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EBAY eBay site crashes due to surge in listings - FT (22.79 )

FT reports the co became a victim of its own success at the weekend after a surge in the number of items for sale caused the world's largest online auction site to crash. Millions of shoppers were first unable to search for items on the website on Saturday, during the crucial run-up to Christmas, after a computer system failure. Ebay said there had been a huge rise in the number of items listed for sale on its site in the run-up to the holiday season this year. It currently has more than 200 mln live listings, 33% more than at this time last year. On Sunday, the company's website still said it was working to resolve the technical problems, which had first been noticed at about 11am Pacific Standard Time on Saturday. It will be one of the worst outages suffered by the company in recent years. Ebay could be left with a hefty bill to compensate sellers for losses caused by the outage. "Our immediate priority is to resolve this issue," Ebay said. "Once that is achieved, rest assured that we will assess the economic impact of this issue and will be compensating sellers appropriately. In the meantime, we will be issuing full fee credits for affected listings." Many sellers have complained that they received much lower prices for their goods because people were unable to bid.