eBay

rose-dee · ‎05-26-2017

Some may recall I've been making a nuisance of myself harping for months about "Request Total" not working, initially with Raphael (one of the eBay Canada reps, who left in December, 2016).

For the past few days, I've been corresponding back and forth with one of the new eBay Canada people, and after many messages and a number of screen shots describing what I've been seeing both as buyer and seller, it appears my original conclusion -- that using eBay's "Automated Shipping Discount Rules" (and turning on "Combined Shipping") in your "Preferences" has been knocking out the "Request Total" feature -- is basically true.

Here is the eBay rep's most recent explanation [my emphasis in bold typeface]. It's not good news for many of us:

"a.depour wrote:

[...] I just got confirmation about Request Total and how it relates to Automated Shipping Discount:

At the moment, they work in a mutually exclusive way. That is, if you offer Automated Shipping Discount, the Request Total becomes disabled. The reason I was able to submit a Request Total on the Canadian site was because the shipping discount doesn't apply to that site (since you set it up for USD).

If you want Request Total to work for your US customers, you have to disable Automated Shipping Discount. "

Presumably the reverse is also true, i.e. that if you choose $CDN as the currency for your Automated Shipping Discounts, buyers on the U.S. (.com) site won't be able to use "Request Total".

So be aware that if you want all your customers, regardless of eBay site, to be able to use "Request Total" to ask for an adjusted invoice (for combined shipping), do NOT set up any Automated Shipping Discount Rules.

Conversely, if you have Automated Shipping Discount rules set up, be aware that buyers using the site handling the currency you've chosen for your automated discounts will not have access to "Request Total" (even if the button itself appears on the cart checkout screen). This is obviously why I've been getting those weird dead-end messages when trying to use "Request Total" as a buyer.

All this time, those of us believed our buyers could benefit from our automated discounts have actually unwittingly been barring buyers from being able to ask for a total on a multi-item purchase. Yikes. I knew something was wrong, since I haven't had one such request from a buyer since I set up my automated shipping discounts a couple of years ago.

So it seems as if a lot of us will have a d===d if you do, d===d if you don't decision to make with respect to shipping discounts/combined shipping. Are you more likely to lose potential multi-item purchasers because they give up in frustration, being unable to use "Request Total", and not wanting to trust that you'll refund the excess shipping to them?

Or are you more likely to lose buyers because shipping discounts won't be applied automatically to their carts on checkout? All I can say is that it's going to be a tough choice for me at least, now that I know the reality of the situation.

If you sell more or less evenly to .com and .ca buyers, it may be wiser to forget about automated discounts altogether, since you must choose one currency or the other for the discounts. At least then all your buyers will be able to access "Request Total", at least according to eBay's most recent explanation.

Why would eBay do this? Clearly many Canadian sellers will be listing and selling in both currencies and may not want to have to choose one currency over the other when setting up automated discounts, knocking out an entire market from using "Request Total". Well, I expect this is likely another change that eBay made with only the U.S. market in mind.

This news also raises other questions. I thought that maybe it's possible to experiment with the automated "Flat Shipping Rules" to see if I can make those rules resemble the sort of combined shipping discounts that might come up in an order. But how to reasonably predict most possible scenarios of combinations? That still wouldn't apply to my Canadian buyers, since I have $USD set as my option in the automated discounts. What happens if a buyer chooses items with mixed $USD/$CDN currency? In that situation, will neither "Request Total" nor the automated discount work? Maybe I should stop listing on .ca entirely (which I really don't want to do).

As it stands right now, for my own set-up (I have Automated Shipping Discounts set up), my Canadian buyers can use "Request Total", but not my U.S. buyers. Both my U.S. and Canadian buyers can get my automated "Buy 4, get free shipping" discount -- but only if the listing is in $USD (i.e. on .com). If the listing(s) are in $CDN, my U.S. buyers can't request an adjusted total.

If this sounds complicated and confusing, it is. It's taken me over 6 months to get to this point of understanding, but I wanted to report it to other sellers, since I don't think eBay did a very good job at all of making it clear to sellers at the time this "either-or" was introduced.

