combined shipping need help

[golfing_in_style]

A few US customers have emailed me stating they cant combine items in their shopping cart.They receive a message: this item is not available when of course it is. They went to EBAY support for help and were told they need to go on the EBay. ca  site to combine items and request a total. Is that correct? as well just had a Canadian customer who was having trouble purchasing 3 pair of golf shorts as they were being asked to pay individually with separate shipping. My store is set up in a way that immediate  payment is not required so requesting a total should not be that difficult. The customer gave up. Am I doing something wrong ? how does everyone else handle the combined shipping issue. Thanks in advance for your opinion and or advice.

[rose-dee]

You're doing nothing wrong; I'm afraid you've run into the problem that many of us have been complaining about for months now.  

You may want to read through this thread to get a better understanding of what's happening.  It's a complex problem that took a group of us several days to sort out via tests and discussions.  

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Cart-quot-Disconnect-quot-issue-A-poll-for-Cdn-sellers/m-...

Also read through the Wednesday Board Hour sessions for the past month or two on this subject.  I think it's vital for Canadian sellers to understand what is going on.  

Essentially what it boils down to is that the U.S. cart does not work for buyers on .com trying to purchase more than 1 item at a time (i.e. a multi-item order) from a Canadian seller.  Check the screen shots that I and others posted on the above thread to see what buyers see when attempting to make a multi-item order.  An ancillary problem is that any automated shipping discount rules set up by a Canadian seller will not work for .com buyers either. 

The eBay staff's best advice is that listing on .com is the solution, but there are other obvious problems associated with that (see my list of reasons for wanting to list on .ca in the above thread).  I find this an almost absurd suggestion, but there it is.   

One less drastic temporary solution is to list all your items with Immediate Payment Required.  For many reasons this may not be attractive to a lot of sellers.  Since the .com cart won't work for purchases from Canadian sellers anyway, listing with IPR at least means buyers won't get the confusing messages about "Item Not Available" or "Item Sent to Auction".  They'll be forced to use the BIN/Commit to Buy checkout and pay individually. 

My own "desperation solution", while probably minimally effective, was to place a big notice on my storefront page, hoping that buyers will see it.  It's unlikely most will read it, but it's better than nothing.  Click on my store icon and you'll see it on the store home page.  Incidentally, don't forget that this problem will affect anyone buying on .com, not just Americans.  Since many Canadians go to eBay.com (rather than .ca) to shop, this is likely the reason your Canadian customer was having trouble.  Apparently there are also problems with the UK cart (but that's a less critical issue I think for Canadian sellers whose main market is in the U.S.). 

Sadly, I think in most cases customers will just give up, as you say.  

It's a fiasco for Canadian sellers, yet one that eBay.ca doesn't seem to think affects more than a tiny minority of Canadian sellers.  The problem is that the "fix" must come from eBay.com (USA), and their interest in spending time and money to solve a huge problem like revamping the .com cart just isn't a priority (or so we've been told) if it mainly affects Canadian sellers.  The .com cart works just fine for .com buyers, thank you very much. 

Every Wednesday at the Board Hour I ask if there has been any change in this situation, and every Wednesday I get the same answer: nothing new.  I have not had any .com customer able to make a multi-item order using the cart since June of 2014.  Apparently eBay's introduction of IPR threw a monkey-wrench into the works that was the final straw for what I call the "US cart disconnect" problem.  

The sad bottom line:  there is no solution anywhere on the horizon, and no interest by eBay HQ in dealing with it.  We're on our own. 

[rose-dee]

By the way, we even got as far as getting the attention of eCommerce Bytes, who wrote an online article on the problem (with a couple of minor errors of fact, but at least it was on subject).  It was hoped that a "name and shame" article such as this would get some action. 

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/quot-eBay-Shopping-Cart-Hinders-Cross-Border-Trade-quot/m...

Alas, to no avail --  apparently eBay HQ was unimpressed. 

P.S.  I would strongly encourage you to repeat your report here to the eBay.ca staffer(s) at next Wed. Board Hour.  It won't make any difference in the short run, but the more voices they hear from, the more they may be convinced this is a widespread issue and the more likely they may be to pass that message along to eBay.com. 

