Time Away Help?
Summary: A participant, beddaustamps, shared an issue with eBay's 'Time Away' feature failing to pause sales as expected, resulting in unexpected purchases during their holiday mode. They speculated that items in a buyer's cart prior to activating 'Time Away' might still be purchasable. bzmotman and others confirmed similar experiences, suggesting a known glitch where items in watch lists or carts remain purchasable despite the shop being in 'Time Away'. Despite contacting customer support, the issue was not resolved, highlighting a long-standing glitch in the system.
Hi,
I've used Time Away dozens of times over the years (always PAUSE ITEM SALES) without any issues.
Put my shop into holiday mode last Wednesday afternoon (until 6th October), and as expected no item sales - UNTIL yesterday, when an American customer buys 4 items (Not Offer Items but normal priced items from my Shop). Phone up eBay support who say that there might be a glitch which allows buyers to purchase regular price items even when your shop is closed (and NO BUY-IT-NOW button available), but under no circumstances will they be able to pay until your Time Away ends. Felt reassured ... UNTIL THE GUY THEN PAYS!!
Does anyone know how this is possible (i.e. bypass the Time Away block)? Is it possible that buyers can still checkout if items were already in the Shopping Basket before Time Away kicked in? Any ideas how to stop further sales, other than ending all my listings (or the guaranteed approach to stopping sales is to pay to Promote everything).
What's the point of TIME AWAY giving us the option of PAUSE ITEM SALES or ALLOW ITEM SALES (with extended dispatch times), if eBay is going to ALLOW ITEM SALES regardless?
Cheers,
Beddau Stamps.
jow1995
·1 week agoMy holiday settings were set for last Thursday for 2 days, came home Sunday to find 16 orders overdue.
I always check before heading out on my phone that i have done correctly.
Rang Ebay who are stating that my out of office messages was set but not holiday settings which i know not to be true.
There must be a glitch on the system.
I will need to appeal but am worried about losing my top seller rating
the_book_seekers
·1 week agoThere have been instances where buyers have a sellers items in their watch list and been able to buy while time away is set.
cbennissupplies
·1 week agoyes have had simalar happen in the past. a few days into the time away a sale pops up ! phoned the buyer thanked them and asked how did they manage to buy it when shop is closed from sales? turned out they had it in there basket a few days and just finalised the sale
beddaustamps
OP1 week agoThanks for confirming this - it's useful to know.
I did question this possibility with eBay CS who were adamant that a buyer would not be able to checkout/pay until Time Away finished - Obviously Not the case.
the_book_seekers
·1 week agoIt's been a known glitch for years. Back in the day I remember a post from a seller who got to cross question a manager at an open day as to why it was happening. The seller was told it was due to the items being visible in a buyer's watch list, being in buyer's basket would also keep it visible. It's been years and it is still happening. One of those known issues that ebay has never addressed.
bzmotman
·1 week agoI had exactly the same problem with my latest Time Away. I think that as the sale happened a few hours after the Time away started it was because it works on Ebay Official time that I believe is one of the Yank time zones - Pacific? which are obviously behind us. So instead of starting at 2300 BST my Time away actually started at 0800? the next day.
Could this be the case with you?
beddaustamps
OP1 week agoMy Time Away had been on for 3 days before the sales came through. As soon as it went live I double-checked a number of listings to ensure there was no option to Buy.
I always give myself some leeway in case it takes a while for items to disappear (or time differences), so not sure why it's not working this time.