I just finished dealing with this problem for over 48 hours. I filed two case reports with Auctiva and was completely ignored for most of the day. After much frustration I finally got my last item listed. Oddly enough, I had uploaded three lots of clothing initially and two of the three lots uploaded without incident. The third was kicked back as an API Error. The Error Report indicated it was related to the Item Details.
I would input the "Custom Specifics" again because they somehow disappeared and when I clicked Post Now eBay would spit it out with another API Error. This time, it indicated I must provide shipping insurance. And, even though I had it I removed it, saved it then edited it again and re-added it. Then, when I clicked Post Now...same API error message.
I called eBay last night around 10 pm after spending the day on this problem. Of course, anyone who could assist me had left for the day aside from their standard support staff. He gave me the number for eBay's Auctiva Representative. FYI, that number is (408) 526-9191 and their hours are 8-5 Pacific.
I never did need to call them today as Auctiva finally responded with the following information...
What you can do:
You can still insure items by including the cost of insurance in the item's price or in your handling cost.
You can say
"The item is insured" or
"Handling cost includes insurance" in your listing description.
Please make any necessary changes to your listing before posting it on eBay. Also, make sure it follows our selling practices policy .
Find out more about the Shipping Costs
http://pages.ebay.com/help/pol...ctices.html#shipping portion of our selling practices policy.
On further investigation, I found that the word "INSURANCE" is present in the "Item Description." Please remove phrases such as
"Shipping Insurance Is Included with this Purchase". Once you have made those changes in your listing, you should be able to successfully post this listing.
I also recommend you to visit the aforementioned links.
OK...so here's the kicker! I didn't change anything this support representative suggested. But, this morning I came across something interesting. I noticed my International Shipments section in Auctiva.com was different than it was in eBay.
I had Auctiva set to "Select Locations to Exclude" and under North America they have United States listed so if you select North America similarly to doing it in eBay it excludes shipments to the US. So, instead I changed Auctiva to use my eBay Shipping Exclusion List and voila! My listing loaded on my next try.
This makes no sense at all!! My first two listings loaded fine with my Auctiva International Shipping Exclude Locations set to Select Locations to Exclude. So, why would revising this outcast listing to "Use my eBay shipping exclusion list" result in it suddenly uploading to eBay and being accepted.
It's either a random error that picks and chooses what causes it to fail leaving us searching for a needle in a haystack which makes no sense from an operational or software design standpoint.
Or, eBay is set up to randomly search exact details on some listings but not all. In my case, the third upload fell into that hole. And, as it scanned the incoming information it looked at my "Select locations to exclude" option which also excludes The United States as one of the North American countries. So, I'd imagine it would spit it out because from their perspective it looks like your NOT shipping anywhere at all.
This problem needs to be addressed by Auctiva since the eBay exclusion list assumes shipment within the US and Auctiva complicates it by hiding it's selection under the tree summary heading of the North American selection. While we are assuming the US is a given we're inadvertently deselecting it without realizing it.
And, considering this was the only change I'd made to the uploaded listing I can only conclude this was the reason and that eBay's check and balance system isn't checking each and every listing as closely.