We really didn't need another silent sales killer like this, did we?

rose-dee · ‎05-26-2017

Correction to the above (my apologies):

"Presumably the reverse is also true, i.e. that if you choose $CDN as the currency for your Automated Shipping Discounts, buyers on the ~~U.S. (.com) site won't be able to use "Request Total"~~."

should read:

"Presumably the reverse is also true, i.e. that if you choose $CDN as the currency for your Automated Shipping Discounts, buyers on the Canadian (.ca) site won't be able to use "Request Total"."

dutchman48 · ‎05-26-2017

Hi Rose

Did you happen to ask if you could set up Canadian combined shipping terms on the .ca site and US combined shipping terms on the .com site, or will one negate the other even though they are on different sites?

Thanks

John

rose-dee · ‎05-26-2017

@dutchman48 wrote:
Hi Rose

Did you happen to ask if you could set up Canadian combined shipping terms on the .ca site and US combined shipping terms on the .com site, or will one negate the other even though they are on different sites?

Thanks
John

I could be wrong, but I think the seller preferences follow the seller and apply consistently, i.e. can't be set up differently on different sites. I think if this weren't the case, the eBay rep would have told me to do this.

But good question -- I'll ask about this.

dutchman48 · ‎05-26-2017

I can never tell if mine works or not as I have a lot of Canadians that pay for each purchase separate which is a pain.

My thought on all this is as I asked about combined shipping a long time ago and got shoved under the carpet.

Ebay and Paypal make more money if each purchase is paid separately.

It also caters more to the person only looking for 1 item and not collectors looking for good deals on multiple items.

I doubt if Ebay will ever do anything to help the collectible markets or the smaller sellers.

dutchman48 · ‎05-26-2017

I just checked and only 1 has priority on both Can and US sites. The fact I have 0 for additional items on both sites means it should work on both sites as long as i use the same name for the discount on both sites.

rose-dee · ‎05-26-2017

@dutchman48 wrote:

My thought on all this is as I asked about combined shipping a long time ago and got shoved under the carpet.
Ebay and Paypal make more money if each purchase is paid separately.

I ran into a brick wall as well (it's been over 6 months since I first brought this up).

On your second point, there must be thousands of dollars of additional shipping FVFs that eBay will have collected where sellers did the right thing and gave their buyers a refund of excess shipping paid. That can't be an insignificant total for eBay after all this time.

On the other hand, you'd think eBay would not want to be thwarting buyers who wanted to purchase more than one item at a time -- more FVFs for them.

When I ran into this problem (no "Request Total") as a buyer, had I not been an experienced eBay user, I think I would have just given up and dumped my cart out. Maybe I would have found another site that would actually allow me to check out properly. That's what worried me so long about this as a seller, I'll never know how many buyers I've lost.

I think I'm going to do is play around with the Flat Shipping Automated Rules and see if I can set up something that will cover most -- if not all -- situations for my U.S. buyers. Even if I occasionally come out on the losing end of shipping, I think it's better than having buyers of multi-item orders give up and vanish.

momcqueen · ‎05-26-2017

Or you could manage your Calculated Shipping discounts and create Rules that allow the Shopping Cart to do its job by adding postage automatically for the buyer as I have.

I do understand the reason some sellers choose not to do this. It takes a lot of time and attention to get it right. I spent three years fine-tuning mine until it worked perfectly, as it does now.

rose-dee · ‎05-27-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
Or you could manage your Calculated Shipping discounts and create Rules that allow the Shopping Cart to do its job by adding postage automatically for the buyer as I have.

I do understand the reason some sellers choose not to do this. It takes a lot of time and attention to get it right. I spent three years fine-tuning mine until it worked perfectly, as it does now.

That's fine if you list exclusively on eBay.ca (with Canada Post options available), and use calculated shipping. Many of us don't do either, for a myriad of valid reasons. Calculated shipping isn't available on .com, and even if it were, it isn't always practical for Canadian sellers with items of widely different sizes and shapes who ship primarily to the U.S. and internationally.

This change was clearly (and understandably, from eBay's point of view) made to accommodate U.S. sellers, who mostly list on the one site and don't have the same shipping option problems we Canadians have when listing on .com. The fact that it disadvantages Canadian sellers, many of whom like to list on both sites, is an unfortunate side effect we have to live with. At least we now know what's been going on in the background for all these months.

