We’ve just heard about a bug where eBay images go missing from sellers’ listings. If ever you’ve tried to list anything on eBay you’ll have seen the helpful advice screaming at you that you have to upload at least one image, so when sellers start finding their listings don’t have any images it has to be a bug.
This is a major glitch for any sellers affected as without an image you’re highly unlikely to get a sale. There was once a time when eBay sellers had to pay to have an image on their listings and even when the first image was made free, eBay charged for additional images for many years. Then on the 1st of August 2013, eBay made the momentous decision to make all 12 gallery images free across the entire eBay UK site. This was a big deal for eBay as they made serious amounts of revenue from image fees, but it was the correct thing to do for the marketplace so today all images are free.
Sellers tell us that upon reporting the glitch to eBay that seller support have confirmed it is an issue that they are aware of and are working to fix. In the mean time, it would appear that the issue can be resolved by revising the listing and resubmitting it. If you use a listing management tool this should definitely work as the images will be saved from when you first submitted them to eBay.
25 Responses
ebay have such a problem with users expecting things these days
Have the same issues with some of my listings….eBay have other technical problems with message as well…I am not getting the correct notifications from buyers regarding open return requests/cases which is leading to me not knowing to respond to such requests/cases , which is then ulitimately leading to cases being escalted and closed without seller resolution, have reported to ebay 2 items over the past few months, the problem still is not fixed …PULL YOUR FINGER OUT EBAY!
Another know technical issue… Page views is missing on items. You have no idea if something is seen by buyers or not, nor what it’s absence has done to your placing on best match and therefore sales!
On the 20th June Ebay ended all of my 991 listings for no reason, technical support told me I wasnt the only one. They did credit back the shop fees as all had to be relisted manually – after they told me to wait 24hrs and they would fix it and didn’t
This has been a issue for 12 months, evertime I need to remove a sold out item I must upload a picture at the same time that I make a change even if there is already a picture there. If I dont do this it looses all pictures as soon as you press confirm. I have even rung ebay about it but they didnt understand what so ever.
The issue of photos disappearing from listings has been ongoing for at least three years! Every single time I make a new multi-variation listing with separate photos for each variation, all of the variation photos are lost within 48 hours.
This means that I have to repeat all of the work already done to submit the listing in the first place and is extremely annoying.
eBay have known of this problem for a minimum of three years. I know this for a fact because I have been reporting it to them for all of that time.
I have now stopped bothering to report it because they won’t take action and it wastes even more of my time.
My conclusion? They couldn’t care less……
Hello thewhirlpoolbathshop,
As an eBay Concierge member, you have instant access to our premium service.
5 days after asking a question, still no response. Previous question took 6 days.
You used to get a reply within hours.
I’ve also experienced the image issue.
Same happened to me on 21st June, eBay ended all my listings and said the same thing. Told me to relist from unsold and I would not lose any of my information – wrong. Six years of hard work down the drain and back to scratch – lost all sales and most products had many hundreds if not thousands of sales against them, lost all watchers and views so now I am in basically a newbie shop. We all know it’s the listings at the top of the page with the most sales and best reviews that get the hits. They said no compensation as my items would still come up in best match!!!
Why bother, sales are next to non existent now.
The image problem has been going on for many months now. Generally it`s alot worse with any drafts that have been waiting to be listed for a few weeks – seems after a certain point some of the images just slip off the Ebay server and when the listing goes live it has some or all of the images missing. Another great score buy Ebay.
Lasest issue has been trying to change listings from 14 days return to 30 days return. After a warning that my listings were falling on the Best Match scale I was forced to make them 30 day returns except that the bulk editing tool would not let me do so. Rang Ebay and the usual “its a known glitch” comment was banded out and the usual half hearted workaround given out. More wasted hours……..
The advice given to me by ebay re: missing image was take a new photo and edit. It worked but thankfully I have only found one missing.
The thing I don’t understand is that when you look at a preview of the listing the picture is there but when the full listing is opened the image disappers. They have obviously not lost the image. Hopeless.
This has started to affect my listings in the last week or so. It seems more or less random. When I reported it to Ebay, I was told there is a workaround in that I can update the image on the listing and then it will appear again. EXCEPT I have 15.000 listings, and I don’t know which ones are affected. How is this a workaround?!!
Sales have dropped about 20% since last week, and although it is difficult to conclude it has a direct affect, it will have an affect some how.
Also annoyed customer page views have disappeared!
The look and feel of the shopfront is better, BUT I don’t want it to be displayed as ‘Best Match’. I have ‘Ending Soonest’ as my settings, but it won’t display correctly. Now awaiting a call back from Concierge service, with 60 minute wait time minimum.
Increased anchor shop fees by more than 20%, on the basis that we get a bespoke tailored service with no waiting times. Another Ebay promise/con.
