"The selected item is no longer available." Can't view your own sold listing.

[sai83her]

As a seller who have a few hundred of item listed, I find it very annoying and irritated that I can not view my own listing that I just sold recently.  Everytime I try to click my own listing that I just sold, it would open a page stating "The selected item is no longer available.", and show someone else item that is similar to it. I have no option to even view my own item.  I have buyer who had a question about the item right after they purchase the item. However I can't even view my own item to clarify the question they have. Is this the new normal or just a temporary glitch? Anyone have any idea how to view your own item that you just sold? 

[dhbookds]

unintended consequences on some of our seller community.

yep, because the buyer "team" thought it was a GREAT idea to increase conversions.......but never passed it thru for the seller "team" who I hope would have seen the unintended consequences. Plus all the "if this, you see that;  if that, you see this" certainly brings no continuity of experience to anyone........  why not just a popup to redirect people to similiar items and give people the choice of being redirected?   Frankly, I hope ebay surveys this among buyers.  I know when I see something on google images that I want to look at and get redirected to a long list of stuff in which the item I clicked on may or may not be, I get royally "mad".........observing the community rules on language. 

[readabouthorses]

alan@ebay

So this run around will continue for those of us who are not the seller or buyer? If so, good to know.  I'm not doing this click click click to get to ended sold and completed listings just to help sellers and buyers who come to these boards for help. I'll either just hail one of you "Blues" or send the seller or buyer over to Ebay For Business Facebook and let them deal with it.

I tried to help someone today and I kept getting shuffled here and there until I finally got to the right listing.

If your IT department has so much time to play around with this then you might want to tell them that the Shop By Category is an absolute mess and it should just be dumped.

[d-k_treasures]

And imagine how many false impressions that brings up, lowering the item in search ...........

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Alan, you say:

"For items that are not linked to the eBay catalog, the experience remains the same; you will be redirected to a similar active listing."

Most of what I sell, what many of the posters here sell, is not found in the product catalog. And most of it requires diligent research on our part. Unlike a lot of the stuff in the product catalog, where ebay's "price guidance" might be useful, ebay's price guidance on the hard to find, non catalog stuff is either non-existent or often (no offense) laughable.

In other words, the type of item that MOST requires access to solds is exactly the type of item you are saying has NOT reverted to the old way.

So, is eBay's intent to revert it, but ebay just hasn't done so yet? Or are you saying we're stuck with the new experience for the stuff that most needs the old experience?

[argy_eyes]

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alan@ebay wrote:
This change was made to improve the user experience of buyers who land on a closed listings page from search engine results and don’t have a means to buy the item. We want to give buyers a more direct way to find items they are looking for. Unfortunately, this has some unintended consequences on some of our seller community.

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Alan,

It is not just sellers who examine sold listings. If I'm a buyer I want to know what items with similar functionality, condition, and shipping charges have gone for.  Can't do that now. This is an "unintended consequence" for sellers and  buyers.

Mike Reitsma

(member since 1997)

[numisnorway]

How long before being able to view realized prices becomes a paid option i wonder.

I buy and sell coins so i'm pretty much dependent on this type of information in my business as i use it regularly. As of right now i tried to study ended listings because i want to get an idea of rarity of a certain item and thus pricing, but no go.

That ebay wants to monetize this type of information is beyond stupid, but i guess it is expected.

I'm sure this will backfire as a lot of sellers use this information when they buy items outside of ebay with the intent of selling it here. Are sellers just gonna have to take a risk now? Small sellers are gonna have to fork over x amount of dollars to see if whatever item they have available is worth listing? Is it gonna be bundled with store subscriptions?

The sad part is if my assumptions are correct is that there is no way they will undo it as we have seen with all the changes that negatively impact sellers on this site.

It is bad enough that they sell our expired listing information to third-parties already after a certain time. If anything they should have made it so that we were able to view sold items going even further back to get an idea of the valuation of an item over time etc, thus making eBay relevant for collectors, speculators, investors and what have you. That certainly should not have been a problem with regards to bandwith or storage as technology has progressed greatly since that sort could have been a legitimate issue.

Those people who come up with these ideas "to increase profit" should have been fired a long time ago.

I don't buy into that this is a "unexpected" situation. You just don't play around with a corporation of this size. They know very well what they are doing.

[d-k_treasures]

Yep - coins, currency, antique toys and trains, primitives, etc. - they all need to see the completed listings and not just the (possibly incorrect due to BO if a BIN listing) price to see why there is a 100% to 2000-3000% difference in some prices realized. 

Anything where condition basically doubles or halves the price on every critical point needs this.

The logical way to use this would be only on catalogued new items. Or course, ebay does the opposite. Shouldn't be a surprise to many here.

[numisnorway]

"Millions of dollars are changing hands daily from folks accessing ebays completed sold listings information and they aren't paying a penny to ebay for that info.... I catch a grin off it all the time...."

Yeah it is not like those listings generate traffic in any way and thus revenue from ads or other purchases on the site. /s

[argy_eyes]

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@d-k_treasures wrote:

Yep - coins, currency, antique toys and trains, primitives, etc. - they all need to see the completed listings and not just the (possibly incorrect due to BO if a BIN listing) price to see why there is a 100% to 2000-3000% difference in some prices realized.

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D-K_Treasures and NumisNorway,

I'm with you 100% (I sell old cameras), but as adam@ebay described it (after a lot of wind about "the user experience") eBay won't be satisfied until everybody who accesses an item via a Google link gets an active item rather than a sold or ended item. They probably have a point that this impacts sales. Everything else, according to Adam, is "unintended consequences."

Mike

[moo*cow*corner]

Jumping in late, with a reply to the general topic...

This is stupid.

