'Technical issue' downs eBay search over weekend

eBay on Sunday confirmed that a "technical issue" had caused search queries on the auction site to be messed up over the weekend, resulting in limited or no search results. The company says that it's being cautious, though, and is holding back on some advanced search features until the issue is fully solved.

"We are happy to report that critical search functionality was restored overnight on Saturday and we are seeing normal activity levels today," a post on the company's eBay Ink blog read Sunday. "As part of our effort to restore critical search functionality as quickly as possible for sellers and for buyers, we have kept some secondary search features temporarily offline. This includes refining search by certain item specifics, such as color or clothing size, and having Store Inventory Format results included in the main search results."

In a statement, eBay also said the technical issue was caused by "a surge in live listings as sellers ramp up for the holiday season. eBay currently has more than 200 million live listings, 33 percent more than at this time a year ago."

Some eBay members still weren't satisfied with the explanation. "I had a one day auction ending today, (and) no one was obviously able to bid on it because they couldn't search for it," one commenter said on the eBay Ink blog. "Will I get a credit for this?"

"eBay should credit all sellers with active listings during this time," another said. "These issues have cost sellers many bids and sales. Once again eBay is screwing sellers."

Much like Twitter's today, outages at eBay were rather prominent in the company's early days. They're not too frequent anymore. But this one came at a time when there are some sentiments of malaise among eBay sellers, some of whom use the auction site to make a living, and when it also faces increased competition in the e-commerce sector.

An analyst release from JP Morgan Chase said that it did not anticipate the outage would have an effect on eBay's fourth-quarter earnings. But, it contained a warning: "Although we recognize it is virtually impossible for a site of this complexity to not encounter occasional issues," the report from analyst Imran Khan read, "we continue to believe that eBay needs to make greater investments in the robustness and functionality of its site in order to remain competitive within the e-commerce space."

[metomjr]

Who still uses ebay?

[karpenterskids]

Me. It's an easy way to save at LEAST 20% on the electronics that I love to buy.<br /><br /><br />And every once in a while, I can get even better deals. I got Madden 08 the other day, for $1.05. And that was including shipping.

[sharmajunior]

I do, I sell off all my old stuff that I don't use and get something new from whatever I earn.

[Chao_Sama]

Hmmm sucks for them two big weekends comin up....

[krosafcheg]

I am also a victim of this search blunder. For those that already had bookmarked my auction got it at a very good price, not to my delight, as other bidders able to actually FIND my auction would have driven up the price. So, it's more than the listing fee, more than the selling fee but also the potential gain in price - lost to the outage. Not happy. Did I mention Paypal's integrated shipping with eBay has also been a POS today too? Oh and the link to get the actual phone # under contact us is down. This isn't your first year eBay, get it together!

[Noneyabeeswax]

You have to really do some serious research on prices before you buy on eBay anymore. 99% of the time I can find items elsewhere cheaper.<br /><br />I used to love eBay, but I rarely find the bargains I'm looking for anymore. So I don't go there as often. And I refuse to pay more for an item plus shipping, then eat the shipping if something isn't right with the item. Then there's the hassle I;ve had with a couple of items wherre the seller didn't even respond to emails. And they automatically scream fraud if you claim your item doesn't work, or has been damaged in some way. The sellers on eBay now mostly act like they're doing you a favor selling to you. There used to be a whole lot of great sellers on eBay, not so many now. I had to clear half or more of my favorite sellers list because they were no longer registered users. And for years they had been doing very well. <br /><br />And when they changed the search feature and the "My eBay" page, meh, I can find things easier elsewhere. Without the hassle.<br /><br />I've been a registered user since 1999 and have bought many items in the past from sellers on eBay, but I've just given up on it. The whole feel of eBay has changed, and not for the better as far as I'm concerned, I don't care for it.

[nataliev39]

This issue couldn't have come for a worse time for eBay I don't think. So many people rely on their services for gifts and when it starts to malfunction, users will find other ways to satisfy their needs. If I had anything for bid or wanted to bid on something on eBay I would definitely switch to craigslist because they haven't had any problems. <br />However, eBay definitely handled to issue to the best of their abilities and the surge in live bids was an unfortunate circumstance that their servers could not support. During this holiday season, I think that everyone needs to understand the surge of buying and selling products and just go with the flow.

[seewhatimselling]

I'm sure that Ebay lost quite a bit of money- due to their November outage- in listing refunds. I do find it rather 'strange' (to say the least) that Ebay has reported NO system announcements SINCE November 22nd (other than 2 maintenance daily reports) Personally, I think Ebay has suffered yet another (unreported) outage in December !! My sales have dropped ( 2 in a 5 day period- NO new watchers- 8 days with NO sales at ALL- Emails through Ebay's messaging Center NOT going through- NO replies from customer service)... SOMETHING is definitely going on- again ! WORST December in my 9 years of selling on Ebay. And NO system announcements ? What's UP Ebay? My auction is DEAD !