eBay

musicyouneed · ‎10-20-2016

I have someone from Hong Kong that is interested in buying a few CD's from me and wanted to know if I could offer combined shipping. I will be able to using a service that will give me a cheaper rate. So how do I do it. He puts each CD in the cart and after I weigh the total, how to I do a shipping price. Right now, I don't have it where I offer combined shipping, it all depends on weight.

This is what I am quoting him:

2 CD's for $10 Canadian under 250 grams
or 4 CD's for $13.00 Canadian shipping as long as it is under 500 grams,
or 6 CD's for $17 Canadian as long as it is under 750 grams.

Any ideas on how to do this without making it really complicated.

around_again_records · ‎10-20-2016

What about adding $2 to each category that way if he/she goes over a bit into the next weight category you will end up splitting the difference.

musicyouneed · ‎10-20-2016

I have already built that in to my quote.

musicyouneed · ‎10-21-2016

There must be some sellers out there that combine shipping. How do you do it?

pjcdn2005 · ‎10-21-2016

After he puts the items in the care, he needs to click on request total from seller. That is on the top right of the cart. Once he does that you will see what is in his cart, add the shipping amount and send invoice. Is that what you are asking?

musicyouneed · ‎10-21-2016

Yes, that is perfect. Now I guess, .com purchases and .ca purchases have to be done on their respective ebay?

rose-dee · ‎10-21-2016

@musicyouneed wrote:
Yes, that is perfect. Now I guess, .com purchases and .ca purchases have to be done on their respective ebay?

As far as the "Request Total from Seller" button goes, I've encountered several instances where it simply doesn't work, leading to a dead-end "error message" page. Specifically, this happened when I was purchasing items from a European seller listing on .com. I've also had a couple of my own buyers complain about the same thing. I've reported this to Raphael, and it's been on his "glitches and bugs" list for quite some time (see the Wed. Board hours). The "Request Total" may or may not work for a Hong Kong buyer purchasing from you, I really don't know.

However, if your buyer does have a problem requesting the total through that means, you can ask him to email you through eBay Messages once he's finished shopping so that you can give him a shipping quote by email.

Frankly, the eBay checkout system across its sites is a hopeless mess, in my opinion. Experienced eBay buyers used to understand that they could use the "Commit to Buy" to purchase a combination of items listed on any eBay site in one order, and then use the "Request Total" button to get a combined shipping quote and complete the purchase. It worked -- in my view -- actually better than eBay's cart concept ever has. The fact that the "Request Total" button apparently doesn't work in every situation anymore makes the whole checkout procedure far more complicated if the buyer is not logged onto your "home" site.

Are you listing on .com or .ca? Depending on where the items are listed and where your buyer is logged onto, he will either have no problems or a lot of problems.

If you're listing on both .ca and .com and your buyer is not logged onto .ca (for example, he's logged onto .com), but chooses items from each site, he won't be able to use either the U.S. or the Canadian cart to put all his purchases into one order.

However, if he emails you directly once he's chosen the items he wants, you should be able to adjust the shipping amount on the invoice at your end, and send the combined total to him that way. This is how I worked out the transaction with my European seller. It's awkward, and means some delays, but doable.

This whole checkout fiasco is the biggest bone I have to pick with eBay. You would think that making it simple, easy and seamless for customers on all its sites to buy from any of its listings would be Priority #1. Apparently not.

pjcdn2005 · ‎10-21-2016

I imagine you have this all figured out now but I'll answer anyway. If your buyer was on .ca they can put all the .ca listed items in the cart and then ask you for an invoice. They could also use the .ca cart for your .com listed items too but they would have to do it separately because it looks like you can't ask for an invoice if there are items in the cart with different currencies from the same seller. So yes, it would probably be easiest to use carts on each site.

Keep in mind that you can use the cart on .ca for items from any site but the cart on .com is restricted for .com listed items. The problem on .ca is that you can only pay for one currency at a time.