Disappearing Listings

[jodieblue57]

All of my listings are set to automatically renew. Lately, though, I have noticed that a few have just disappeared and they are not in my unsold. Instead of being relisted, it is as if they were deleted.  Are they automatically removed if they haven't sold after being renewed a certain number of times? I am baffled by this. 

[Anonymous]

You have tried a item # search?

If you remember the EXACT wording in your description, you can go to Google put it in quotes and your history might come up.

Hope that helps.

[jayjaspersgarage]

There is a policy that if you didn't renew within a certain amount of time, formerly 90 days, ebay would erase the stored listing. They just increased that policy to 180 days. a couple of weeks ago. I lost over 700 stored listings that were either seasonal or just things I was deciding how to proceed whether it was going to be discard, donate or bundle for a future combined auction. My biggest concern was that seasonal items wouldn't be relisted within 270 days more than likely and 90 days was far too fast. Ebay's concern was saving server space because the hundreds of millions of dollars they profit off us small sellers isn't enough money to justify watching out for the little guy. Rather, they bend over backwards for the massive importing foreign sellers posing as U.S. sellers while making running a small store with a few thousands rotating items next to impossible.

This situation may not be what you are experiencing. If auto relist items are failing to appear immediately be sure to contact ebay if they charge you for those lost relists.

[frankbama41]

This is still happening relatively constantly. There always seems to be a couple that I walk by in my basement then realize I hadn't seen any action on so I would check my listings. No active, no sold, no unsold. I relist my unsold listings within a week of them not selling, most of the time within a day or two. I've checked unsold and looked under the "all", not just "not relisted" and still doesn't show up.

It drives me nuts. I have close to 800 listings and have had over 1000 in the past and it's impossible to know exactly when things just "go away." I'm recreating 4 listings today because they fell off. It's happened to my wife's account too and she sells considerably less - more of a hobby for her. So it doesn't seem like a quantity of listings problem.

[cynthealee2]

They are magic listings.  They go 'poof' and are never seen again.

The other side of the magic listings is worse though.  Items you sold 2 weeks, 6 months, a year ago pop back up and get resold before you figure out what has happened and you get a defect for "being out of stock".

These have been a known issue with eBay for at least the 12+ years I have sold here.

Keep a back up of every listing you create either in a third party lister, or on notepad, somewhere... with the wifey go through your store once a month or once a quarter and check each and every listing showing in your store relist the ones that have gone away, and delete the ones that have come back to life.

[Anonymous]

Really good advice!👍

[chapeau-noir]

This annoying problem is at last coming to my aid - I can't source inventory so I've been gathering up all the items that the site has lost and redoing them for new listings - I think I have about 20 items down through the months, but it's weirdly like 'free' inventory.  Same thing, I'm pulling sales from my Z-racks and think "I haven't seen XYZ in my store for a while" and sure enough, it's gone.

[candd205]

Go to your list of items you are selling. Look over to the left side. There is an option there called "Ended". See if they are there.

[femmefan1946]

We've been selling here since 1998, and listings have been disappearing during all that time.

EBay refuses to believe us.

I took down all my book listings in February because the bookshelves were in an area that was having carpet replaced by hardwood.

When I went to put them back up, I took the opportunity to tweak all 600 listings.

But apparently I had some 1000 unique titles but only those 600 listings.

Books are slow sellers, so I would not notice that a book had sat on the shelf for three years without being listed.

 And  it is common to get the "16months without a sale" notice.

Some of the delisted books had only been listed for a few months.

The 16 month warning does not say unrevised listings will be deleted.

FWIW.

I keep desktop files of all my pictures and of all my Descriptions.  This allows me to describe faster when I do get a repeat title.  (Bescherelle is a steady seller as are Robert's Rules,and books by CS Lewis, John Norman,  and John Wyndham.)

[fashunu4eeuh]

Hi, eBay instituted a policy in May 2017 where they will remove “stale” listings that haven't had a sale or activity for over a year. (Unfortunately, i have also heard of disappearing listings whose duration was much less than a year’s time.) Below is a link to the policy for your perusal to see if that explains the missing items.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/creating-managing-listings/removed-listings?id=4656

[bar-29368]

I wouldn't say they "don't believe us". They do know it's happening. The issue is every tme we get a blue willing to look into it they always want to know item #s of poofed listings so they can "investigate further".

And of course except in a rare case where it just happened on a listing cycle, it's impossible to give an item # when you have no idea when it vanished from active listings.

So - dead end.

[bar-29368]

Until the mandatory GTC was implemented they most often had no clue how long an item had been listed for (except for those using GTC already).

So, while they may have removed some because of non sale duration (and in fact went on a deleting binge a couple of years ago) most poofed listings don't fit that criteria anyway.

[cynthealee2]

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@bar-29368 wrote:
I wouldn't say they "don't believe us". They do know it's happening. The issue is every tme we get a blue willing to look into it they always want to know item #s of poofed listings so they can "investigate further".

And of course except in a rare case where it just happened on a listing cycle, it's impossible to give an item # when you have no idea when it vanished from active listings.

So - dead end.

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not really I could always give them the item # cause it's not hard to look up.  Your invoices go back a little over 2 years, and I have an excel file with the titles of each item... do a "find" in the oldest invoice and then work your way forward till it no longer shows up... you then have both the number of the listing and the month it went poof.

Reverse is true as well. The items that poof back into existence if you keep your old emails you know when it sold and what the item # was, after that it gets tricky for those of you that list from eBay.  It's real hard to prove you didn't relist it.  I ONLY list from Auctiva so I could always prove I didn't relist the sold item cause it item would relist from eBay and NOT Auctiva.

[hyperbuyer10]

I have just lost 260+ listings. They were in my unsold and now have just vanished. Ebay representatives assured me they will not get deleted even if they pass the 90 day mark. I spent a lot of time in putting these listings up and many having variations. Taking the pictures of items, item specifications, item descriptions etc. I have lost it all. They all were active at the beginning of April and then went offline mid month. It has been around 90 days. Please Please, if someone could shed some light on this matter would be great. Or any advice on how to restore them. Can i not contact the data analytics team who deal with the coding etc of deleted items. Advice would really save me a huge work load. Also, all my statistics have been lost! Sold, views etc. Please help!

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@jayjaspersgarage wrote:
There is a policy that if you didn't renew within a certain amount of time, formerly 90 days, ebay would erase the stored listing. They just increased that policy to 180 days. a couple of weeks ago.

Just curious where/how you heard 180 days now?  I may have missed it,  that would be great news, if true.