Warning! eBay search results displaying false information / dates when filtering for Sold listings

[mleinnovations]

Sellers beware! The search results are displaying false information and dates when filtering results to "sold". I did a search for certain items I carry seasonally to see if they are selling so I can consider re-stocking them. I found a couple of my listings showing that there were recent sales in July 2021. I haven't actually sold any of these items and have been out of stock since around Feb 2021.  My first thought was that someone had stolen my listing photos, so I clicked on the listing. To my surprise, it took me to my own listing page. It made me wonder what else in "sold" listings is false, and I cannot trust this method enough to set pricing or restock.  I am trying to run a business on eBay and depend on accurate information and research. This is a major glitch on top of many other small glitches I have run into over time here on eBay. This one tops the cake cannot go ignored, so I suggest other sellers look into this as well. If problems are found in your search results, please report them to eBay.

[asset_liquidators]

Yes unfortunately results from sold listings can be wildly inaccurate. It has been this way for at least a couple of years. Terapeak used to be quite accurate but now that ebay got ahold of it that is no longer the case.

[pjcdn2005]

I’ve found that using the sold items page hasn’t been 100% accurate for a quite a while. Have you tried using Terapeak, it might be more accurate?

Have your oos listings just been ended?  If you have been out of stock for a while and a listing suddenly shows up on the sold page, it can mean that it was just ended by you or by eBay.

[lacemaker3 · Accepted solution]

@mleinnovations,

As @pjcdn2005 suggested, out-of-stock listings don't show up in the closed or sold listings search until they actually end. They will continue to stay active, with quantity=0, for 3 months, and after 3 months with quantity=0, eBay will end them.

Apparently, at that point, they do show up in the closed/sold listings search, even though they haven't had any sales in the last 3 months.

You're correct that the "sold items" search is not very useful any more for pricing purposes. You can get much better insight by using Terapeak (link below). This lets you research prices for sales within the last 365 days.  This is available to anyone with a seller account. This link is for searching for items on eBay USA.

https://www.ebay.com/sh/research?marketplace=EBAY-US&tabName=SOLD&tz=America%2FNew_York

[mleinnovations]

I can see that the listing is no longer active in my account. I really wish they would give me a heads up.

[mleinnovations]

I knew they would take down listings if they are at 0, but I never realized there were specific timelines like this. What would be nice is accuracy in the search results, and also a warning from eBay with some kind of timer function so we have a chance to update the listings. or save the information etc.