Negative Watchers?

[copper.boom]

Have any of you ever had a negative number of watchers on a listing? I just encountered this on another account. I asked a friend of mine if she ever experienced this and she encountered the same thing a few months ago on one of her listings.

[victorjunkman55]

No, but i've had 5 watchers with only 2 views. maybe eBay glitch? Good Luck to you.

[copper.boom]

Victor - I've seen that often. If a user is following a search term or a seller and the item comes up in their feed they can add it to their watch list without viewing the listing resulting in more watchers than views. Negative watchers are new to me though.

[geotouloupos]

To be honest i have never seen that...

[kyal]

Never have experienced that particular phenomenon.

However, our local access cable channel had our current temperature listed at minus zero one time. IN their defense, it was pretty cold.

[copper.boom]

@Anonymous Can you help advise what would cause a negative number of watchers on an item?

[Anonymous]

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@copper.boom wrote:

@Anonymous Can you help advise what would cause a negative number of watchers on an item?

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Usually this is just a cosmetic issue that corrects itself within 24 hours, though I definitely want to take a closer look. Can you give me the item number for this listing? 

[copper.boom]

I will send info via e-mail, Trinton. It's been much longer than 24 hours, FYI...

Thanks for your help to check.

[lilymay906]

Yes!  I have also had negative watchers.  I know that it was there for weeks (at least), because it took me that long to get around to taking a screen shot of it.  I don't think that the listing in this screen shot is still active, though it might have been ended and relisted since this happened some months ago.

I just figured that negative watchers was ebay's way of saying that absolutely NOBODY was interested in my item... 🙂

BTW, ebay has always been math-challenged on multi-variation listings.  3+2-1=3??  Must be common core math.    And then there's the whole 'different number of watchers shown on the PC than on the app'  for the same listing checked at the exacct same time.  The whole watchers thing is just goofy.

[divwido]

It's been a while but I had a negative two on an item.  Never found out why and I don't think the item ever sold.

[chrysylys]

If it's only one, maybe the one watcher was NARU'd for some reason?

[copper.boom]

Thanks for sharing @lilymay906! Mine is a multi-variation GTC listing, too. Neg has been there for months. I ignored for a while figuring maybe it would correct itself, but it's still there. My only concern is that watchers give a listing a boost in search placement - so do negative watchers send the listing to the back of the line? Hah...

@Anonymous See above screenshot from another user. Perhaps this error is somehow tied to GTC / MV listings? I received your e-mail and thanks for sending in a technical report. I'll let you know if I see a change.

[copper.boom]

Thanks for sharing, divwido!

Chrysylys - that was my thought in the beginning, but my friend had a -2 watch count so who knows.

[Anonymous]

Hey @lilymay906 I would love to also get your example to have this reported. The more examples we have the better! I'll shoot you an email here shortly to get this investigated

[lilymay906]

Hi @Anonymous,

I had replied to your message that my example was from a listing that ended last year, but today I went through my current listings and I found one live listing with a negative watcher, and in my unsolds I found SEVEN listings that had negative watchers on at least one variation, one had negative watchers on both variations.  All of the listings are multi-variation listings. 

I will try to get the screen shots and item numbers for you and reply to your earlier message with them this weekend.