[pjcdn2005]

Ever since the .com cart was set up, it has never worked for items listed on .ca. Actually, it doesn't work for listings set up on any other site other than .com.  It seems that this has become more obvious as recent changes were made to that cart which allows one item to be added to the cart (but still doesn't allow the buyer to check out with the cart) but any other items added are then shown as not available. Before that, .ca listings couldn't be added to the cart at all

Apparently, when buyers are shopping on .com, ebay requires all FP items under $1000 to be paid for immediately so the only way to combine items from different listings is to use the cart which doesn't help the buyer or seller when the item is  listed on .ca. When shopping on .ca there is no requirement to pay immediately though so as rose dee suggested, perhaps your Canadian customer was shopping on .com? It would be interesting if you could find that out.

[rose-dee]

---

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

"Ever since the .com cart was set up, it has never worked for items listed on .ca. Actually, it doesn't work for listings set up on any other site other than .com.  It seems that this has become more obvious as recent changes were made to that cart which allows one item to be added to the cart (but still doesn't allow the buyer to check out with the cart) but any other items added are then shown as not available. Before that, .ca listings couldn't be added to the cart at all."

---

This wasn't my experience actually, so I don't think I agree.  Up until about early 2014, I had regular multi-item orders from U.S. customers who were evidently using their cart.  The whole system was working perfectly until mid-way through 2014.  

I knew this already from my past recall of the types of sales I'd had in 2014, but confirmed it in my invoicing records when doing my income tax return.  I noticed frequent multi-item/combined orders in early 2014, then it all stopped around mid-summer.  The only multi-item orders I had after about July of 2014 were quite obviously done by buyers purchasing and paying for each item individually (I could tell by the purchase time recorded on each item of those orders).  

I never could figure out why the .com cart would work for months after its introduction and then suddenly stop working.  That is, until Raphael provided a clue one day on the Board Hour -- he said that the introduction of IPR on .com was to blame.  

This made sense, since I had had a regular flow of combined multi-item orders from the U.S. between the point that the .com cart came online and the point that IPR was imposed.  My items are the kind that buyers like to purchase two or more of at a time, and almost 90% of my buyers are Americans.  So this problem has had a really nasty effect on my business. 

The difficulty is that, if a seller (like me) normally enjoyed a lot of multi-item orders and they suddenly dried up, if buyers don't contact you to let you know what trouble they've had in trying to purchase, you will never know what sales you've lost.  You can only guess that the one who bothers to email you represents a tiny percentage of the buyers who have tried and given up in disgust.  

In other words, it's impossible to quantify what you don't know about, and that's what makes this "cart disconnect" issue so insidious (and also makes it so hard to convince the eBay staff that more than just a handful of Canadian sellers are affected).  You can't prove a negative. 

Americans aren't keen on buying outside the U.S.A. to begin with -- are most going to put up with roadblocks when trying to purchase from a Canadian?  I doubt it.  Are some of them even going to abandon the idea of shopping from Canadians entirely?  I think so.  Those are the questions Canadian sellers need to be worried about.  Apparently eBay.ca doesn't think this is such a big deal however. 

[rose-dee]

Here is Raphael's most recent explanation of the .com checkout flow, from the April 1, 2015 Board Hour.  This may help Canadian sellers to understand what is happening from their .com buyers' perspective.  ("IRP" in the quote below is a typo -- it's meant to be "IPR" [Immediate Payment Required]).  Incidentally, Raphael indicated that the forced IPR on .com is for all items under $100, not $1,000.  Whether that was a typo too I don't know. 

"The normal flow goes like this on eBay.com (with forced IRP):

1. Buyer clicks BIN

2. Next page says "someone else could buy this until you pay for it"
3. Buyer pays

Now that the US Checkout team implemented the overlay with invitation to add the item to Cart, the flow breaks:

1. Buyer clicks BIN

2. Overlay says "click here to add to cart"
3. Buyer adds item to cart, attempts to pay

4. Item changes from available to unavailable, put up for auction

5. buyer cannot buy the item

The normal flow resumes if the buyer ignores the invitation to add the item to cart and proceeds to checkout."

[rose-dee]

Regarding the above checkout flow, it seems clear that Raphael was correct in saying that the introduction of forced IPR on .com was what really created the "disconnect" for Canadian sellers.  

Evidently before the flow was split in this way .com buyers would have been able to follow through with a cart purchase from a Canadian seller without any trouble.  And this in fact was what I experienced after the .com cart was first introduced, and up until IPR was forced on .com. 

