Right - after a bit of checking into what prompted Gina's post, the primary concern appears to be this:
Some sellers are convinced their listings are somehow "disappearing".
They base this conviction on the bidding patterns on their items as well as (for some) page views. Two of the sellers are also linking it to Texan buyers. Confused? So was I. But read further. (Point 3.)
They are NOT basing it on factual evidence that their listings are not appearing. The sellers in question do not have proof that their listings are sometimes appearing and sometimes not appearing.
They THINK that their listings are appearing and disappearing because they have decided that it would be "statistically impossible" for their listings to have bids on them on some occasions but not on other occasions. I was frankly staggered to read this; a conclusion is being drawn by sellers without any effort being made to consider other possible causes than eBay messing with their auctions.
Let's think it through.
1. Does eBay have the control and technical ability to make some listings vanish occasionally on purpose? - Of course. So that's not an objection.
2. Does eBay have a REASON to make some listings vanish occasionally on purpose? - This is rather iffier. We could suggest that eBay is trying to get rid of the small sellers - all well and good. But why would they bother messing with some sellers' listings like this when they could simply restrict various sellers' accounts? To make some listings do a Brigadoon seems to me an unnecessarily complicated business when the same result (discouraging those sellers) could be more easily achieved. I am completely unconvinced that eBay have such a reason to undertake this in this way.
3. Well then, could we assume eBay isn't doing it on purpose but that it's a result of what some of the sellers concerned have been calling rolling blackouts? (i.e., due to some servers going down, server overload, etc.) - This is an explanation put forward by people who admit they don't have expert knowledge of how the internet works, how information on servers is released, etc. It assumes that listings are hosted on different servers than eBay's software, that different listings are listed on different servers, that people in Texas aren't "blocked" by the same server problems, and more. It is - I'm sorry - based on complete misunderstanding. If it were server-based, the whole "Texan" thing would be irrelevant. There's a confusion here about output and reception. The "Texan" thing is a red herring, in my view. If there ARE server-based outages and problems - which is possible - then a seller searching for his items would find them missing.
4. Thus - we could conclude it's possible there are glitches which make some listings appear and disappear. There is at least evidence that eBay's software is not exactly unfamiliar with glitches. BUT... here's the problem. None of the sellers have actually reported that their listings HAVE disappeared and appeared. Why not? Why has no seller posted that, during some 48 period in which no one bid on their items, they searched for their items and found them missing? Surely if the sellers were convinced their listings WERE missing, they'd check? But - on the contrary. OTHER EBAYERS have searched for their items and found them. So clearly the items were not missing... at least not at the time when those eBayers searched.
5. We therefore CANNOT CONCLUDE THE LISTINGS WERE MISSING. No evidence. The sellers have countless opportunities during a period in which they say their items are missing - to actually check that they are missing. The very fact that they do not say they checked makes me suspect that they have checked but didn't find the items missing. But they didn't post this because it doesn't match their suspicions... and their continuing suspicions are not based on evidence.
6. On what, then, do their suspicions rest? Well... I'll quote the opening post on the thread in question.
Here we go again. Ebay has once again turned off my selling ability. Not officially but as of the time of this post it has been exactly 2 days since my last sale. Let's do the math here. Just for the past 2 weeks I have sold 66 items for an average sale per day of 4.71. Why am I wining? Because for the past 48 hours I have had exactly 0 (ZERO) sale!!! This happenes every few weeks and because I make my living off of Ebay I don't appriciate it. Statistically there is no chance that this could happen!!! Not with a 4.71 per day sale rate!!! One day....MAYBE but 48 hours!?!? To clear it all up for everyone I have exactly 282 items up for sale at the time of this posting. I have items from A to Z and as long as Ebay does not turn me off I sell all day long. The reason for this post is to bring Ebays attention to this as per the call in help....and I quote "the only way we know there is a problem is if you post it on our discusion board and other people respond with the same problem". Why do they bother picking up the phone??? I called to tell you there is a problem. Please if there is any mathmaticians out there that could actually tell me the mathmatical possibilies of having a 4.71 per day sale rate and then nothing for 2 days.....please let me know. It has to be millions to one!! Maybe I should play the lottery since I am hitting so well with long odds. EBAY FIX THE PROBLEM!!! Fastjag1
(Bolding is mine.)
6. (continued) ... The seller Fastjag1 is clearly neither a mathematician nor a statistician. Neither is he/she an economist. This seller doesn't seem to understand that general selling trends don't guarantee day-to-day sales. This seller also doesn't understand that buying/bidding patterns change, and they can change rapidly. They can change day to day, week to week. There are long-term patterns and short-term patterns. I am sorry this seller is having difficulties with sales, but his/her assumption SOLELY ON THIS SELLING TREND that eBay is "turn[ing] off my site" is ... just not tenable. In fact, I'm staggered by it.
7. Before those US sellers continue, they need to establish whether or not their listings are indeed coming and going. They can prove this by periodically searching for each other's items and checking that the items are still showing - or alternatively not showing. This will sort out the accusation at its roots, rather than jumping to conclusions.
8. If no evidence is found of disappearing listings, then the lack of sales or bids or watchers or page visits will require another explanation. I have some possibilities:
a) Best match - it puts some listings so far down in the pecking order that at times they will be on the very last search page, which means far less visibility;
b) Currency and global financial changes;
c) Natural changes within an acceptable variation over a continually evolving selling pattern;
d) Change of spending habits as the result of people's financial situation;
e) Competitor listing strategies.
9. Well... let's not forget the possibility that the sellers in question may be right. If so, as I've suggested in point 7, they need to do some proper searching - and then they need to collect the evidence. Screenshots (with date and time) will be the best evidence. Complaints based on "my items haven't sold during 48 hours!" would be irrelevant, but hard evidence based on screenshots would not be irrelevant.
