Why are sellers allowed to advertise "more than 10 available" when no stock available! V.common!

[mummyjaz]

Why is it that so many buyers think it is fair, to advertise "more than 10 available" then after you pay them they tell you they will get stock in next week for example. This happes so often. The lady who I just now dealt with said she'll get stock late this week.

"We've been out of stock since last Wednesday but I forgot to update the listing."

I have asked her to simply refund my money so I can buy elsewhere but of course even if she did refund right away it can take days before I can actually use those funds elsewhere. 

Am I the only member who finds this unethical? I have come across this behavior many times in the past 12 months. 

Sellers should not be allowed to advetise stock as being available in large quantities when the have NO stock at all. At very least they should be made to tell the truth in the listings, that they are "getting more stock in" instead of leading buyers to believe that they have items ready to post off. I could never in good conscience do that as a seller.

Has anyone else found themselves in this situation?

[aps1080]

Yes, found one who said he had no stock. I cracked the shytes with them and left negative feedback.

They continued selling the same item !

[harley_babes_hoard]

If it's a regular occurrence from the same seller then I can see why you are annoyed but otherwise not.

stuff happens from time to time and we all forget to update listings, go easy especially at this time of year.

[digital*ghost]

This is a practice eBay have tried to crack down on - refunding and/or cancelling a sale due to being out of stock counts as a defect against the seller, and too many of those can see the seller restricted from selling. The system has been in place for a few months now, and there may be some higher volume sellers who decide the defect is an acceptable risk, but now that eBay also have a feature where listings don't end if there is 0 stock available, I think-hope the instances of this occurring are going to reduce. 

[lane-ends]

I guess for high volume sellers it is easier to set and forget, it also keeps the item history rating up. But like any seller anywhere there are times when a particular item sells out before new stock arrives. Trying to constantly cancel and change listings overcomplicates things.

It is impossible to acurately shedule new stock deliveries to allways cover sale rate. There is no out of stock setting, and so listing would just have to be cancelled and loose any followers even if it reappears a few days later. Off ebay websites have the facility to just state out of stock, so as a buyer you either wait or enquire when it will likely be in stock.

As a buyer it would annoy me to have a watched listing disapear simply because they were temporarily out of stock

Yes it is a let down for buyers, and it will now count as a defect against sellers when it happens. I guess it is unavoidable at times though. Some dodgy sellers will revert to item lost in post, and quickly refund to avoid out of stock lashback.

[digital*ghost]

Maybe, but if I get 50 of something in, I don't put any more than 50 as available, then when stock gets low I take another look at what's available, and update if I can (in actual fact, I'm more likely to put around 40-45, to allow for replacements of faulty or missing items without having to worry about updating the listing, or if I get notice of faults / lost mail after it's sold out).

If I can think of not putting a number higher than what I have readily available to ship in the listing....so can higher volume sellers who are more practiced than me in the art of stock control. 😉 Plus, there is an out of stock option now - if a listing gets to 0 quantity (either via sales or by manually putting 0 as the quantity), it doesn't end or lose sale history, it remains invisible to buyers (except for those who have it on their watch lists, but they can't buy or add to cart) and doesn't lose anything once the quantity is revised - if it's out of commission for several weeks, I suspect it would lose ranking. 

I acknowledge it gets a bit more complicated when a seller is selling across multiple venues and relies on things like file exchange to update quantities, but even then - why not do as I do and consider only around 80-90% of stock as readily available, or modify stock keeping systems to adapt to the platforms they're using?

Maybe easier said than done, but near as I can tell, part of the problem also stems from the worry about missing out on a sale by not making enough available in one place...but if you're out of stock and can't fulfill an order, you've lost a sale anyway, and quite possibly ensured the loss of future sales to the same customer (at least here on eBay, where expectations are much higher and most customers are retail customers who want the specific items they buy, when they buy it - some wholesalers I deal with often can not supply items in my order, it can get annoying, but I accept that as part of the whole deal because they make allowances for the possibility, thus so do I. One of them gives me the option to select replacements at 20% off, and since it's usually shop stock and I don't have a personal investment in the item, I'm happy to select replacements...not so for the retail buyer that has purchased a gift, or some such).

[jensmanchester-australia]

With the new out of stock option available on ebay this should not be happening. I can understand why in the past sellers didn't want to end a listing if they were waiting on new stock but if a seller uses the out stock option the listing doesn't need to be ended.