This does beg the question of why the simplest solution from eBay HQ's point of view wouldn't be to remove forced IPR.  Perhaps the problem of non-payers is a bigger issue in their eyes than the troubles of what they believe is a very small group of Canadian sellers.  

My point is, and has always been since this problem first arose, that any Canadian seller who might reasonably expect to sell more than one item at a time from .ca to .com is going to be affected (whether they're actually aware of it or not). 

[pjcdn2005]

This wasn't my experience actually, so I don't think I agree.  Up until about early 2014, I had regular multi-item orders from U.S. customers who were evidently using their cart.  The whole system was working perfectly until mid-way through 2014.  

I never could figure out why the .com cart would work for months after its introduction and then suddenly stop working.  That is, until Raphael provided a clue one day on the Board Hour -- he said that the introduction of IPR on .com was to blame.

They weren't using the cart because it didn't ever work with .ca listings  IPR does not affect how the cart works or not works but IPR does force a buyer to use the cart if they want to pay for multiple purchases at one time.

As mentioned before, IPR was mandatory on at least one of my categories long before last summer although perhaps your category wasn't involved until then. When you were receiving multi orders buyers would be doing the same thing that they did before the cart was introduced. You can still do it that way on .ca because ipr is not mandatory here.

Even before there was forced IPR buyers and/or the cart, buyers would often pay separately for purchases and I often hear about buyers still doing that on .com for U.S. sellers.

[golfing_in_style]

Wow!!!

What an unbelievable response. Thank you very much for taking the time to form such  detailed answers and explanations. Very much appreciated

[recped]

This does beg the question of why the simplest solution from eBay HQ's point of view wouldn't be to remove forced IPR.  Perhaps the problem of non-payers is a bigger issue in their eyes than the troubles of what they believe is a very small group of Canadian sellers.

I think it's because in spite of offering IPR as a seller option, providing blocks to prevent non-payers from buying and having UID system there are still many (millions) of sellers who don't or won't use these options. They prefer to simply moan and complain about non-payers as if it was the end of the world.

Help yourself or eBay will help you on their own. As many know eBay's "help" is often no help at all especially for those who know how to help themselves.

I don't need forced IPR but then I'm not posting constant complaints about non-payers even though I have my fair share (or more) of them.

[rose-dee]

---

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

They weren't using the cart because it didn't ever work with .ca listings  IPR does not affect how the cart works or not works but IPR does force a buyer to use the cart if they want to pay for multiple purchases at one time.

As mentioned before, IPR was mandatory on at least one of my categories long before last summer although perhaps your category wasn't involved until then. When you were receiving multi orders buyers would be doing the same thing that they did before the cart was introduced. You can still do it that way on .ca because ipr is not mandatory here.

Even before there was forced IPR buyers and/or the cart, buyers would often pay separately for purchases and I often hear about buyers still doing that on .com for U.S. sellers.

---

I'm afraid you're mistaken concerning the .com cart.  My U.S. buyers were using it for multi-item orders.  I know it functioned perfectly as it should have throughout 2013 and into the first few months of 2014.  These were cart purchases and not the old checkout stream because the items were all shown as combined on one order at the buyer's end, at exactly the same hour and minute.  

These weren't the same as the old checkout orders, although I was still getting an occasional U.S. (.com) buyer purchasing and paying for multiple items separately.  As 2013 went on, however, almost all of my multi-item orders were clearly processed through the U.S. cart, presumably because people were getting used to it. 

Now you may be basing your comments on remarks Raphael made about this issue (mistakenly) in late 2014, which he later corrected.  See his post #13 and his subsequent Post #19 on the Nov. 12, 2014 Wed. discussion (where he corrects and clarifies his earlier error, pointing out that IPR was the factor that created the .com/.ca "disconnect").  From Post #19: 

"Before I go any further, I have to correct myself. Forced Immediate Payment (the provision to protect sellers from unpaid items by only committing an item to a buyer once the item is paid for) doesn't seem to be enforced on the CA site. That policy is enforced on eBay.com however, which is why the US shopping cart not accepting non-US items became a problem in the first place. Also note that this policy is different from and overrides the Immediate Payment feature that any seller can select in the listing flows."

