eBay Glitch Blocks Buyers From Purchases In Error
If your eBay sales have been down this week, it could be because eBay is blocking some buyers from purchasing - showing a message that says "this item is only available to buyers who haven't purchased 1 or more items from this seller in the last 10 days" in error.
That message should only be shown if/when the seller has selected that option in their Buyer Requirements settings and the buyer has actually purchased or is currently winning the number of items specified in the rule - but users say it's currently not working that way.
Interestingly, this issue appears to be happening mostly on offers where buyers report that they made a first offer that was automatically rejected because it did not meet the minimum the seller had set to accept and that they then received this message when trying to submit another offer.
eBay community members have also reported similar experiences, though not all have specified if they were trying to make additional offers when the issue occured.
When I try to submit an offer on an item I get the error "this item is only available to buyers who haven't purchased 1 or more items from this seller in the last 10 days" but I have NEVER bought anything from this seller ever. I'm very confused.
"The seller only allows buyers to purchase 1 item every 10 days"
Message comes up randomly when trying to buy items from other sellers.
My buyers are also getting this too, it completely prevents them from buying any of my items at all.
Coincidentally this started happening when sales took a nosedive for a lot of sellers a few days ago, coincidence?
Received a message from a potential buyer today that eBay wouldn't let her buy an item because she'd already bought from me within 10 days and she hadn't. I don't have a rule about 10 days. But in the message was a warning from eBay that I have this user on my blocked list, but I don't...
... She made about 7 offers that day and possibly a month earlier twice on a different ID if it was her.
eBay has been testing various methods to "solve the unpaid item problem" on the site and specifically with offers, the Winter 2024 Seller Update advised that eBay would be making changes that would keep an item active until/unless a buyer actually completes checkout and pays.
Liz Morton
Reduce unpaid items when sending offers to buyers
When potential buyers are interested in your offer, they’ll be taken directly to checkout and, in order to accept the offer and secure the item, they’ll need to successfully complete payment.
What you need to knowThis change to seller-initiated offers will help reduce unpaid item incidents by requiring buyers to pay for the item in order to accept your offer.If a buyer abandons the checkout page, the item will still be available to other potential buyers.
Important points from the FAQ:
What is changing when I send offers to buyers?
As a seller, you can continue to send offers to your interested buyers just as you do today. With this change, buyers will need to complete payment to accept your offer. Until then, the item will remain available for other potential buyers to purchase or make offers. This ensures your inventory remains available for customers and avoids an unpaid transaction.
What is changing when a buyer receives an offer from a seller?
If a potential buyer is interested in accepting your offer on an item, they’ll be prompted to complete their purchase at checkout. Upon successful payment, the item becomes theirs. Until then, other buyers are still able to purchase the item.
Based on the details provided by users experiencing this blocked transaction error, it appears eBay's systems may possibly be considering a previously made but not accepted offer as if the buyer had actually bought or won an item, triggering that Buyer Requirement Block in error.
eBay's System Status page has also been showing a service disruption related to Buying since April 10, 2024.
Unfortunately, they do not provide any detail to determine what that disruption might be or how many buyers might be impacted, so it's impossible to know if this includes this buyer block error and/or if there are other disruptions happening as well, but the timing would fit with reports we've seen across the eBay community and social media.
I've reached out to eBay for more information and will update when more details are available - in the meantime, let us know in the comments below if you've experienced this blocked buyer error and if so, was it specifically on an offer?
much too complicated now for a few pounds a year in sales
They just "killed the golden goose". I imported my 1500+ eBay items to there since it was free. Turned out just to be a lot of work for (maybe) 3 sales a month.
The total fees were higher there before this new $20 a month cost structure, even though they claimed otherwise. When one factors in the 3.49% + 49 cent PayPal processing fees so one can get paid, there went a good chunk of profit.
Now they have boosted their commission to 11%, and still claim that the cost to sell there is less than eBay's. And remember that this does not include payment processing. WHY?? Makes no sense at all.
On eBay, for $27.95 a month, I sell over 100 items there every 30-31 days. Makes ZERO SENSE to pay a site $20 to make just a couple of sales. Since they now allow 50 "free listings", I have trimmed my offerings back to just below that amount. Also had to raise all my prices accordingly to absorb the extra selling costs.
The people who run the show here obviously didn't realize that eBay sellers who imported their listings gave the site a great depth of product, which would attract more buyers. Now that will be gone, because NO ONE will pay them $20 monthly for little to no sales.
The site also has technical issues that they refuse to fix. It was a decent resource to enable the occasional sale, but they will soon be stacked onto the eCommerce trash heap of companies that THOUGHT they could compete with Amazon and eBay. Etsy may also suffer the same fate soon, as many sellers are also leaving their site due to high fees, website issues, and poor management.
Basic eComm rule here: When you do not carry any inventory, and sellers are solely responsible for supplying your site with the goods offered, DON'T BITE THE HAND WHICH FEEDS YOU!!!