eBay Seller Hub Adds Expiration Countdown For Draft Listings

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


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eBay is making it easier for sellers to see when their draft listings will expire to avoid losing their hard work to the 75 day automatic deletion clock.

The drafts view under Listings in Seller Hub now includes a column with an expiration date countdown and there also be an additional banner warning once you reach the 15 days away mark.

The new feature was announced in today's eBay For Business podcast, where the hosts also hinted that expiration times for drafts may be going away completely in the near future.

Ep 236 || Hobby vs. Business Selling: How to Determine Which One Fits Your Business on eBay
Mark Jaeger, VP of Operations at TaxAct, returns to shed some light on the differences, pros and cons between Hobby and Business selling. Brian and Griff answer questions on printing shipping labels, Promoted Listing ad rates, and how to be sure your sneakers qualify for Authenticity Guarantee. You…

Griff: ...But anyway, so I've noticed this thing this morning. I'm looking at the drafts, you know, I have two drafts ready to go and I'm about to submit them. If you submit them as more than two, two or more, it takes you through, it looks exactly like the bulk edit feature. And it will alert me, Hey, you idiot, you forgot to put a condition, you numb skull! You didn't put this item specific. Uh, hello idiot. How about how you're gonna get paid? So those are all those little red things in a column.

But then I'm looking over at the draft page in Seller Hub and at the very end there's a column and it says expiration date. And I'm thinking to myself, what? I've never seen this before. Drafts last for 75 days and after 75 days there's unceremoniously deleted. So if you work really hard on that draft on day 76, it's gone.

Well, now we have a little column that says you got 74 days left, you got 73 days left. And I thought, well, this is helpful.

Brian: And that's the column. There's even additional news.

Griff: What's that?

Brian: There's a little banner that goes up and says you've got 15 days. And it goes away too.

Griff: Yeah. So there's a bunch, bunch of alerts to let you know that that thing you've been holding onto and it's just the right moment. It's about to get deleted.

And I noticed then we see this email and in the email they talked about, and I shouldn't even hint at this because they base this on seller feedback, but they said, you know, the obvious thing is to be able to keep drafts alot longer. Like indefinitely. And they sort of hinted in the email that that's the next thing they're looking at. So, you know, baby steps.

Brian: Yes. But at least now if you're a seller and you're paying attention, then there's that. You can go into your drafts, go into the page, and you'll know exactly where you stand on every draft.


What do you think of the new drafts expiration date countdown? Should eBay allow sellers to keep drafts indefinitely? Let us know in the comments below!

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Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.


Recent Comments
Avatar Placeholderterry5519 hours ago
Sales down 40% from last year, this is gonna be a small business killer
Avatar PlaceholderJaeLynn2 days ago
I've had this happen a few times, and it confused me. One seller alleged that they had to use Amazon's services to make sure I got my item in time. I recently bought something simple, and the seller made a mistake. They'd sent me 3 different messages, one of them too early, telling me they hoped my item arrived in perfect condition. The next day, the item was marked as shipped, and I got an official Ebay shipping email. The seller was using direct messages to give me item updates. If I wanted Amazon, I'd have used them myself! lol
Avatar Placeholderlessthanthreerecords2 days ago
Happening to me too. On my active listings page (with the full list) it looks fine, but when I click on them, many have the random characters. I reported it, and that's when one glitch led to another! As I was typing the message after clicking the "?", letters were repeatedly not coming up (usually one or two at the end of a word). I was finally able to get the message entered, but how tedious!