This accords exactly with my experience during 2014 -- after enforced IPR was introduced on .com in the summer of 2014, my multi-item (combined) orders from U.S. buyers stopped dead, and I've had none since.  I do recall getting the same reply from Raphael about the connection between IPR and the "cart disconnect" at another discussion, although I wasn't able to find it to post here. 

I had had 2 or 3 per month prior to that time (that is, from the point where the .com cart was first introduced up until IPR was enforced on .com).  I don't recall specifically when the .com cart was introduced, but I know that I first had these multi-item orders, combined together at the buyer's end, in early 2013.  If you didn't regularly have multi-item orders, you might not have noticed the sudden absence of them in mid-summer of 2014. 

Prior to that time (i.e. before 2013 and the introduction of the .com cart) I did have multi-item orders that I could combine at my end, but that were clearly purchased individually by U.S. buyers via the old "Commit to Buy" checkout stream (based on the recorded purchase time and the fact that they were displayed individually on my Sold page).  

Once I noticed a cart had been introduced on .com, this prompted me to offer a free shipping promotion (buy 5, get free shipping on the order), and within weeks I was getting those orders quite regularly.  Even my free shipping promo was being properly and automatically picked up and calculated by the U.S. cart on these orders!  I can post a screen shot from 2013 here as an example if you still don't accept this.  All I can say is that it was wonderful for my business for the few months it lasted.  

You may recall that at the Feb. 18th Board Hour you asked Raphael if eBay could not remove the IPR on .com to solve the "cart disconnect" problems.  His answer was that this was something they were actually considering.  

Obviously they seem to know what caused the problem, but he also gave reasons during other discussions why eBay.com isn't keen to remove the offending IPR.  Who knows if this will ever be resolved?

In the meantime, those of us Canadian sellers who historically enjoyed multi-item orders will be seeing them dry up, for reasons we now understand.  

As more and more buyers get used to having the cart on .com, I think fewer will know there is an alternative checkout method, and even fewer will bother to jump through the necessary hoops to make a multi-item purchase (maybe only the ones who've been around for a few years and know there's an alternative).  It's easier to go back to .com and buy from a U.S. seller, where the cart works.  

This is a big problem for a Canadian seller if most of your competitors are in the U.S.

[zee-chan]

Over the past few months I have had a few US buyers who I sent a combined invoice to, and they still end up paying for each item separately despite the invoice I sent them. Is this related to the problem issued in this thread? I have stopped telling buyers to please pay for the items "together" when they have done it because I had a couple buyer that got annoyed with me for telling them that and they stopped buying from me. It's sad since one of them bought a lot, too.

It's annoying because of the extra 30 cents per transaction that Paypal gets. And I did not require immediate payment... actually, one of my recent buyer even messaged me to tell me that she finished shopping and would like a combined invoice. I sent her a combined invoice and she still paid for them separately...... not sure if it was her problem or if it was eBay's problem. I decided not to sweat too much over the extra 30 cents since I don't want to lose more buyers over it *sigh*

[pjcdn2005]

I'm afraid you're mistaken concerning the .com cart.  My U.S. buyers were using it for multi-item orders.  I know it functioned perfectly as it should have throughout 2013 and into the first few months of 2014.  These were cart purchases and not the old checkout stream because the items were all shown as combined on one order at the buyer's end, at exactly the same hour and minute.

These weren't the same as the old checkout orders, although I was still getting an occasional U.S. (.com) buyer purchasing and paying for multiple items separately.  As 2013 went on, however, almost all of my multi-item orders were clearly processed through the U.S. cart, presumably because people were getting used to it.  

Are you saying that you knew they were done through the cart because they told you that they were using the cart or because they were paid for all at once? Or is there another reason why you are so certain that those transactions were done using the cart?  I'm sure that you know that before the cart  a buyer could click on buy it now, commit to buy and then do the same for one or two other purchases and then pay for all of the items at one time.  If the seller had any sort of combined shipping discounts set up, the buyer would receive the discount. Or, the buyer could request a total from the seller. That could be done on .com until forced ipr was started and can still be done on .ca.  In the past, I saw lots of multiple orders paid for like that so I suspect that was how those buyers were paying for your items.

Now you may be basing your comments on remarks Raphael made about this issue .....

"Before I go any further, I have to correct myself. Forced Immediate Payment (the provision to protect sellers from unpaid items by only committing an item to a buyer once the item is paid for) doesn't seem to be enforced on the CA site. That policy is enforced on eBay.com however, which is why the US shopping cart not accepting non-US items became a problem in the first place. Also note that this policy is different from and overrides the Immediate Payment feature that any seller can select in the listing flows."

