OOS at listing level

[beardedbovine]

When all listings change to Good 'Til Cancelled sellers will need the ability to disable the global out of stock setting at the listing level.

I have a lot of multi quantity and multi variation listings. I set them at GTC and I use the Out of Stock (OOS) feature which keeps those listings alive until I am able to restock.

I also have a lot of single quantity listings that I set at 30 day fixed price.

When the rollover to GTC happens using the OOS feature means I will have to manually end every single quantity listing that sells, and in some cases where a buyer purchases near the end of the cycle those listings may renew before I get the chance to end them costing me store listings or additional fees for something that's sold, out of stock, and won't be restocked.

Manually ending so many listings that are sold out is going to be a lot of work.

OOS is currently a global account setting. I would like the option to disable OOS at the listing level for items where I have a single quantity and I know I will not be getting more stock.

@Anonymous  brian@ebay  tyler@ebay 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Very good point.

If ebay does nothing about this, I wonder if one workaround MIGHT be to treat the OOS single quantity listing as a listing that can be completely revised into a completely new item. So, you sell a shirt (single quantity), it goes into OOS hibernation, you go in and change the listing into a single quantity listing for a book....now that it has a quantity above zero, it reappears.

Does that make sense? Would it be possible? I've never used OSS since I rarely have multi quantity items.

[beardedbovine]

It is possible and I have done it, but only if it's a very similar related item... like a different color that I found shortly after the first one sold. I don't like to do a complete rewrite on a listing because it's too confusing to buyers of the original item who will see the photo and title of the new item in their purchase history.

It's a lot easier to explain to a buyer that you found one in another color and updated the listing after their transaction was complete and that it doesn't affect their purchase, than it is to explain why they bought a t-shirt and are now seeing a book in their purchase history. Trust me... buyers WILL ask about it as eBay sends feedback and product review reminders that use the title and photo as it currently appears... not as it was when they bought the item.

[buyselljack2016]

Good point.

I was having the same thoughts last night, and this AM.

I was in the process of composing a post for the Wednesday community chat.

I have the same concern with some items that would be OOAK , that when sold, would to go to a hidden "zero quantity" status, that would be relisted after 30 days.  I may, or may not get another for a while.

I can work with the GTC, but I would like the ability to choose to use the OOS option on an individual listing basis.  I would like to have a choice when listing fixed price items rather than being forced to use the "all, or none" method.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Ah, OK, that makes sense. I agree with you, with the change to ALL GTC, ebay really needs to provide a way to give the seller more control over which listings get the OOS option.

[goodluckselling]

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@beardedbovine wrote:

When all listings change to Good 'Til Cancelled sellers will need the ability to disable the global out of stock setting at the listing level.

I have a lot of multi quantity and multi variation listings. I set them at GTC and I use the Out of Stock (OOS) feature which keeps those listings alive until I am able to restock.

I also have a lot of single quantity listings that I set at 30 day fixed price.

When the rollover to GTC happens using the OOS feature means I will have to manually end every single quantity listing that sells, and in some cases where a buyer purchases near the end of the cycle those listings may renew before I get the chance to end them costing me store listings or additional fees for something that's sold, out of stock, and won't be restocked.

Manually ending so many listings that are sold out is going to be a lot of work.

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I am a user of both GTC and OOS feature. Yes you still need to have control over what listings you have active as each listing cycle will be an insertion against your account total.  You should be reviewing this regularly anyways.

So the way I handle listings that run out of stock that are also GTC listings is this.  On the sold listing page and or the awaiting shipment page that shows your transactions for whatever time frame you have (I use 90 days) there is a column for quantity remaining.  If it is not showing for you right now you can use the customize tab to set it in place to show. 

• You can review this column frequently and be able to monitor this zero quantity listings and make changes.  I use this often to add inventory when I see low available inventory on sold listings
• Also from your active listing page one of the sort options is active listings that are out of stock, so you can pull them up easily and end or update stock levels quickly. 
• You can also sort all your active listings by quantity remaining (high to low or low to high) and that is useful in this same way and also to see listings with very low quantities ( one or two left) and make changes to them easily.
• In the seller hub under the listing section you have several links for things like listings ending today (yes this would also be GTC listings as there time frame winds down),
• running out of stock.