I'm simply passing along this heads-up for sellers who care to revisit their options. At my request, eBay Canada is considering posting an FYI notice on the "Announcements" page for all to see.

momcqueen · ‎05-27-2017

You can also set-up Combined Shipping Discounts with Flat-Rate shipping, they are not mutually exclusive.

The Shopping Cart, as you no doubt know, doesn't let a buyer or seller combine items into one order if the items are both in USD and CAD so sellers who choose to list on both ebay Canada and ebay USA, run that risk of an interrupted checkout experience for their buyers.

Ebay is simply trying to make checkout as flawless and smooth as anywhere else that people shop.

If I shop online at another retailer, I can add to my Cart: a pair of man shoes, canned soup, a greeting card, a bra, windshield washer fluid, and two boxes of Cheerios, and still get a postage cost, and then I pay and I'm done. I see no reason to find fault with ebay for wishing their sellers to do the same. I may find fault in many other aspects or initiatives but this is not one of them: I firmly believe that every seller should find a way to make Combined Shipping discounts work so that buyers can buy and pay and leave happy.

Like I said, it takes work to get Combined Shipping Discounts right but sellers can establish and apply more than one Rule for more than one Product Line.

rose-dee · ‎05-27-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
You can also set-up Combined Shipping Discounts with Flat-Rate shipping, they are not mutually exclusive.

No, it's true, they aren't mutually exclusive, but it's fiendishly difficult to make them work logically and usefully if a seller is listing items of widely varying sizes and shapes. Remember too, there are no Canada Post shipping options available to Canadian sellers on .com, which only adds to the complications. If you set up your discounts for $USD on .com but list on both sites (in both currencies) you also have the problem of your U.S. buyers never being able to ask for an adjusted total -- in those cases where the rules mess up (oh, right, eBay's programming never fails).

I have one automated discount rule in place (in $US) which is not in the Flat Rule section (buy 4 items of one type, get free shipping). It's worked well only because all the items in the specified category are pretty much the same size and weight. As I said earlier, I'm going to experiment with the automated Flat Shipping Rules and see if I can cover a couple of other reasonably foreseeable situations without getting too complex.

The Shopping Cart, as you no doubt know, doesn't let a buyer or seller combine items into one order if the items are both in USD and CAD so sellers who choose to list on both ebay Canada and ebay USA, run that risk of an interrupted checkout experience for their buyers. Ebay is simply trying to make checkout as flawless and smooth as anywhere else that people shop.

But that's the irony -- they have an easy and well-understood option for buyers to get an adjusted total, and for sellers to provide whatever discounts they wish very simply and quickly, via an adjusted invoice. Creating automation that knocked out that feature seems ridiculous, but I suppose it's another move away from eBay's traditional core of sellers. Sending an adjusted invoice is something larger commercial sellers just don't want to have to do.

Like I said, it takes work to get Combined Shipping Discounts right but sellers can establish and apply more than one Rule for more than one Product Line.

Which works if you have a limited number of fairly easily defined commercial product lines. Many of us don't.

I'm simply saying that for a lot of us who were eBay's original core of small, OOAK-type sellers (especially those who rely on selling to the U.S. on .com), it may be better to give up on automated discounts altogether in order to ensure "Request Total" will work for all our buyers, every time, wherever they may shop on eBay, and whatever they may choose to buy. Unlike all the mega sellers on eBay, I have no problem with the idea of sending an adjusted invoice, and in fact I like the customer interaction it involves. They don't.

I'm done with eBay today, I have other (bigger and easier) fish to fry elsewhere...

dutchman48 · ‎05-27-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
You can also set-up Combined Shipping Discounts with Flat-Rate shipping, they are not mutually exclusive.

The Shopping Cart, as you no doubt know, doesn't let a buyer or seller combine items into one order if the items are both in USD and CAD so sellers who choose to list on both ebay Canada and ebay USA, run that risk of an interrupted checkout experience for their buyers.

Ebay is simply trying to make checkout as flawless and smooth as anywhere else that people shop.

