eBay

drew*smiscstuff · ‎03-23-2019

I noticed a lot of my listings were gone one day and they weren't in my unsold folder. I found out under their new 2019 listing policies that eBay now uses their discretion to decide if my item is worth selling if it has been listed and not sold for over a year or more. So if my item does not sell after a year, they think it's not worth anything, and will remove it even though I am paying a store subscription to list it. That is unethical. In the past I have sold items that were listed for over a year. Maybe two. I just had to wait for the right buyer. As a seller I believe I have the

right to sell anything I want and as long as I want. That's how I make money. If I don't have any control over my store then what am I paying for? I am angry and disappointed by these new policy changes including the GTC policy. I have been selling on eBay since 2013. I have noticed for every year that goes by eBay squeezes the seller and it makes it harder for me to make money and conveniently manage my store. Selling on eBay used to be fun. I'm not so sure anymore.

joesoucie22012 · ‎03-24-2019

Stale and dead listings are clogging up eBay.....mostly mine....

kensgiftshop · ‎03-24-2019

@drew*smiscstuff wrote:
I found out under their new 2019 listing policies that eBay now uses their discretion to decide if my item is worth selling if it has been listed and not sold for over a year or more.

They started doing that a couple years ago, but I haven't heard of anyone having their listings removed in awhile.

I have items that take awhile to find a buyer and I've noticed on a few listings Ebay will put a message under the listing that it hasn't had a sell in so many month's and might think about revising it.

Have a great day.

Anonymous · ‎03-25-2019

@mcdougle4248 wrote:

@estatesalequeen wrote:

Are you talking about GTC listings that go on and on for over a year or more? Or are you talking about items that are relisted over and over for a year or more?

I relist my items each month (will continue to do with the new GTC rule). Will this affect me?

As it stands right now, my understanding is if you have a GTC listing that just renews, and renews, and renews some more without any sales, when the listing gets to 12 months since its initial listing it may be removed by eBay and placed in your unsold items folder. If you are ending listings regularly and then using sell similar or relist the listing will have a new item number and you will be fine.

@Anonymous is this correct?

Hi @mcdougle4248, we may remove listings that have gone more than a year without a sale. While we understand long-tail inventory is a party of some business models, we encourage sellers to review their listings for improvements and work to garner interest in their items through various promotions to improve their chances of a successful sale. Listings that experience little or no interest from our buyers may be harmful to the marketplace, cluttering search results and making it harder for buyers to find other items. If a listing has been removed for this reason, a seller can make adjustments and relist it.

discountmagz · ‎03-25-2019

UNBELIEVABLE. I did not know this.. It's getting worse. I'm strongly thinking about closing my store and looking elsewhere. I've been doing this a long time. Your right it's no fun anymore. I might look into Etsy. Sell more on facebook. Craigs list. My kid sells shoes on goat. There's let go. There is more and more options popping up everyday on the web. This is getting old. We don't need this.

mcdougle4248 · ‎03-25-2019

@Anonymous

Thank you for the clarification

vermonttractorpartsllc · ‎03-25-2019

This practice has been going on for a long, long, long time. I discovered that this was happening 2 years ago. When I asked customer service about it back then they basically told me I was out of my mind.

At least now EBAY admits that they are cancelling non-selling items. I do not agree with the practice of cancelling items and not giving the seller a courtesy email letting them know why. I only discovered that my stuff was not advertised by doing an audit of my inventory.

Needless to say I was livid, just could not believe that I thought my stuff was visible but wasn't and that I had not been notified of the cancellation.

dirk12955 · ‎03-25-2019

The part of this that disturbs me the most? Any listing cancelled because ebay considers it to be stale was paid for by a seller, or at the very least was counted against his monthly listing allotment.

Anonymous · ‎03-25-2019

@vermonttractorpartsllc wrote:

This practice has been going on for a long, long, long time. I discovered that this was happening 2 years ago. When I asked customer service about it back then they basically told me I was out of my mind.

At least now EBAY admits that they are cancelling non-selling items. I do not agree with the practice of cancelling items and not giving the seller a courtesy email letting them know why. I only discovered that my stuff was not advertised by doing an audit of my inventory.

Needless to say I was livid, just could not believe that I thought my stuff was visible but wasn't and that I had not been notified of the cancellation.