There are several ways to handle this and all of them are useful and makes this task easy and quick to manage your listings.

Good Luck Selling!

[beardedbovine]

goodluck- Thanks for the tips, though I'm very aware of how to manage GTC listings and I have an OOS filter bookmarked that is reviewed daily. The point is the extra work involved managing 800 additional listings as out of stock that previously would have ended when they sold since they're singles.

@buyselljack2016- you should still bring this up in the chat. Thanks!

[buyselljack2016]

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@beardedbovine wrote:

goodluck- Thanks for the tips, though I'm very aware of how to manage GTC listings and I have an OOS filter bookmarked that is reviewed daily. The point is the extra work involved managing 800 additional listings as out of stock that previously would have ended when they sold since they're singles.

@buyselljack2016- you should still bring this up in the chat. Thanks!

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It's all ready for a copy and paste.

So simple if they just allow us to choose individually listings for the OOS option.

As it was, we basically had the OOS option to choose individually, as we had a choice of which listings would be GTC.

[Anonymous]

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@beardedbovine wrote:

When all listings change to Good 'Til Cancelled sellers will need the ability to disable the global out of stock setting at the listing level.

I have a lot of multi quantity and multi variation listings. I set them at GTC and I use the Out of Stock (OOS) feature which keeps those listings alive until I am able to restock.

I also have a lot of single quantity listings that I set at 30 day fixed price.

When the rollover to GTC happens using the OOS feature means I will have to manually end every single quantity listing that sells, and in some cases where a buyer purchases near the end of the cycle those listings may renew before I get the chance to end them costing me store listings or additional fees for something that's sold, out of stock, and won't be restocked.

Manually ending so many listings that are sold out is going to be a lot of work.

OOS is currently a global account setting. I would like the option to disable OOS at the listing level for items where I have a single quantity and I know I will not be getting more stock.

@Anonymous  brian@ebay  tyler@ebay 

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Hi @beardedbovine, while the Out Of Stock feature is set at the account level and cannot be adjusted per listing, I do want to clarify that any listing that remains Out Of Stock for a full billing cycle would have any associated fees credited and after three consecutive billing cycles with no stock updates, the listing would be ended. You shouldn't need to manually review this, as the listings would not be visible in search results when they have 0 stock, any fees would be resolved automatically, and the listing would end after a few months.

[beardedbovine]

@Anonymous 

This is not entirely true. When one of my store listings is used for a GTC renewal, that listing is not credited back to my account if the quantity is zero for the full month. You can make an argument that store listings are "free" but as long as I pay for a store subscription, those listings are definitely not free.

So I stand firm to my original post. This creates a lot more work for sellers and the OOS setting is needed at the listing level.

[dhbookds]

any listing that remains Out Of Stock for a full billing cycle would have any associated fees credited and after three consecutive billing cycles with no stock updates,

So, of course, the next question is.........if people use "free" listings.....do they get credit?

And the credit is for the lst month cycle only?  The other two will be billed? 

[buyselljack2016]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@beardedbovine wrote:

When all listings change to Good 'Til Cancelled sellers will need the ability to disable the global out of stock setting at the listing level.

I have a lot of multi quantity and multi variation listings. I set them at GTC and I use the Out of Stock (OOS) feature which keeps those listings alive until I am able to restock.

I also have a lot of single quantity listings that I set at 30 day fixed price.

When the rollover to GTC happens using the OOS feature means I will have to manually end every single quantity listing that sells, and in some cases where a buyer purchases near the end of the cycle those listings may renew before I get the chance to end them costing me store listings or additional fees for something that's sold, out of stock, and won't be restocked.

Manually ending so many listings that are sold out is going to be a lot of work.

OOS is currently a global account setting. I would like the option to disable OOS at the listing level for items where I have a single quantity and I know I will not be getting more stock.

