PLEASE PLEASE HELP! Trying to Get Sales Transaction Report from 2005 to Present - EBAY NOT HELPFUL

[dr.mia52]

For weeks now I've been trying to get a sales report of all my transactions from the time I started selling in 2005 until the present.  Finally, eBay sent a file of 142 pages with the transactions listed in absolutely no logical order.  It not only is not in chronological order - 142 pages with many dozens of transactions per page - but it is not organized in any other way that would at least give a clue as to category or price point or anything.  

It's just 142 pages totaling about 1400 transactions in no order of any kind.  

I drew this to eBay's attention by phone twice and I was assured someone would get back to me.  Nobody got back to me.

The slipshod presentation is matched only by the slipshod service.  eBay's document is unprofessional to say the least.   It is inconceivable that the company has the data but doesn't put it in the chronological order in which it is maintained.   

Please help.  I do not know where to go to complain.

[kalyoth]

Just to clarify: ebay is not a business required to provide you anything outside of the minimum required tax year data a jurisdiction requires - in the US that is an audit period of 7 years. They met their requirement by making the information available by you through your seller account directly & completely under your control, 24/7/365.

ebay has no legal requirement to pickup the slack for a business "any seller on it's platform" whom fails to keep legally required business records annually. Your business goal may be wonderful, but it still requires you to manage it equal to any other, under equal rules & regulations.

[dr.mia52]

To EVERYONE who responded, even those who felt it necessary to chide me for asking for a report.  To update you all,  about 10 days ago I spent 90 minutes on the phone with ebay's customer service  - 30 minutes getting to the right person and 60 minutes presumably with the right person discussing the report I was sent.  The agent and I went through an hour of steps.  Ostensibly she was tweaking specifics and relaying the history so that attention would be given to preparing a report for me with sales presented in chronological order. 

For those of you who were so sure I could fix the disordered report myself in excel or another program - NO, it cannot be done in excel.  The reason is that the report includes the HOUR & MINUTE that each sale occurred and as it is on the same column as the date, there is no way to remove that.  The HOUR & MINUTE prevent chronologizing according to date.

After the agent and I discussed for an hour the issue of chronologizing the report AND the fact that a report I received 3 years ago WAS chronologized, she intermittently placed me on hold and interacted with her superiors and another department that actually creates the reports.  She ASSURED me that if I would order the report again, this time it would come chronologized.   So, with her assistance in specifying the request, I waited the 10 days and today received an email telling me that the report was done.

The report IS THE SAME **bleep** - 116 pages of some 1400 completely disordered sales, exactly as before.  Here's page 116 of what eBay sent. Page 116 of the "chronologized report"

Since eBay chronologized a report for me 3 years ago, certainly they can do it now.   Why eBay repeatedly fails to do it I do not know.

[lacemaker3]

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@dr.mia52 wrote:

...

For those of you who were so sure I could fix the disordered report myself in excel or another program - NO, it cannot be done in excel.  The reason is that the report includes the HOUR & MINUTE that each sale occurred and as it is on the same column as the date, there is no way to remove that.  The HOUR & MINUTE prevent chronologizing according to date.

...

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@dr.mia52 

Absolutely, Excel can sort that into chronological order. You need to get the report in the .csv file option so you can open it with Excel. You can't do anything with it if it is a webpage (in HTML).

As long as those cells are formatted correctly, as date and time, Excel will even sort them into the correct order for each day. If you can't sort them chronologically into oldest-to-newest order, that probably means that the cells are formatted as text instead of numbers with a date and/or time format. 

• To do this, first you highlight the entire column with the dates and times in it.
• Right click on the highlighted column, then choose "Format cells ..." from the drop-down list.
• Click the "Number" tab at the top.
• Choose "Custom" then scroll through  the list and click "m/d/yyyy" or "m/d/yyyy h:mm" if it is in the list
• If you can't find the full format in the list, then type it in the "Type:" box (which will show up once you choose a format to begin with).
• Once the correct format is shown, click "OK".
• Once all the cells in the date column are properly formatted, then you will be able to sort chronologically.

This shows how to do the formatting:

This shows the sorting step. In this example, the lines are currently sorted in reverse-chronological order, "Newest to Oldest":

[gurlcat]

@dr.mia52  I doubt you will answer this, but for what purpose do you need to see a record of all the sales you have ever made here, 2 decades' worth?  

If I had been here that long, I'll admit I might enjoy looking at it, in just a "memory lane" kind of way, but you seem to have an urgent need for it, and I just can't imagine what that could be.  

[dryophelia]

@dr.mia52 

Why do you need this report again, if you had it 3 years ago?

Wouldn't you just need the past 3 years?

Now that you know the report is not formatted in a way that is useful to you, will you take it upon yourself to keep your own records?

[participatrophy]

Open the report again. Doesn't matter which page it's on. Press the 'Command' key on the keyboard and keep it held down. Now press the 'F' key too, then release both keys. (This is just like what you'd do to type a capital F, except you're going to be using the Command key instead of the Shift key.)  Now type whatever word is most likely to be in the title of the item you're trying to find. Press the 'Return' key. The word you typed will be highlighted somewhere on the screen in the column with the item titles. Keep pressing 'Return' until it takes you to whatever sales record you're trying to look up.

[stephenmorgan]

"the HOUR & MINUTE that each sale occurred and as it is on the same column as the date, there is no way to remove that."

Absolutely there is a way to remove the "HOUR & MINUTE". 

In Excell I can think of three ways to do it.  One way is a very tedious one entry at a time.  Another way is to split the column into two columns then delete the unneeded column.  Another way is a global function that deletes specific positions within the cell.

Like anything else it is a learning experience to know how to manipulate and make these reports usable for your needs.

[dr.mia52]

Thank you for the detailed instructions.   The computerization of my rescue group's data is WAAAAAAAAAY outside my wheelhouse.  My double-full-time volunteer position is  managing many dozens of cats, keeping vet records, interviewing adoption applicants, ordering supplies, doing outreach for cats as they ready adoption status such as posting on our group's FB page, etc.  I sell my stuff to help with costs for the 130 or so cats for whom we provide food and medical (30+ in foster care at any given time + two colonies of about 50 cats each in Queens, NY.)  There was never an overall record of the actual items sold - until recently the "record" existed only by way of deposits coming from eBay directly into the rescue organization's checking account but the monthly statements never identified the items sold.     We've had a wonderful volunteer retired person computerizing our rescue's data for 33 of our 35 years in existence but he got stuck with the sorting problem in this record when I asked for his help to include it as an auxiliary record to the records of each donor or source of income for the group otherwise .   I'll pass along your instructions and keep fingers crossed.  Thank you.