all?site=EBAY_US&sortBy=price) it says 

Start: Thu, 27-Feb-25 23:37:10 UTC (14 minutes ago)
Auction ends Sun, 09-Mar-25 22:37:10 UTC (9 days left)

So the start and end hours in UTC again differ where they should be the same, this time it's an hour less rather than an hour more so the auction runs for 9 days 23 hours only.

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Hi @wellingnorth ! As you already know and can see in my post 22 above, we confirmed when DST went into effect last fall, the auction end time was going by the same hour as the start time instead of jumping with the time change, which was different behavior from all previous DST events.

Last fall auctions had an extra hour of run time. And based on the sample listing you provided above, it looks like the same thing is happening now in reverse and auctions will lose an hour of run time as the clocks jump forward.

Looks like if you start something at 8pm, it's going to end at 8pm and not jump an hour with the clock.

Educated guess: I believe this change is due to eBay correcting last year's Leap Day issue as mentioned in that other post. The question is whether it's an intended change or a tech error.

This is contradictory to the help page which still states the listing will be # days x 24 hours.

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Listings that run during a daylight-saving time change will still receive the full amount of the listing duration. For example, if you have a 1-day listing that starts at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, and the daylight-saving time spring transition occurs that Saturday evening, the listing will end at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday.

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Hey kyle@ebay or devon@ebay - can you see about getting more info on this? Please look at this post and also post 22 which I linked above. Thanks in advance!

[wellingnorth]

Thanks for confirming @wastingtime101 and passing onto forum staff.

I'll post on the UK forum as well - the clocks go forward on 30th March here so hopefully there might be time to get this fixed before then.

[wastingtime101]

Hi kyle@ebay . Any chance you got replies on this? Post #32 above.

[kyle@ebay]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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@wellingnorth wrote:

I found a recent listing now and it looks to me like this may be happening again, I don't know if someone could check my logic, but for example this listing spans the daylight savings change

https://www.ebay.com/itm/297066011899

On watchcount (https://watchcount.com/live/297066011899/-/all?site=EBAY_US&sortBy=price) it says 

Start: Thu, 27-Feb-25 23:37:10 UTC (14 minutes ago)
Auction ends Sun, 09-Mar-25 22:37:10 UTC (9 days left)

So the start and end hours in UTC again differ where they should be the same, this time it's an hour less rather than an hour more so the auction runs for 9 days 23 hours only.

---

Hi @wellingnorth ! As you already know and can see in my post 22 above, we confirmed when DST went into effect last fall, the auction end time was going by the same hour as the start time instead of jumping with the time change, which was different behavior from all previous DST events.

Last fall auctions had an extra hour of run time. And based on the sample listing you provided above, it looks like the same thing is happening now in reverse and auctions will lose an hour of run time as the clocks jump forward.

Looks like if you start something at 8pm, it's going to end at 8pm and not jump an hour with the clock.

Educated guess: I believe this change is due to eBay correcting last year's Leap Day issue as mentioned in that other post. The question is whether it's an intended change or a tech error.

This is contradictory to the help page which still states the listing will be # days x 24 hours.

---

Listings that run during a daylight-saving time change will still receive the full amount of the listing duration. For example, if you have a 1-day listing that starts at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, and the daylight-saving time spring transition occurs that Saturday evening, the listing will end at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday.

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Hey kyle@ebay or devon@ebay - can you see about getting more info on this? Please look at this post and also post 22 which I linked above. Thanks in advance!

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Hey @wastingtime101 we checked with a few teams, and the answer we're getting back is matching the help page:  Listings should still be running their full duration; not lose an hour to compensate for the time difference.  

[wastingtime101]

Thanks kyle@ebay ! Re-examining the example item number 297066011899 we can see on Watchcount:

Start: Thu, 27-Feb-25 23:37:10 UTC --> converts to 3:37pm Pacific Time
Ends: Sun, 09-Mar-25 22:37:10 UTC --> converts to 2:37pm Pacific Time

However, when we look at the actual listing on eBay it says it ends at 3:37pm Pacific Time.

This appears to be an issue with Watchcount. I'd suggest @wellingnorth the eBay help page is correct and you may want to use the contact option on Watchcount to alert them.

See update in post that follows.

[wellingnorth]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

Thanks kyle@ebay ! Re-examining the example item number 297066011899 we can see on Watchcount:

Start: Thu, 27-Feb-25 23:37:10 UTC --> converts to 3:37pm Pacific Time
Ends: Sun, 09-Mar-25 22:37:10 UTC --> converts to 2:37pm Pacific Time

However, when we look at the actual listing on eBay it says it ends at 3:37pm Pacific Time.

This appears to be an issue with Watchcount. I'd suggest @wellingnorth the eBay help page is correct and you may want to use the contact option on Watchcount to alert them.

