Cart and checkout

[canadianfootballcards]

I've been wondering why my US sales have tanked lately. Figured Cassini was limiting my US exposure, and resigned myself to the fact I couldn't do much about it.

But another thing occurred to me this morning as I put on my buyer hat.

Wanted to get a couple Lego Star Wars figurines for my kids. Tiny little purchase that, under the familiar old system, would be easy.

BUT...

Found a Tie Fighter figurine. Hit buy-it-now, which apparently added the item to my cart. I then got taken to a checkout screen.

I wanted to check out the seller's other items, to see if I could add for combined shipping. Had trouble finding a way to do that. Eventually succeeding, I found another Lego figurine (Gungan Soldier, if anyone cares). I had to add it to my cart.

That done, I was asked to confirm my order and payment by logging into PayPal and paying, WITHOUT the option to ask for a combined shipping invoice.

Maybe it was there, somewhere, but I didn't see it.

SO... I ended up not buying the figurines. Instead, I've messaged the seller to see if there's a way to do this in a more efficient way.

If the above is confusing to read, it was equally confusing to do.

And if I didn't know eBay so well, and if I hadn't already told my kids they were getting these figurines, I would have abandoned the purchase altogether.

Putting my seller hat back on, I wonder if buyers, especially those who are new to eBay, are being chased away by this... I don't even know how to describe it... system.

I do wish someone at eBay would realize that less is more. KISS and all that.

[pierrelebel]

The problem is that eBay.com offers a shopping cart while it is not available on eBay.ca

One solution: purchase the items on eBay.ca (not eBay.com) and ask the seller to send you a combined invoice - if the listings indicate "combined" shipment.

[canadianfootballcards]

Good suggestion, which almost worked.

Did buy-it-now on figurine No. 1 on .ca and all is good.

Did buy-it-now on figurine No. 2, from same seller, and it directed me to PayPal for payment, ignoring previous purchase. Though I am doing this on .ca, apparently it is in my 'cart' anyways. Does not show in my purchase history.

Still frustrated at my inability to buy two things and get a combined invoice.

[rose-dee]

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@minorleaguemarvels wrote:

Still frustrated at my inability to buy two things and get a combined invoice.

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I've also had your experience when shopping with a US eBay seller from within eBay.ca, so I'm not sure that particular 'workaround' does work anymore.  Or perhaps the US cart system now always activates according to the site where the items are listed. 

For lack of a more technical solution, I seem to recall that after selecting "Buy-it-Now", I just hit the "back" button each time I wanted to add an item to the cart, and rather than processing through to Paypal, hit the 'back' button at the end (to return to the last listing page) and messaged the seller asking for a revised invoice with a combined total for shipping + purchases.  

This was a rather sloppy and roundabout way of purchasing, and I agree that buyers who aren't familiar with the system might just get completely frustrated and leave. 

[around_again_records]

Very interesting, I found out about the shopping cart thing a while ago when I started listing BIN items. I read the information on the eBay.ca pages and thought Canada had the shopping cart too. It sounded like immediate payment was required for BIN and I couldn't combine shipping. I changed all my adds TRYING to explain to customers how to combine purchases, but wasn't sure myself. Then I found out here at this forum that the shopping cart and Immediate payment procedure was only on .com. so I changed my listings AGAIN.

I know combined shipping is working for Thailand, and China but those are the only 2 countries where I have had multiple purchases.

Now I am wondering how my listings on .ca will show up or be handled on .com. Could this be the reason I am not seeing much action from the US? Does anyone know how this works?

It's probably just lack of interest but it is rather confusing and I certainly am not a fan of the way it is set up on .com. The shopping cart sounds like it should be a good way to combine purchases and then make immediate payment, but it sounds like that is not working the way it should. The Immediate payment part is the killer. I think it's supposed to protect sellers somehow or other, but it's a sales killer to my mind unless you can use the shopping cart to combine your purchases.

I'm interested to hear more on this and perhaps get some clarification on how .ca listings will be processed on .com sites