I believe some of this is speculation, we are not sure what the story is on cooperation between ebay and Auctiva or other vendors. I would assume someone has a contract. Auctiva could probably tell us what happened on their sister site today if anything and how long? (not sure if I can use their name so will leave off) I would assume there is some kind of communication there especially if there is a problem like todays. Were there problems there?? I looked at their forums and did not see any there, but could have overlooked. My assumption would be that unless this is happening with ALL third party carriers then why would ebay pick and chose who they enlighten??? Ebay told me that all 3rd party vendors get the same information at same time??? NOW, I do not know that for a fact, but that is what I was told.
I have several friends who sell & have moved to other carriers (which I KNOW we can't name) that said, one person had a small issue for a few minutes but it was when they were going live NOT in listing process (she said very few) others said it was smooth as normal today. They sell in a hodge-podge same as I do and some of our other members. Most said they did, in fact list clothing items today with no problem, some in the categories that ebay was making changes in.
It is probably the usual, everyone blame each other for the problems and us running around like dogs chasing our tails. The who did it is irrelevant at this point though would be nice to know I realize that is NOT going to happen, it is the amount of time these fixes seem to take that is a problem and the constant lately. If it is not one thing it is something else. Slowness, images, HTML messing up, ebay making changes and auctiva not knowing when they will get them done so our listings do not show up like they should, I could go on.
No matter what an announcement when a problem of this magnitude happens would be GREAT so that everyone does not do the norm, clear cookies, cache, re-start computer, re-set router, checking forums, checking support, thinking they are only one with a problem.
I think communication, as has been in the past is about 98% of the huge frustration level here. It is always thought, these things won't happen again, but they do.
Just a thought. . and by not fact by any means as I do not work for either company.