For now, I'm selling mostly dinnerware. Many times prices are all over the map, both live listings and solds.

Some sellers sell singles, while others sell lots of every size under the sun...up to and including full services. Shipping schemes and combined shipping rules are all over the map too, according to what each different seller chooses to offer.

When researching, I go into ads to read descriptions and look at pictures, because lot size, stated (or not) and/or visible flaws, general condition and shipping info all help me set my initial asking prices.

Also, it cracks me up to see how far off most of these redirects really are....

A buyer comparison shopping for replacement dinner plates is not going to be interested in bowls or mugs.

I've seen redirects offering items where the only determining similar factor seems to be the manufacturer. For example, offering Mikasa dishes in a completely different pattern isn't going to be helpful.

Blue Willow is a popular pattern. Lots of different companies did their own version. Most buyers/collectors of this pattern stick to one maker. They will only be annoyed by being pushed to items from anyone else other than what they want.

I've also seen offerings by different manufacturers in totally unrelated patterns and colors.

If I were the elephant-sized seller in this market, I'd be happy dancing all over my warehouse. I can see frustrated buyers just leaving ebay and going to their website, even at MUCH higher prices. Frustrated sellers will probably just quit altogether.

Although I understand the concept, it was poorly thought out and even more poorly implemented.

I've been flirting with the idea of a future pretty major (for me) expansion. I have more inventory than I know what to do with. I had originally planned on upgrading my store by the first of the year. I have another ID all set up and ready to go for other general merchandise.  

If ebay is going to charge sellers for data, I hope they let us know exactly when and how much very soon. I think this is just might throw a huge wrench into my plans. I may be wasting my money, work, time and space. That's a depressing thought for sure. Bah!

[ymeagainlord]

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@ittybitnot wrote:

This is gonna hurt, I need completed sold items comparable to what I am selling to know what price to put.

Perhaps we can all pay a yearly fee.  Rolling, rolling, rolling it out.    As a buyer, I would like to see the "original listing" for something I purchased.  Can't see it, I can't complain when my doll arrives with an arm missing....LOL...must have been in the original item description which is no longer possible to view.   Good thing buyers are always right....LOL 

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If they want to hide the sold items from "general" view - fine, do that (we're not stupid, we KNOW you bought out Terapeak), but the listings should still be available to THE BUYER & THE SELLER of said listing.

[a_c_green]

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@moo*cow*corner wrote:

Blue Willow is a popular pattern. Lots of different companies did their own version. Most buyers/collectors of this pattern stick to one maker. They will only be annoyed by being pushed to items from anyone else other than what they want.

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alan@ebay, this is another example of an unintended consequence of the new misdirection coding. Once a potential buyer becomes aware that the website is playing sillybuggers with his browser, and serving up a different listing than the one he clicked on, he's not going to want to stick around to see what else he will be misled on next. He's simply going to back out and find another Google result from another site, a link that doesn't lead here. No one wants that.

On a side note, it would not surprise me if Google eventually filters the dubious eBay links altogether, on the entirely reasonable grounds that they don't want to be serving their user a destination that eBay will never show them, instead misdirecting them somewhere else. That's not what Google is in business to do, and they spend a lot of time trying to filter out false results such as what you would be delivering.

[ymeagainlord]

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alan@ebay wrote:

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@ymeagainlord wrote:

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alan@ebay wrote:

My earlier post didn't cover all scenarios. This should provide a better picture of the change:

We are aware that this week some sellers who use search to find ‘completed listings’ occasionally were unable to see their view item page for items that have sold. Some sellers have also reported being rerouted to a page that shows only active listings. We are also aware that some buyers were also unable to see the view item page for items they have purchased.

Buyers and Sellers who have an ‘affinity’ to the item (bought the item or sold the item) should not be redirected when viewing the item they bought/sold. However, if the buyer or seller is not logged in and we do not know their identity, then they would also get redirected when trying to access the original listing. Buyers and sellers can always see the items they bought and sold on their My eBay – those items should not be redirecting.

Yesterday we were able to successfully roll back this new experience back for items that are linked to the eBay catalog. For items that are not linked to the eBay catalog, the experience remains the same; you will be redirected to a similar active listing.

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Why???

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This change was made to improve the user experience of buyers who land on a closed listings page from search engine results and don’t have a means to buy the item. We want to give buyers a more direct way to find items they are looking for. Unfortunately, this has some unintended consequences on some of our seller community.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this "redirection" exactly what Google got antsy about a few years back? An eBay link that ONLY ever took the searcher to an eBay page of "similar" (but not very often were) listings?

[abfabvintage]

alan@ebay

I am always logged in and being redirected to items that DO NOT ARE NOT in any way SIMILAR to the item that previously SOLD and what I clicked on. 

[alan@ebay]

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@readabouthorses wrote:

alan@ebay

So this run around will continue for those of us who are not the seller or buyer? If so, good to know.  I'm not doing this click click click to get to ended sold and completed listings just to help sellers and buyers who come to these boards for help. I'll either just hail one of you "Blues" or send the seller or buyer over to Ebay For Business Facebook and let them deal with it.

I tried to help someone today and I kept getting shuffled here and there until I finally got to the right listing.

If your IT department has so much time to play around with this then you might want to tell them that the Shop By Category is an absolute mess and it should just be dumped.

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Hi @readabouthorses, 

Here's my experience when browsing sold items. I am always able to see the listing page of the sold item. When I get redirected to an active listing, I click the 'listing' link in the advisory message: 

I am brought to a page where I can view the sold listing. If I scroll down the page, I see all info (photos, sales price, description, T&Cs, etc.) 

After clicking the 'listing' link, have you scrolled down the page that you land on? 

Thanks!