If I shop online at another retailer, I can add to my Cart: a pair of man shoes, canned soup, a greeting card, a bra, windshield washer fluid, and two boxes of Cheerios, and still get a postage cost, and then I pay and I'm done. I see no reason to find fault with ebay for wishing their sellers to do the same. I may find fault in many other aspects or initiatives but this is not one of them: I firmly believe that every seller should find a way to make Combined Shipping discounts work so that buyers can buy and pay and leave happy.

Like I said, it takes work to get Combined Shipping Discounts right but sellers can establish and apply more than one Rule for more than one Product Line.

I list on both sites with flat rate and it will only accommodate 1 combined shipping rule for both sites. You can't do a separate one for each site. It will also only apply to the specified currency which it automatically picks for the site you are on.

I don't charge for additional items so I should be OK but for sellers with various items on each site, it is a disaster.

I still feel Ebay did his intentionally to make more income from shipping FVF's.

Websites work (as I have had 2 for some time) because you are buying from 1 site in 1 currency at a time.

Ebay has always had a problem with mixing sites and/or currency even when we could list in either.

dutchman48 · ‎05-27-2017

Ebay needs to be able to create shipping discounts exclusively on each site without interfering with any other site.

That would make life a lot simpler as we are one of the few countries that do a lot of listing on both sites.

I have a hunch in the near future, that will disappear so again we are on the same level paying field as every one else.

With a store, I think we are the only country that can double dip on the US site.

momcqueen · ‎05-27-2017

eBay U.K. Offers a compliment of free listings to its sellers across multiple sites.

dutchman48 · ‎05-27-2017

Is that for a store and being able to list the full store listings on both sites or just the 50 on other sites?

These might all be good questions for the weekly chat.

momcqueen · ‎05-27-2017

I don't recall, I asked about it at the Weekly Chat once. eBay.co.uk has different notions about casual and business sellers than do we.

hlmacdon · ‎05-27-2017

@rose-dee wrote:

Why would eBay do this? Clearly many Canadian sellers will be listing and selling in both currencies and may not want to have to choose one currency over the other when setting up automated discounts, knocking out an entire market from using "Request Total". Well, I expect this is likely another change that eBay made with only the U.S. market in mind.

Sounds like a multi-currency handling issue if I am understanding your post correctly. It seems that as currently coded, the request total feature can't factor in mixed currency values (ie your item prices are in CAD but a USD discount applies). Presumably there was some concern over double conversion. Not hard to account for this when coding, but whatever.

The whole way the cart handles totals frankly sucks, is behind the times, and things like this need to be properly documented on site. I have a similar conundrum with handling mixed item sizes and use a combination of flat rate shipping rules and promotional shipping rules as a bandaid. I list in single currency however and the products I sell are somewhat uniform and fall into one of two general size categories, so I don't face the same issue you have.

momcqueen · ‎05-27-2017

@dutchman48 wrote:
... I list on both sites with flat rate and it will only accommodate 1 combined shipping rule for both sites. You can't do a separate one for each site. It will also only apply to the specified currency which it automatically picks for the site you are on.....

Are you certain? This is a screenshot of my Combined Shipping Discounts setting on ebay.com (left) and ebay.ca respectively. They're different. Granted, I don't list on ebay.com so that one isn't really relevant but it does show as different than the other. Or perhaps I am misunderstanding you.

dutchman48 · ‎05-27-2017

Because you only list on .ca, the .ca rules apply in Can $.

Your .com ones don't matter as you have no conflicting listings.

As I stated, good topics for Wednesday.

I really don't want to play with it or test it until I hear it from Ebay

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-27-2017

@dutchman48 wrote:
I can never tell if mine works or not as I have a lot of Canadians that pay for each purchase separate which is a pain.

My thought on all this is as I asked about combined shipping a long time ago and got shoved under the carpet.

Ebay and Paypal make more money if each purchase is paid separately.

It also caters more to the person only looking for 1 item and not collectors looking for good deals on multiple items.

I doubt if Ebay will ever do anything to help the collectible markets or the smaller sellers.

Your promo of only paying shipping for the first item show up on your listings that I checked and it works in my cart so my guess is that it works fine.

To focus for a second on buyers who pay separately..... I've been wondering lately if the buy it now button only adds to these types of problems. If they had to add to the cart I doubt that they would pay for each one separately. If the cart worked flawlessly than perhaps removing the bin button on fixed price listings would be a good thing. Just a thought...