eBay

triber · ‎05-10-2020

I always allow combined shipping, but over the last 5 or 6 years some people are just finding it impossible to do. I have phone eBay about 6 times, I am always told that the buyer needs to put their items in their cart and then it will work, they check my preferences and they are correct.

Last night I got this message from a potential buyer.

I would like to purchase 4 sewing patterns from you.
I put all 4 sewing patterns in my "cart", and then clicked the button that says, "Request total from the Seller", of which everything went well until I clicked the "Commit to Buy" button, as then a big box with red coloured text popped up across my screen, saying that "This seller does not offer combined shipping."
I am sure I am losing sales, some people will just leave and go to another buyer.

darak10 · ‎05-11-2020

^^^^^^^^ what he said.

there is no rhyme or reason to it. Im in western Canada and it happens to customers in Ontario, BC, all over the US and various parts of the world. I have plenty of customers domestically and internationally who have no problem combining shipping. I have no idea of numbers but yes it does add up to lost sales, god knows how many if they dont contact me.

In all the times I've called eBay about this I get the sense they don't know either why it happens to some and why it doesn't happen to others. The best explanation I've gotten is that it happens when a customer has one item in their cart amongst their selected items of purchase that is expired has already been sold by the time they make their purchase but anecdotally I've asked several customers who've had this problem if this is the case and they've said no.

I think it is a coding glitch somewhere they just dont want to fix because its not worth enough to them to fix, kind of like a pothole covered road that the municipality is too cheap or can't be bothered to fix for whatever reason, lack of money or they just dont care...who knows. I've have cases where it happens a couple times in a day. It may happen more when they are doing work on the back end, but that last part is just a theory.

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msmaggie060 · ‎05-10-2020

I think it’s an ebay glitch. Possibly an eBay.ca glitch. Was the buyer in Canada? I’ve had this happen with Canadian buyers trying to buy my items listed on .com but usually USA buyers buying on .com do not have the same problem. As far as I can tell, anyway.

2nd-time-around-jewelry · ‎05-10-2020

This has been an ongoing problem for years. Sometimes combined shipping works if they put their items in the cart & sometimes it doesn't. And Request Total doesn't always work either. This has happened with buyers from Canada, US & other parts of the world. I don't know how many times I have had to refund partial shipping through PayPal.

triber · ‎05-10-2020

Yes it was a Canadian buyer, sometimes when it doesn't work it says "seller doesn't ship to the US". All I can say is that it is a long glitch, I am very frustrated with it. I don't know if it's worth send eBay and email.

kawartha-ephemera · ‎05-10-2020

@triber wrote:
I always allow combined shipping, but over the last 5 or 6 years some people are just finding it impossible to do. I have phone eBay about 6 times, I am always told that the buyer needs to put their items in their cart and then it will work, they check my preferences and they are correct.

Last night I got this message from a potential buyer.

I would like to purchase 4 sewing patterns from you.
I put all 4 sewing patterns in my "cart", and then clicked the button that says, "Request total from the Seller", of which everything went well until I clicked the "Commit to Buy" button, as then a big box with red coloured text popped up across my screen, saying that "This seller does not offer combined shipping."
I am sure I am losing sales, some people will just leave and go to another buyer.

Hav Have e you checked your Shipping Preferences?

There is an "Allow combined payments" setting that needs to be enabled, if not enabled my understanding is that the buyer will not be able to combine and pay for multiple items on one invoice. Note the third line in the first attached screenshot. Click on "edit" to see if combined payments are enabled or not.

To eliminate the need for the buyer to request a combined invoice consider creating a flat shipping discount rule for items like sewing patterns, doing so automates the process. As a buyer adds items to their shopping cart the applicable shipping discount is automatically displayed and correctly applied allowing the customer to checkout right away.

