Needless to say, here at Tamebay we get lots of emails and read lots of Facebook groups and other online forums to get a handle on what eBay traders are experiencing day to day. And it looks like that this week a lot of eBay sellers have been experiencing technical issues and glitches with the marketplace.
With a finger in the wind, the number of problems being reported do seem more numerous than usual and are having a detrimental impact of the trading activities of eBay merchants. But that’s just a feeling.
It’s very difficult as a reporter and blogger (journalist seems too grand a term), not least because we have to be accurate and fair-minded, when it comes to reporting such things to report grumbles and gripes about technical stability. We have legal obligations, and also more ethereal duties, to write about verifiable facts. And regrettably sometimes the reports we get from merchants are unreliable.
One particular difficulty is discerning what’s a genuine problem and what might be something else entirely. So often we read “eBay’s broken” and crave more details. And sometimes, when asked, the details of the problem cited by a merchant are unclear. And, also, it’s not unusual that inadequate computers, seldom updated browsers, ISP issues and other things are actually to blame. It’s vital that we are forensic and precise if we cry foul and call out a technical issue. But often the exact details of a problem elude us because we don’t possess enough details: “it doesn’t work” isn’t enough to report. Indeed, ideally, we like a screengrab and possibly a chat too.
But it does look like that eBay hasn’t had a very good week when it comes to niggling problems. The ambient chat about glitches and things not working has been greater than usual and that has an impact on your selling activities.
So if you want to express your frustrations about any eBay problems this week, we’re all ears. But we ask that you are detailed and precise. Deal?
13 Responses
3 major issues.that I am aware / have experienced. In summary:
1) Promotion Banners have been moved back near the end of listings again
2) Promotions (and their respective banners) appear NOT to be displaying on mobile devices at all
3) Stores are not showing and many are displaying text in various, apparently random languages
Happy to go into more detail if needed.
Had the new shop rolled out / imposed on us.
The searches are appearing in German, whilst the shop does not exist at all on Ebay.com.
Usual rubbish from Ebay. They must use the same IT people as the TSB.
This week I had ebay messages sent to my email address but did not actually appear in ebay itself. Oh, the joy as I ignored customers for a few days, thinking that this was phishing attempts, then realising that Ebay had cocked up a bit.
Sales have dropped off by 80% on 19th April even though we are Top rated. It seems their search engine has gone completely wrong as new sellers, non top trated etc etc are above all our listings. Items that were on page 1 with loads of sales and great product rating are on pages 3,4,5,6 now. Only way to sell items now is via Paid promoted advertising. eBay UK customer service do not know what the problem is and says our account is fine. Which it certainly is not? Is this a ploy for eBay to get us to pay more for the sales becuase if it is we cannot tolerant 20% selling fees. We have been on eBay UK since 2003 and never had such a poor sales period??
Ebay messages in my email but not on ebay.
Clicking on listings that bought up random listings, often in a nother language.
Constant requests to sign in on the app when doing stuff.
Various other little one off glitches.
… not a glitch, but still wondering why for the high price of a subtitle – that ebay recommend, that they dont show on the app!!!
I don’t get a fraction of the issues on other platforms that i do ebay, and yes over the last week i have abandoned two pruchases due the glitches in the system. So not just a moaning seller!
Very erratic sales period – feels like our shop is being turned off for periods of time. A few sales in the middle of the night then nothing all the next day. Sales are 30% down on last year. Some private sellers are being offered 100 free listings a day – not registered as a business and no shop fees – selling the same new products – this is surely not fair when we are paying fees for a featured shop and getting less sales. If as previously mentioned stores are not showing this is why private sellers with no store are getting more sales! Seems we have to put items on promotion to get any sales hence having to pay even more fees. We carry on hoping that things may sort themselves out in the future.
Well we switched off due to a trip overseas last week. All markets and Website were put into holiday mode etc. Everything switched back on Sat Am, expect eBay for some reason. We had to manually put that back on.
Sales have been pretty poor all week on eBay, we were 50% up on the month previous year and sales were going well till we switched off. It has not got going again.
One of our main Eu markets has been still going , we were selling one off special editions for over £100 last night, on eBay sales for like £5 and so. All UK markets are actually pretty poor (Game etc) right now.
They were messing with Shops during the week, ours now seems to be back to it’s normal template again.
Searching our products some of our best sellers are still being found, other products we can’t find anywhere, we had brand new release games like Far Cry 5 and God of War we could not even find and we were well priced, you can find ShopTo etc easy enough however.