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Interesting and I'm slightly confused, I am not all that familiar with how to the US time zones work, but is the start time shown there in PST and the end time in PDT?  So it's starting at 3:37pm in PST and finishing at 3:37pm in PDT whereas it should finish at 4:37pm in PDT?

An easy test would be if someone in the US could just start a 7 day auction on ebay.com and then look immediately at what the time remaining is on the listing page. Usually it should be "Ends in 6d 23h", last year with the clocks going back it was saying "Ends in 7d", if it's going wrong now I think it will say "Ends in 6d 22h"

Actually I just realised a search for auctions sorted by "newly listed" will pull up auctions like this as long as they finish after Sunday. On this search sorted by newly listed and refreshing the page until I get something freshly listed

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=dress&_sacat=0&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_Auction=1

If I scroll down the list the first US auction say "Ends in 6d 22h"

The below it a UK auction where the time zone is not changing "Ends in 6d 23h" as expected

Below that another US auction "Ends in 6d 22h"

[wastingtime101]

Sorry I forgot to add that into the conversion - no wonder I got it wrong earlier. UTC is 7 hrs ahead of PDT and 8 hrs ahead of PST which means:

Start: Thu, 27-Feb-25 23:37:10 UTC --> converts to 3:37pm PST
Ends: Sun, 09-Mar-25 22:37:10 UTC --> converts to 3:37pm PDT

No issue on Watchcount's side or eBay's side @wellingnorth .

[wellingnorth]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

Sorry I forgot to add that into the conversion - no wonder I got it wrong earlier. UTC is 7 hrs ahead of PDT and 8 hrs ahead of PST which means:

Start: Thu, 27-Feb-25 23:37:10 UTC --> converts to 3:37pm PST
Ends: Sun, 09-Mar-25 22:37:10 UTC --> converts to 3:37pm PDT

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Isn't that the issue, that the auction starting at 3:37 pm PST should finish at 4:37pm PDT? The example on the listing duration page says 'if you have a 1-day listing that starts at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, and the daylight-saving time spring transition occurs that Saturday evening, the listing will end at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday.' In that example presumably 1:00pm is PST and 2:00pm is PDT?

But do have a look at any search for auctions sorted by "newly listed" as I described in message #37 above. It's slightly tricky for me as I'm in a different time zone entirely (where the clocks aren't going to change) but the fact that newly listed US auctions are immediately showing only 6d22h remaining suggests something is not quite right. 

[wastingtime101]

Sorry this has been the longest week (and it's only Tuesday!) and I've spent most of today in an emergency situation with a sick relative so my mind isn't focused. Maybe I did have it right the first time. I'll have to revisit the time difference with you when I can think more clearly @wellingnorth .

[wellingnorth]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

Sorry this has been the longest week (and it's only Tuesday!) and I've spent most of today in an emergency situation with a sick relative so my mind isn't focused. Maybe I did have it right the first time. I'll have to revisit the time difference with you when I can think more clearly @wellingnorth .

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No problem at all, kyle@ebay are you able to try what I suggested above - do a search for any regularly listed item, US auctions only, sort by newly listed and you'll see that even if they have just been listed they will show 6d22h remaining rather than 6d23 (as long as they finish after the time change on Sunday)

I've attached some screenshots of when I've done this just now with this search:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=dress&_sacat=0&_from=R40&LH_Auction=1&_sop=10

Note these two listings are the two most recently started auctions and have both have started in the last half an hour but the US one says 6d22h remaining, the UK one listed slightly earlier says 6d23h remaining.

The information on watchcount confirms this, they both have more or less the same UTC start time around 11:25 but the US listing finishes an hour earlier at 10:25

US ITEM
316445099948 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/316445099948
Start: Wed, 05-Mar-25 11:25:43 UTC (10 minutes ago)
Auction ends Wed, 12-Mar-25 10:25:43 UTC (6 days left)

(https://www.watchcount.com/live/316445099948/-/all?site=EBAY_US)

UK ITEM
306158524501 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/306158524501
Start: Wed, 05-Mar-25 11:25:39 UTC (11 minutes ago)
Auction ends Wed, 12-Mar-25 11:25:39 UTC (6 days left)

(https://www.watchcount.com/live/306158524501/-/all?site=EBAY_GB)

[mantle1951]

I agree not a big deal for me.

[mam98031]

@reallynicestamps 

Someone has to report the thread to the moderators to get it closed.  Not just post on the thread that it is old.

I reported the thread.

[wellingnorth]

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@mantle1951 wrote:

I agree not a big deal for me.

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I appreciate it's not a massive deal, but the way daylight savings is handled for auctions doesn't match what it says on the policy page so I'm hoping ebay will either change the functionality back to match the policy or change the policy to match the new functionality.

kyle@ebay devon@ebay are you able to reproduce what I described in post #43? I can still see newly listed US auctions immediately showing a duration of 6d22h rather than 6d23h and that should continue happening until the hour is added.