When creating a flat shipping rule you typically add an amount for each additional item purchased. The added amount can 0.00 (free) or some higher amount. Once setup, there is the ability to pick and choose which listings you would like to attach the rule to. If you like check out the shipping tab on any of my postcard listings, then add multiple cards to the shopping cart, you'll see how rules work. My rule is setup with each additional item ships for 0.00 (free). The amount could just as easily be 0.50 or 1.00 if I needed more dollars to ship multiples. I would think flat rate shipping should be workable for sewing patterns.

triber · ‎05-10-2020

Thanks, it is enabled. Every time I have phoned eBay about it, they check that. They sometimes delete it and then enable it again, nothing works! I had 2 buyer combine and invoice last week, so it is working for some.

recped · ‎05-10-2020

@2nd-time-around-jewelry wrote:
This has been an ongoing problem for years. Sometimes combined shipping works if they put their items in the cart & sometimes it doesn't. And Request Total doesn't always work either. This has happened with buyers from Canada, US & other parts of the world. I don't know how many times I have had to refund partial shipping through PayPal.

ALL of this ^^^^^^

It started in 2012 and was initially explained away as something that would help sellers avoid unpaid transactions. I call it forced IPR and since IPR has been an option since around 2004 completely unnecessary.

For me all it has done is create extra work and increased fees.

I've spent lots of rime working with buyers to try to determine what sets off this issue but I have never been able to find a consistent reason why it affects some buyers while others have no problems.

Convincing buyers to use the cart doesn't help if the Request Total button is non-functional and eBay's funky combined shipping rules are not really flexible enough.

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.

darak10 · ‎05-11-2020

^^^^^^^^ what he said.

there is no rhyme or reason to it. Im in western Canada and it happens to customers in Ontario, BC, all over the US and various parts of the world. I have plenty of customers domestically and internationally who have no problem combining shipping. I have no idea of numbers but yes it does add up to lost sales, god knows how many if they dont contact me.

In all the times I've called eBay about this I get the sense they don't know either why it happens to some and why it doesn't happen to others. The best explanation I've gotten is that it happens when a customer has one item in their cart amongst their selected items of purchase that is expired has already been sold by the time they make their purchase but anecdotally I've asked several customers who've had this problem if this is the case and they've said no.

I think it is a coding glitch somewhere they just dont want to fix because its not worth enough to them to fix, kind of like a pothole covered road that the municipality is too cheap or can't be bothered to fix for whatever reason, lack of money or they just dont care...who knows. I've have cases where it happens a couple times in a day. It may happen more when they are doing work on the back end, but that last part is just a theory.

triber · ‎05-12-2020

I just sent an email to eBay about this. Here is the reply.

I am sorry for the inconvenience. There is a possibility that the "Require immediate payment with Buy It Now" button is checked in some of your listings, preventing the buyers to request a total from you. But now worries! I updated all of your listings in bulk to make sure all of the people who are going to buy from you would be able to request an invoice from here onwards

HOPEFULLY that will work, I'll let you know if I have more problems, I hope this can help other members here.

recped · ‎05-12-2020

@triber wrote:
I just sent an email to eBay about this. Here is the reply.

I am sorry for the inconvenience. There is a possibility that the "Require immediate payment with Buy It Now" button is checked in some of your listings, preventing the buyers to request a total from you. But now worries! I updated all of your listings in bulk to make sure all of the people who are going to buy from you would be able to request an invoice from here onwards

HOPEFULLY that will work, I'll let you know if I have more problems, I hope this can help other members here.

You don't really believe that garbage do you?

It's about as credible as the explanations about the mystery list of blocked countries that showed up a month ago.

There actually used to be some details on the forced IPR in the help files but they removed it during the last revamp of those pages.

There were also details in the Seller Update back in 2012 (or maybe it was 2014) when this forced IPR started, that announcement can still be found in the archives but it was cleansed of the the IPR information. Back in 2012 in came in the usual form...."good news, more protections for sellers" and went on to explain why forced IPR was such a great idea.

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.