What is wrong with markdowns?

[wastingtime101]

Sales created six and four hours ago are still "processing". There are only about a dozen listings included in one of those markdowns and even fewer included in the other.

eBay, it's the busiest shopping 2 weeks of the year and sales are not working? This has been going on for months and you should have gotten your act together by now. Then again, how could you when your time has been spent on the item specifics fiasco you created during the busiest time of year - that's still not fixed despite your announcement.

I'm angry with you today, eBay... and the rest of the week isn't looking good for you, either.

[wastingtime101]

Hey, the four hour ago sale is now live. The six hour ago sale with fewer items is not.

[wastingtime101]

I did some reading on the technical issues board and apparently this is the "new normal" not an issue in eBay's eyes which is why I posted in the selling forum.

Non-rhetorical question:

How the heck are we supposed to run 1 day sales for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc if eBay says it can take up to 24 hours for a sale to go live?

Are we forced to start the sale a full day early even if we don't want to offer deep markdowns for such a long time? Because the sale can go live "right away", but it may not go live for up to 24 hours.

You're making it really difficult to run a business, eBay.

[autopiacarcare]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

I did some reading on the technical issues board and apparently this is the "new normal" not an issue in eBay's eyes which is why I posted in the selling forum.

Non-rhetorical question:

How the heck are we supposed to run 1 day sales for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc if eBay says it can take up to 24 hours for a sale to go live?

Are we forced to start the sale a full day early even if we don't want to offer deep markdowns for such a long time? Because the sale can go live "right away", but it may not go live for up to 24 hours.

You're making it really difficult to run a business, eBay.

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We've been pursuing this with eBay for almost 2 months specifically because, like you, we were concerned about what the delays could mean for our promotional plans for Cyber weekend and the holidays.  You've seen in the tech boards where that has gotten us.

It seems pretty obvious to me that something changed- this is not how markdown promotions used to work and certainly not how they should work.  eBay has apparently decided to cover themselves with "it may take up to 24 hours", end of story. They will not entertain examples or questions about issues or delays that are less than 24 hours.

I have tried every way I can think of to try to find a way to optimize our use of promotions in their current state.  I've tested out doing multiple sales events with less items in each sale, fewer sales events with more items in each, a variety of start/end times and days, "start now" vs scheduled start, copying a previous sale vs. starting a new sale from scratch, selecting items one at a time or by adding a list of skus/item numbers, etc.

None of it had any results that were consistent enough to be able to confidently say any of those variables make a difference.  Ultimately, it seems to just come down to sometimes it works better than others and it is just the luck of the draw.  Unfortunately, as you pointed out, that makes it really difficult to run a business.

[hillbillymedia]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

Sales created six and four hours ago are still "processing". There are only about a dozen listings included in one of those markdowns and even fewer included in the other.

eBay, it's the busiest shopping 2 weeks of the year and sales are not working? This has been going on for months and you should have gotten your act together by now. Then again, how could you when your time has been spent on the item specifics fiasco you created during the busiest time of year - that's still not fixed despite your announcement.

I'm angry with you today, eBay... and the rest of the week isn't looking good for you, either.

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I stopped using markdown manager for this reason. The old version of MM didn`t have these types of delays that I recall. The vacation settings have similar delays. I had an emergency awhile back where we lost power for days. I borrowed a generator to get online to put my store on vacation and hide my listings from purchase. It took more than 24 hours for all listings to hide. It cost me two late shipment dings from two customers. Luckily my buyers were forgiving. It also took more than 24 hours to reactivate my store when it was all over. Ridiculous and unnecessary IMO.

[mcdougle4248]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

I did some reading on the technical issues board and apparently this is the "new normal" not an issue in eBay's eyes which is why I posted in the selling forum.

Non-rhetorical question:

How the heck are we supposed to run 1 day sales for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc if eBay says it can take up to 24 hours for a sale to go live?

Are we forced to start the sale a full day early even if we don't want to offer deep markdowns for such a long time? Because the sale can go live "right away", but it may not go live for up to 24 hours.

You're making it really difficult to run a business, eBay.

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I am with you, I am still trying to make my final decision about what to do for this coming Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  The thought of promotions taking 24 hrs to go live is killing me.

[doeeyeddee]

I have had this same issue.  After talking to an eBay rep they suggested clearing the cache and cookies on my device, I reluctantly did so ( I had already done it roughly 4 hours earlier as part of my weekly computer maintenance).  This seemed to get the sale to finally go into active mode... as of late I have to clear these at least once a day while using eBays site which I voiced as a concern to the rep.  It doesn't matter if I am using my computer that is less than 3 months old and clear my cache, cookies and history once a week (a practice I picked up doing IT work for over 10 years) or using one of our various other older computer models.  There should be no reason we should need to do this daily or even multiple times a day on this site.  I never had to clear these to make eBay function properly before these last major tech issues.  As of late clearing your cache is their answer to any tech problems we are faced with.  It is an old antiquated site that they continuously build new tech on old tech, no wonder why it malfunctions more than it functions.

[mind*train]

I'm having this same issue today, and I've never had this problem before. The last time I had a markdown sale was 5 weeks ago and it worked fine. But today, the sale is not starting, it just says "processing". Good grief, I hope this isn't the new norm!

[thevintagesilvershop]

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@mind*train wrote:

I'm having this same issue today, and I've never had this problem before. The last time I had a markdown sale was 5 weeks ago and it worked fine. But today, the sale is not starting, it just says "processing". Good grief, I hope this isn't the new norm!

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 I think it is the "new" norm.  I started my holiday sales (2 of them) at 12:30 a.m. on Thursday.  It took the first one 3 hours to execute and the second one 12 hours to execute.  Sigh.

[fuzzface50]

   you are right busy season so think about it, how many more are doing the same thing?  get inline and don't leave or revise or you will be starting over at the end of the line again.  

Just like when you do a listing, don't revise it during indexing otherwise it takes  even longer because you got shuffled to the back and everyone else that had stuff indexing at that time was pushed ahead.       

[wastingtime101]

Thanks for all the input guys. The situation has gotten even worse. The option to include skipped or new items when they qualify is no longer working - at all. It has been a nightmare dealing with markdowns.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

This was discussed in this week's Weekly Chat. ebay has stated that it can take up to 24 hours to begin or end a sale. That is not a glitch. It is the new, acceptable (to ebay) time frame. Sellers are advised NOT to call customer service unless it takes LONGER than 24 hours. But anything less than 24 hours is not a glitch, it's the norm.

[autopiacarcare]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
This was discussed in this week's Weekly Chat. ebay has stated that it can take up to 24 hours to begin or end a sale. That is not a glitch. It is the new, acceptable (to ebay) time frame. Sellers are advised NOT to call customer service unless it takes LONGER than 24 hours. But anything less than 24 hours is not a glitch, it's the norm.

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Thanks for bringing this topic up in the chat yesterday @my-cottage-books-and-antiques .

To me the take away from the answers we got in the chat yesterday is that it is more important than ever that sellers report every single time there is a delay over 24 hours in markdowns.

I know it is a hassle and frustrating to call every time it happens, but I think our best hope at this point is that if they can fix whatever is causing those longer delays, (which they acknowledge is a technical issue) maybe it will also improve things for everyone experiencing less than 24 hour delays too.