No, I'm not basing my comments on anything Raphael said. I knew long before then how the system worked and am basing my comments on experience and from experimenting with the cart. If you are saying that Raphael meant that when ipr started the cart no longer worked I don't think you are correct. I believe that he is saying that the U.S. cart didn't work with non U.S. items but it wasn't an issue until immediate payment was required for all .com listings.

Prior to that time (i.e. before 2013 and the introduction of the .com cart) I did have multi-item orders that I could combine at my end, but that were clearly purchased individually by U.S. buyers via the old "Commit to Buy" checkout stream (based on the recorded purchase time and the fact that they were displayed individually on my Sold page).  

They talked about adding the cart in 2011 although I don't think it was available until 2012 and even then it was only available to some buyers.

If I understand you correctly you are referring to items that a buyer paid for separately. But as I mentioned earlier items could also be purchased and then paid for all together without a cart. In that situation they would have been grouped together on the sold page.

Once I noticed a cart had been introduced on .com, this prompted me to offer a free shipping promotion (buy 5, get free shipping on the order), and within weeks I was getting those orders quite regularly.  Even my free shipping promo was being properly and automatically picked up and calculated by the U.S. cart on these orders!  I can post a screen shot from 2013 here as an example if you still don't accept this.  All I can say is that it was wonderful for my business for the few months it lasted.  

You could have just as easily have set up a free shipping promo before there ever was a cart so a customer receiving the promo price isn't proof of a cart being used.

You may recall that at the Feb. 18th Board Hour you asked Raphael if eBay could not remove the IPR on .com to solve the "cart disconnect" problems.  His answer was that this was something they were actually considering.

I've never used the term disconnect but I did suggest that they remove ipr so that buyers could use the old system of buy now, commit to buy, pay later.

I'm really not making this stuff up. The U.S. cart does not and never has worked with different currencies which is one of the reasons that removing ipr would still not make the cart on .com useable for .ca items. But removing ipr would allow buyers to purchase multiple items and pay for them at once......the pre-cart system. But just like before (and now), some buyers would still pay for each item individually.  It doesn't really make sense that ipr would affect the cart in any way since the purpose of the cart is so that people do not have to pay for their items right away but can put them in a cart and keep shopping.

One thing that I'm not certain of is when they started forced ipr on .com. I had thought that it was at the same time the cart was introduced but now I'm sure that isn't correct. I do remember them saying that they were going to introduce it slowly into different categories but I'm not sure if it was also buyer and/or seller specific at first. I do know that there was a time when I moved my listings to .com from .ca, partly because of the cart issue...that was a couple of years ago. But since you didn't notice it until last year, I wonder if some Canadian listings weren't affected until then. I asked Raphael about it and I'm sure that he said that all purchases under a certain amount required ipr quite a while ago so he wasn't sure why some didn't notice the problem until more recently.

[rose-dee]

---

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

The U.S. cart does not and never has worked with different currencies which is one of the reasons that removing ipr would still not make the cart on .com useable for .ca items. But removing ipr would allow buyers to purchase multiple items and pay for them at once......the pre-cart system. But just like before (and now), some buyers would still pay for each item individually.  It doesn't really make sense that ipr would affect the cart in any way since the purpose of the cart is so that people do not have to pay for their items right away but can put them in a cart and keep shopping.

---

Well, I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on this subject.  

I don't think currency was ever an issue in my case because I've listed exclusively in $US for years.  This is likely why the U.S. cart worked so well for my buyers (that is, up until IPR was introduced on .com, which I am certain was in the summer of 2014, several months after the U.S. cart came online).  As I said, I noticed the .com cart icon appear long before IPR basically knocked out the ability of the .com cart to take my items. 

I had one repeat U.S. customer email me in the fall of 2014 asking why she could no longer put my items in her cart, so I suggested she purchase them individually (the old checkout method) and I'd refund her on the excess shipping.  That's how I first became suspicious that there was more going on than the usual weekly eBay glitches. 

I'm sorry, but I do interpret Raphael's comment about IPR as meaning precisely what it appears to mean -- that IPR was the thing that delivered the coup de grâce where the .com cart and Canadian sellers were concerned. As I said, he gave me the same reply on another occasion when I asked about it.  Still, it's worth asking again. 