@Anonymous  brian@ebay  tyler@ebay 

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Hi @beardedbovine, while the Out Of Stock feature is set at the account level and cannot be adjusted per listing, I do want to clarify that any listing that remains Out Of Stock for a full billing cycle would have any associated fees credited and after three consecutive billing cycles with no stock updates, the listing would be ended. You shouldn't need to manually review this, as the listings would not be visible in search results when they have 0 stock, any fees would be resolved automatically, and the listing would end after a few months.

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Thanks for the info.

This is a partial solution in that each cycle a free listing (multiple listings) can potentially be eaten up by OOS GTC auto renewal items.  The loss of the available listing would reduce the potential listing of other items.

If this is the only solution I will just have to spend the extra time ending listings that are OOAK without stock/restocking expected quickly, or just refrain from using the OOS feature.

[shipscript]

@Anonymous 

We're banking on this phrase:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Hi @beardedbovine, while the Out Of Stock feature is set at the account level and cannot be adjusted per listing, I do want to clarify that any listing that remains Out Of Stock for a full billing cycle would have any associated fees credited and after three consecutive billing cycles with no stock updates, the listing would be ended. You shouldn't need to manually review this, as the listings would not be visible in search results when they have 0 stock, any fees would be resolved automatically, and the listing would end after a few months.

For completeness, here is the help page that addresses Out-of-stock (OOS) for GTC listings:

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/listing-tips/bulk-listings?id=4160#outofstock

If you enable the out-of-stock option, and your Good 'Til Cancelled listing has a quantity of 0 for the entire 30-day billing period, at the end of that period you may qualify for an insertion fee credit and a credit of any advanced listing upgrade fees applicable to that period. Learn more about  receiving fee credits.

So, correct me if I am wrong:

The OOS-enabled GTC may go Out-of-stock (OOS) from a sale or from setting its quantity to zero. Any GTC that is OOS for a full GTC renewal cycle (which does not necessarily match invoice cycles) will automatically (without phoning CS) receive a credit when that full cycle ends. If it rolls into another cycle, it will be billed, but will again automaticlly receive a credit when the next full cycle ends while the GTC is still OOS. That would mean that if the dormant OOS item was originally counted against the free insertion limit in a given cycle, it would be credited back so that the seller need not worry that the OOS item was consuming a free insertion.  This would all wash out. If the OOS item is restocked before a full renewal cycle has elapsed, it will be fully counted or billed against that partial cycle without proration.

Related:

Does this mean that an item that has sold or that has zero stock (and then languishes in OOS for three months before being retired by eBay) will be given an extra 90 days persistence on the site? Instead of 90 days from the sale, visibility will last 180 days from the sale?  Or will eBay's 90 day termination also be interpretated as authorization to concurrently remove the listing from the site?

If this offers 180 day access to the ended listing, at no extra charge, I can imagine a lot of sellers jumping on this one.  They can put seasonals into OOS, let the OOS end 90+ days later, let it run to nearly the end of the "ended" 90 day period, and then revive the listing with a sell-similar. Of course, ended listings don't have a guarantee of persistence, just an expectation.

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

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@dhbookds wrote:

any listing that remains Out Of Stock for a full billing cycle would have any associated fees credited and after three consecutive billing cycles with no stock updates,

So, of course, the next question is.........if people use "free" listings.....do they get credit?

And the credit is for the lst month cycle only?  The other two will be billed? 

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It's been my experience that you NEVER get a 'free' insertion credited back, regardless of whether this was a free promo listing or a (so called) free store insertion.

The response has always been 'it's free so you get nothing'

[Anonymous]

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@dhbookds wrote:

any listing that remains Out Of Stock for a full billing cycle would have any associated fees credited and after three consecutive billing cycles with no stock updates,

So, of course, the next question is.........if people use "free" listings.....do they get credit?

And the credit is for the lst month cycle only?  The other two will be billed? 

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Hi @dhbookds, I apologize if I said anything that would indicate it was only for the first billing cycle when a listing is out of stock. When I stated that any listing that remains Out Of Stock for a full billing cycle, I was referring to any billing cycle, not just the first billing cycle. Any full billing cycle with no stock updates would result in a credit.