I could rent shop premises in town for less than £500 a month. And when you have a leaking tap you ring the landlord and he has to fix it. Ebay doesn’t seem to have anything that is binding.
This month I am paying £1929 in Ebay fees, and although sales have grown year on year, this has been primarily driven by more stock and listings. I’m doing all the work, I’m taking all the financial risks but I’m now paying Ebay and Paypal more than I’m paying myself. There is simply no way Ebay can justify these fees, beyond corporate greed. (And in the meantime private sellers get lots of free listings and maximum £1 and £3 offers).
I’m also increasingly alarmed by how Ebay seem to think they own my stock. It’s mine and I can do what I want with it, sell it to whoever through whichever site I want but that is not what Ebay seems to think….
With ebay cutting 1% of their global workforce announced yesterday (27th) these things could take longer to fix though no details yet where job losses will be.
Its another ebay feature ooops grade
And they call themselves a TECHNOLOGY company ? What a joke
Remember the following sentence about Ebay – ” ebay owns nothing, sells nothing, delivers nothing ” period. It’s us sellers that help run Ebay.
” In the mean time, it would appear that the issue can be resolved by revising the listing and resubmitting it. ”
That works brilliantly for listings with only one image.
For listings with more than one image, it isn’t quite so good, because it only restores one image.
The others may be important (for example, it’s interesting to see the front of a doll’s house, the cover of a Georgian Atlas, or the outside of a car or antique wardrobe, but it may be quite important to see the rest of the pictures as well.
eBay are apparently “working on” restoring the pictures other than the first.
But of course, if a seller has revised the listings by following the suggested fix, that may possibly mean that eBay is unable to restore the other pictures.
Im having this issue on about 25% of my 300 listings. I called eBay for help and they said they are aware of the issue, but have no information as to wether or not it can be repaired. I replied by explaining how I may not be able to track down replacement photos if they were indeed lost, causing me to have to re-do tons of photography. Their suggestion about hitting revise and resubmitting will only get you back the 1 main photo, and the rest will be gone and as Bas explained, I think doing this may make it impossible for eBay to EVER restore the other remaining photos. What bothers and angers me the most about this is that while eBay sellers are suffering from this, eBay has released no statements, warnings or alerts to us to let us know about it, so there are going to be auctions that end with low selling prices due to this error. I asked eBay why they refuse to release any statements to notify sellers who may be losing sales, selling at auction too low that they need to double check their listings and possibly re-upload photos and they said they agreed that eBay SHOULD do this, but candidly remarked that they probably wont. Even in the event that eBay makes serious errors, they appear to refuse to make it known publicly in the hopes we wont notice, even if it costs us our businesses.
I’m having serious trouble even listing.
Why has the 14 day returns disappeared?
I cannot even list in Google Chrome.
Any help???
“It looks like there’s a problem with this listing.
Return options – A returns option is missing or not valid. Update your returns options.”
What is this crap? The boxes are ticked to accept returns.
Hey from France!
I’m having the same issue with the pictures, as everyone else I guess…
I’ve called eBay many times but they don’t know anything about how to solve this situation, this is soooo frustrating! They are so incompetent…
How can it be possible to have this kind of MAJOR bug in 2018???
If I have to retake all the pictures (5000+ items in my shop) and add them again to my listings, I think that this time eBay will be over for me…
Not images, but just noticed today our ‘buy 3, get 10% off’ offer is missing. It is definitely active, but doesn’t show up at all in search results, nor if ebay suggests buying other items from us does it show there will be a discount. How will anyone know if ebay aren’t telling them? Just the happy unexpected bonus discount when they order 3+ items that they were going to order anyway? More sales and more profit down the drain thanks to ebay glitches.
I’d read that article Chris, but
a) I wouldn’t consider 10% off when you buy 3 = low quality offer
b) I have seen other sellers offering the same deal and it is visible in the listings
c) it hasn’t seen the listings moved down the page results (supressed) as suggested in your article, but simply ebay has not mentioned there is a deal on at all for the listings I put on promotion, while the promotions page says they are active
d) it worked well last month, so it was resulting in conversions. No rational intelligent reason to conclude they were ineffective
Mind you, it is ebay AI, or rather ebay AU. So could just be the unlucky guinea pig. Again 🙁 .Might waste my time asking them tomorrow what is going on.
It looks like there’s a problem with this listing.
Return options – A returns option is missing or not valid. Update your returns options.
This has been going on for nearly 2 weeks now – contacted eBay on daily basis with no help whatsoever. I am private seller with no returns but cannot list or re-list with this option – when you re-list an ended item that previously had a no returns option this message comes up and you can go no further – only way of listing an item is to accept returns – they say it is a glitch but 2 weeks? Happy to take my fees each month but ask them to fix a major technical problem and you just have to wait eBay time…