eBay Listing End Date Glitch Knocks One Day Off Good Til Canceled Timeframe
UPDATE 3-1-2024
Sellers report this "one day off" glitch is still occuring the listings started today showing an end date of March 31 instead of April 1 - that means if the issue isn't corrected, many sellers may end up paying additional fees when these listings roll over!
I was hoping this error would straighten itself out by today, 3/1. But the items I've listed today all end on 3/31. Unless eBay fixes this, I will need to end my listings that would automatically renew on 3/31 to avoid insertion fees.
eBay sellers are observing an odd glitch impacting listing end dates, losing a day off the Good Til Canceled timeframe starting on February 10th.
I just listed 2 items and they started at 27 days 23 hours 59 minutes. It should be 28 days 23 hours 59 minutes.
Why would this be?
Whenever I list an item, say today 02/10/2024, the item would post with an end date of 03/10/2024. However, this morning all that changed (around 7am Central), the listings are showing an end date of 03/09/2024. So, when I list an item today, and click on "Active" listings sorting by End Date, it does not show up as the latest item, rather an item I have to search for in the previous days listings.
What gives?!?
Originally it was thought this issue could possibly be explained by 2024 being a leap year, as it one time Good Til Canceled listings on eBay renewed every 30 days.
However, the current policy actually relists Good Til Canceled listings on the same day every month - with adjustments made for some months that are shorter than others.
When you list an item as Good ’Til Canceled, it will relist every month on the same day until it’s sold. For example, if you list your item on the 1st of May, it will relist on the 1st of June.
If you list your item on the 29th, 30th, or 31st of a month, the duration will be adjusted if the following month is shorter, but will revert to the original day for longer months. For example, if you list an item on the 31st of May, it will relist on the 30th of June, and then again on the 31st of August and so on.
Given that policy, February being a short month or this year being a leap year should not come into play until later in the month and listings created on February 10th should definitely be showing and end date of March 10th, not the 9th, according to that help and policy page.
Other sellers confirmed they are also seeing their newly created listings missing a day, starting on February 10.
I can confirm I'm seeing the same issue @closetqueen2014 . I was able to replicate it on multiple accounts, had a friend check and they also provided a screenshot.
Hey devon@ebay . This issue is happening with listings created Feb 10, 2024. System shows listings created today will end a day earlier than expected on March 9, 2024.
My initial thought was to attribute it to the leap year, however when checking listings created between Jan 29 - Feb 9 I am not seeing the same 1 day early end date which makes me think Leap Day is not the issue.
A day later, another wrinkle was added when an hour discrepancy was introduced as well.
Yesterday's new listings are showing:
Start Feb 10, 2024 2:00 pm, end Mar 9, 2024 2:00 pm
Today's new listings are showing:
Start Feb 11, 2024 2:00 pm, end Mar 10, 2024 3:00pm
Yesterday was a 1 day discrepancy. Today is a 1 day minus 1 hour discrepancy.
Edit: It occurs to me March 10 is daylight savings, so that probably accounts for the extra 1 hr - Spring forward the clocks / Fall back the clocks. It does not explain the minus 1 day though.
While that hour difference being due to daylight savings does make sense, it raises the question - did eBay's programers possibly mess up something to do with the day setting when making adjustments for daylight savings changes?
eBay community staff are aware of the issue and have forwarded it to the appropriate team, though we are not seeing any sitewide ticket posted for this issue yet.
Stay tuned for updates and let us know in the comments below if your listings created on or after February 10 are missing a day from the GTC timeframe!
First, yes, I am noticing that listings created on February 10 (I have not listed anything in the days since) are scheduled to relist on March 9.
Second, I am surprised to hear of people referencing the "end date" column on the active listings page, as I have been unable to see mine for almost 6 months! I only noticed the Feb10/Mar9 issue by calculating the time remaining. Whenever I try to add the "end date" to my active listings page, it just puts a few characters overlapping the column furthest to the right. It is not enough characters to read or make any sense of. I've repeatedly told eBay of the issue, but they said it is not a priority to them. They claim the column is being added at a width of zero pixels, so it cannot be expanded, nor does it make any difference if other columns are removed or made narrower. At the end of every month, it takes me a lot of time and aggravation to figure out whether I have enough store insertion credits for the month, or if I must end a few listings early. Before this issue, that would take just a few minutes and was very easy.
Finally, I'm not sure if this is connected or not, but for quite some time, when I look at the traffic of any specific listing, the current date on the chart (the one all the way to the right) is always the day prior (for example, today, February 15, it will show it as February 14). However, the traffic on that day can increase as the day progresses, leading me to believe that it is actually showing the current date. To add to the confusion, for newer listings, the dotted line indicating the start date does correspond correctly to the date I started the listing (in the examples above that were listed on February 10, when I hold my cursor over the dotted line, it does say that's February 10), however, in many of those cases, there are views/traffic on the day previous to the start of the listing. How can a listing get traffic before it exists?! Again, I'm not sure if these issues are connected, but they do seem somewhat related in regards to a 1-day shift.
And one added concern: since mandated "good til cancelled," the last day of February has always been total chaos with disappearing listings (one year, about 80% of my store was totally gone at one point). Wondering if the extra day will make things better or worse.