Hi @vermonttractorpartsllc this practice has only been in place since June of 2017 so may not have been a practice 2 years ago when you spoke with Customer Service (as June of 2017 is a few months shy of 2 years ago). We announced on the Seller News Announcement board (here) at the time we first cleaned up listings without sales for over a year. This isn't something we've hidden, and an email is sent when listings are removed for this reason. You may have had a listing removed for a different reason, so I suggest you call Customer Service to discuss this in specific detail.

Anonymous · ‎03-25-2019

@dirk12955 wrote:
The part of this that disturbs me the most? Any listing cancelled because ebay considers it to be stale was paid for by a seller, or at the very least was counted against his monthly listing allotment.

Hi @dirk12955, the most recent insertion fee would be credited if a listing is ended because it had no sales for over a year. You can find more information here in the announcement we made in June of 2017 when this first was introduced.

Ultimately, if listings have been on the site for over a year with no sales, they may need some adjustments or updates to be more desirable to our buyers. We want to minimize clutter in search results and help a seller identify inventory or listings that may not be performing as well as we would hope.

dirk12955 · ‎03-25-2019

Thank You Trinton

vermonttractorpartsllc · ‎03-26-2019

@Anonymous,
Thanks for your reply, I just love how I am once again "crazy" in the eyes of customer service. LOL

The items did vanish, there were not any policy violations, it was a system glitch that has been going on for much longer than what your team will admit to.

I made the decision about approx. 3 years ago that I could no longer keep up with the constantly changing platform. Especially as a one man show. I sold 98% of my inventory to a bigger competitor November of 2018.

That competitor used to sell on EBAY, they are a company with 50 employees and have been in business 60 years. The owner told me they stopped selling here because the employee who was responsible for eBAY sales could not pay her own salary.

Anyway, I know that my listings were erased without an email notification. Please do not tell me otherwise.

carolinacraftsnmore · ‎03-26-2019

now I know why some of my items disappeared....thanks for sharing this! Now someone needs to figure out why sold out items end up on my Unsold list and ultimately get relisted. I sold an item the other day that I had previously sold out of...after figuring out that debacle, I did inventory of all my items and found about 10 items that weren't listed and I couldn't find them anywhere in my Unsold or Deleted sections and I couldn't figure out why. So I ultimately created the listings again. All of this combined with many other issues popping up is making me want to leave ebay all together after 11 years

drew*smiscstuff · ‎03-26-2019

Hi, trinton@ebay It seems that eBay is not interested in waiting for the right buyer. Also, why would I promote my listing to garner interest through promotions when I know there are no errors in my listing? It's just a money grab.

Also the whole "cluttering the marketplace" and "harmful to the marketplace" argument is unfounded. People know what their looking for and what key words to use. That kind of language is smoke and mirrors. I don't buy it one bit.

To me it seems obvious that eBay is looking for the bottom line in their own profits and scapegoating the sellers.

Like "O yeah, it's my fault that eBay can't make any money, my listings are screwing everything up for them, shame on me!" Ridiculous.

triodiode · ‎03-26-2019

I have stale and dead listings also but if there buried in the search results they never will sell and lowering the price does absolutely nothing. relisting them does not help either they go right back into your please revise folder

Anonymous · ‎03-26-2019

@carolinacraftsnmore wrote:

now I know why some of my items disappeared....thanks for sharing this! Now someone needs to figure out why sold out items end up on my Unsold list and ultimately get relisted. I sold an item the other day that I had previously sold out of...after figuring out that debacle, I did inventory of all my items and found about 10 items that weren't listed and I couldn't find them anywhere in my Unsold or Deleted sections and I couldn't figure out why. So I ultimately created the listings again. All of this combined with many other issues popping up is making me want to leave ebay all together after 11 years

Hi @carolinacraftsnmore, most often when we hear about this kind of relisting issue it is because a seller is relisting in bulk from the ended items page without filtering for "Not yet relisted". All ended items will go to the same page, including those that have been relisted. Using the "Not yet relisted" filter will eliminate those that have been relisted already. Additionally, sometimes sellers have accidentally relisted something in the past and it has created a duplicate listing for many months without being noticed by eBay or the seller. One (or both) of those listings can end up flying under the radar until you take inventory and discover them.