It does make sense to me that the introduction of IPR, by splitting the checkout stream, caused havoc for .com purchasers attempting to buy more than 1 item from a Canadian seller -- once they get those "Item Not Available" messages, their attempt to check out is blocked (see comment in my earlier post from Raphael about the checkout stream after IPR was introduced on .com).  

Previously (i.e. after the introduction of the .com cart but before IPR on .com), buyers would not have been blocked in attempting to buy items listed in $US through the .com cart, although I believe you're correct that items listed in other currencies were never accepted by the .com cart.  This was one of the limitations of that cart from the beginning (as Raphael has mentioned), and no doubt a good part of why he says that the .ca cart is so much better designed. 

Perhaps we can postpone further discussion on this subject for now and I'll ask Raphael again tomorrow if I'm around at the Board Hour.  Otherwise we're simply repeating ourselves without any resolution. 

He has far more insight and knowledge of the technicalities of this issue than either of us and I'm sure he'd be happy to answer these questions.  I think it's important to get clear, unequivocal answers so that Canadian sellers can fully understand the process that created this unfortunate mess.  In turn that might help some to decide what (if any) steps to take to try to work around the problem.  

(While I'm at it, I'll ask him if any progress has occurred on the idea of removing IPR entirely from .com). 

[pjcdn2005]

I don't think currency was ever an issue in my case because I've listed exclusively in $US for years.  This is likely why the U.S. cart worked so well for my buyers (that is, up until IPR was introduced on .com, which I am certain was in the summer of 2014, several months after the U.S. cart came online).  As I said, I noticed the .com cart icon appear long before IPR basically knocked out the ability of the .com cart to take my items. 

 You are saying that the cart worked for you because you listed in U.S $?  I doubt that they would set up the .com cart so that it worked on 'some' .ca listings but not all of them. I think that it would have to be all or nothing

It does make sense to me that the introduction of IPR, by splitting the checkout stream, caused havoc for .com purchasers attempting to buy more than 1 item from a Canadian seller -- once they get those "Item Not Available" messages, their attempt to check out is blocked (see comment in my earlier post from Raphael about the checkout stream after IPR was introduced on .com).

Are you referring to this comment?

"The normal flow goes like this on eBay.com (with forced IRP):

1. Buyer clicks BIN

2. Next page says "someone else could buy this until you pay for it"
3. Buyer pays

Now that the US Checkout team implemented the overlay with invitation to add the item to Cart, the flow breaks:

1. Buyer clicks BIN

2. Overlay says "click here to add to cart"
3. Buyer adds item to cart, attempts to pay

4. Item changes from available to unavailable, put up for auction

5. buyer cannot buy the item

The normal flow resumes if the buyer ignores the invitation to add the item to cart and proceeds to checkout."

In that comment Raphael was not saying that the introduction of IPR split the checkout stream.  He is referring to the addition of an 'add to cart' option on the second screen which had only been there for 2 or 3 months (and which we had to tell him about) Before that, anyone purchasing a .ca item on .com did not see any type of add item to cart link and therefore did not get the item not available or item up for auction message. 

So if it makes sense that IPR is the reason that.ca listings can't be put into the  cart, why didn't that affect .com listings as well?   If IPR is the only thing that is stopping people from putting your listings into the .com cart then U.S. sellers should have the same problem. But they don't have the same problem because IPR is not why the cart doesn't work for .ca listings.

btw...the .com cart has many many problems according to U.S. buyers and sellers so it is definitely not the answer to all problems.

Perhaps we can postpone further discussion on this subject for now and I'll ask Raphael again tomorrow if I'm around at the Board Hour.  Otherwise we're simply repeating ourselves without any resolution. 

He has far more insight and knowledge of the technicalities of this issue than either of us and I'm sure he'd be happy to answer these questions.  I think it's important to get clear, unequivocal answers so that Canadian sellers can fully understand the process that created this unfortunate mess.  In turn that might help some to decide what (if any) steps to take to try to work around the problem.

Yes please do ask Raphael. I'm quite familiar on how the carts work and how they worked in the past but I don't have a problem admitting if I made a mistake.

I don't necessarily agree that the ebay reps are always more familiar with how things work on the site than those of us who work here every day after day, year after year, but they are definitely privy to some information that we are not.

