Online auction bigwig, eBay, which initiated a multimedia marketing campaign this month, Sunday apologized for the inconvenience caused to the shoppers and the sellers because of the technical glitch that hit its key e-commerce sites Saturday morning, leading to a one-day crash in the search functions of its website.

Saying that the search functions were fully reinstated by Sunday morning, eBay added that though the hiccups were first detected by the sellers, when users expressed their inability to find products on the US as well as some overseas eBay sites. 

About the malfunction, which somewhat damped weekend sales, eBay said in its blog that the unforeseen technical issue largely resulted from “a surge in live listings, as sellers ramp up for the holiday season.”

Noting that eBay presently has over 200 million live listings, which mark a 33 percent increase than last year, Lorrie Norrington, the President of eBay Marketplace, stated that the company will adequately compensate the sellers on eBay for their losses resulting from the technical snag.

Nonetheless, with the malfunction occurring five days before the Thanksgiving holiday, the ChannelAdvisor Corp CEO, Scot Wingo, said that Saturday transactions were affected. Wingo added: “Auction sellers were in a bad state. Some are saying they went all day without bids, and underbidders got their items for a steal due to lack of last-minute bidding.”