One popular game we sell at least 2 a day has not had a hit since Monday, and this Bank holiday is not exactly rockin so far.
This GDPR thing many be an issue? people being asked to sign in and out of things all the time right now, people forget passwords can’t be bothered to reset etc. Then finding eBay search hard work.
Also when you log into eBay and all you see is Tesco and Argos, I think it turns people away as many people come to ebay for the alternative. Time eBay stopped fleecing UK sellers with promoted listing fees, and started offering decent incentives to Business sellers.
Ebays mobile app showing international shipping as free when its
ebay/pitney bowes global shipping,
been like that for months now
causes all sorts of confusion and bother with buyers
There is some problem with ebay search. For example if you search with ‘iphone’, other than few top results all search results will be grouped by seller. If one seller has 50 listings with the matching term ‘iphone’, all results of that seller is being displayed in same place. Try searching with any term and see the result. Around 10 search results will be from random sellers and after that search results are grouped by seller. I don’t know how long it will stay like that but this is effecting my sales hugely
Dear Ebay sellers
Hold the rest of the community….. up ! PROMOTE ALL your listings or forget to do real proper business in ebay marketplace unless you do Auction unique 1 off item short term listings if you don’t Want to play or you’re not a student needing résidu income style and taking all your business and stock to ebay Promote All your listings and put your prices up and deliver immaculate service to your clients you will sky rocket everyday , or kick out and way out of the door your ebay shop including your time which cost money and stop struggling.
Use your perception and try see the results after taking action promoting all your listings don’t be shy put your price up to cover the extra cost you will sale a lot as matter of fact but deliver 100% service nicely packed and here for your clients.
Everything will flows naturally clarity and order to add and simplicity.
Perpetual wonder or concerns won’t work and accept things as they are the way it is is the way it is ebay wants you to promote and sale more and deliver focus and bring order in your trading with ebay , ask what is the define benefit here otherwise you don’t have to perform the actions, you’re not messing around wasting energy and evaluate if the is a define benefit selling on ebay….. stay with a focus intent , recall previous successes that help you and allow you to believe in yourself and be successful sellers in ebay for sure. Nobody perfect and always ways to improve!
Kind regards
eBay has more than its fair share of “Glitches”.
We have been trying since late April (it’s now May 9th) to alter our eB ay store category. Our original intention was to upgrade to a next level store, but now we are thinking that a downgrade might be safer.
The problem is that we are not able to do either. Every time we try we get this message: “The eBay page or feature you are attempting to access is not responding.
Please try the options below:
Try to access the feature directly from the eBay Home Page, instead of using a bookmark.
Wait a few minutes and try to access the feature again.
If what you are looking for is unavailable, you may still be able to access other parts of the site from the eBay Home page.
None of this advice works. eBay is broken and they seem not to care about fixing it.
So anyone currently paying for an eBay store can not opt out and will continue to be billed for a store that they no longer want. This is a kind of “fraud” situation caused by neglect which should maybe be dealt with via the U.K. Financial Ombudsman or the Office of fair Trading.
I.E, They are charging unwarranted fees by preventing customers from withdrawing from a “shop” agreement which the customer no longer wants.
They may not think that they are operating outside the law.
But my guess is that they probably are.
Ebays new product listing playbook and the group listings function will not work in the long run. They still keep trying to be Amazon, why cant they just be Ebay ?
My promotions and respected banners are not appearing on the mobile app or on mobile browsers, which is like 65% or more of sales! However, the promotion does calculate when a buyer checks out, they just don’t know there is a promotion. Good job ebay 🙁
Also, the promotional banner at the bottom of the desktop browser is plain stupid. No one would be this dumb, unless the abandoned screen area will be used for more ad placement. Crazy.
One work around for sellers until ebay fixes there major issues, which they will not admit, is to change item specifics to your promotion, so that it will show up close to your pictures in the mobile browser. You can edit your listing all at once with the bulk editor. The text won’t be in red or have the link to your promotions, but is a start. Also, you can copy the link from the desktop promotional banner and place it in the descriptions of all your listings that are relevant to your promotion.
Please ebay fix this now! Ebay is becoming a less enjoyable channel to sell on and will soon be antiquated due to its failure to keep up and roll out changes without problems. Also, get rid of that antiquated radio show. Need something that gives sellers real info, not fluff.