[rose-dee]

So, to clarify this, I was indeed wrong in assuming there were a few months in which the .com cart did function for purchases from Canadian sellers.  Here is Raphael's reply at today's Board Hour (May 20th): 

"The eBay.com shopping cart was never able to take any items that weren't listed on eBay.com. Before IRP was forced on BIN items under $100, eBay.com buyers were able to go through the legacy "commit to buy" flow which enabled sellers to combine items into a single order without the shopping cart. Since IPR, the cart is necessary to combine items on eBay.com."

However, this doesn't explain why my U.S. buyers were able to combine orders at their end, have my automated shipping discounts properly applied, and check out all in one payment -- without any intervention from me -- prior to the introduction of IPR on .com.  That process looked very much like a cart checkout, at least from my end, and functioned perfectly prior to mid-summer 2014 (when the IPR was implemented on .com). 

I asked whether some sort of testing to permit buyer combining of orders without the cart was going on during those months (which Raphael didn't know about but didn't rule out).  BTW, this was long before the cart was rolled out on eBay.ca, so I don't think my U.S. buyers during that period were logged onto .ca to purchase.  

I also asked whether the quoted comment means that .com buyers can still use the "Request Total" checkout flow, as I've recently had a couple of those on multi-item orders.  It's possible, since these were experienced eBayers, that they read my notice to log onto .ca to make their purchases.  Unfortunately Raphael wasn't able to get to that question before time ran out. 

I see no use belabouring the history of this issue further.  It seems removal of IPR will not happen anytime soon (if at all), and a fix for the .com "cart disconnect" isn't anywhere on the horizon.  

I'm afraid it sounds like every Canadian seller to himself - Sauve qui peut! as they say in French.  

[pjcdn2005]

However, this doesn't explain why my U.S. buyers were able to combine orders at their end, have my automated shipping discounts properly applied, and check out all in one payment -- without any intervention from me -- prior to the introduction of IPR on .com.

The simple answer is that they did it the same way that it was always done before the cart was introduced.  As I said before....

.

buyer finds item, clicks on buy it now and then commit to  buy. They do the same thing for other purchases and when they are done they click on pay now and pay for all of their items at once.  If the seller had a shipping discount set up it would be included at that time.

Why do you think that your transactions could not have happened this way??

It can still be done on .ca that way because we don't have IPR and that is how it would have to be done on .com for .ca listings IF IPR was removed there.

[pjcdn2005]

I also asked whether the quoted comment means that .com buyers can still use the "Request Total" checkout flow, as I've recently had a couple of those on multi-item orders.  I

According to Raphael all transactions under $100 require ipr. Since ipr does not allow the request total function unless it is done through the cart the answer would be no,  buyers on ,com can not use the request total function for your listings.

However, as I wrote to Raphael today, there have been unsubstantiated reports that some listings do not require ipr on .com so IF that's true (which Raphael doesn't think is true and I have no idea ) perhaps that is what happened with those orders.

[pierrelebel]

"However, this doesn't explain why my U.S. buyers were able to combine orders at their end, have my automated shipping discounts properly applied, and check out all in one payment -- without any intervention from me -- prior to the introduction of IPR on .com. "

Possibly, they used PayPal instead of eBay to combine all purchases into one payment.

There are so many ways for buyers to buy and so many ways to pay that I frankly never wondered too much how and why buyers do what they do as long as they buy and pay!

Most buyers find ways combine their purchases into one payment.  From time to time I received a message from a buyer who could not combine purchases into one payment.  Reason: purchased from listings in Cdn$ and US$.  I explained two invoices and two payments were necessary.  If they insisted in making one payment, I would use PayPal, send one invoice, converting the values of those listings in a different currency.  Then make manual adjustments telling eBay's system that the buyer had paid.

From time to time a buyer will make several purchases and a payment for every one of them. Once I had a buyer explained that he wanted to show that he paid promptly and always paid within seconds of each purchase from all sellers.  And he was very proud of that!

At the end of the day, it only means an extra $0.30 for each additional payment wasted to PayPal.  Cost of doing business. Frustrating but... not a big deal.

[merritt-motorcycle-salvage]

Haven't being on the boards in a while to not be reminded about this issue. My last multiple purchase last week was from a canadian buyer who paid for each item seperately, clearly they were purchasing from .com.