eBay

coinsrusinc · ‎12-29-2014

I have been receiving a lot of messages from US customers that they aren't able to add my BIN items to their cart so they can take advantage of the combined shipping discount. This isn't a problem for the Canadian customers. It's a pretty big headache as I'm having to go through PayPal and refund the shipping fees for each item manually every time.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Thanks.

pocomocomputing · ‎12-31-2014

@rose-dee wrote:
@recped wrote:
This all reminds me of the US boards in the pre-cart days, a lot of sellers where screaming for a cart system and a few people (not me) warned that whatever cart solution eBay came up with might be worse than no cart at all.

... Analogous to the screaming over the DSRs, which got us something worse. I bet a lot of people who complained about DSRs and are now dealing with defects are wishing they could turn the clock back.

The DSR system was based on getting feedback from buyers. In the past 3 years, feedback from buyers has dropped off significantly. Less good feedback with perfect DSR 5's (which sellers need) to balance off the lower DSRs (4's not just 1 and 2's) from less satisfied buyers.

The DSR system was doomed with the less feedback and DSR rating from good transactions. No way to go back to DSR even if we wanted to.

It will take 2-3 years for eBay to tweak the defect system to get rid of the unfair issues with this system. Unfortunately, a few good sellers will be taken down along with sellers eBay was trying to punish for bad selling practices.

rose-dee · ‎12-31-2014

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
Here's the problem: it seems that when eBay introduced the cart onto .ca, they either neglected to make it fully compatible with .com, or had some problem making it compatible.

This started happening long before there was a cart on .ca.

Actually I don't think that is so. The checkout process, as far as combined/multiple purchases was concerned, was working perfectly for me for several months prior to the introduction of the cart on eBay.ca. The compatibility problems only started for my buyers after that cart icon appeared on .ca. After that point, I haven't had a single U.S. customer who has been able to make a multiple purchase as a "combined" purchase, let alone one that I could combine into one invoice at my end. As I said, a couple of European purchasers did manage to process combined orders.

Raphael has in fact confirmed that cart incompatibility is the source of the problem since cart was rolled out on .ca, but he just hasn't been able to say when it will be fixed.

I did run into the occasional "immediate payment" issue prior to that time, but that seemed to be associated with a roll-out of the policy which you may recall left items as live listings until they were actually paid for. I got one of those shocks when a buyer purchased a $300 item and didn't process payment for 2 days -- my listing remained active and live for the 2 days, much to my distress. As you say though, that policy seems to be rather hit and miss, for whatever reason(s).

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-31-2014

Yes, I am aware of what the problem is from the .com side. What I was hoping to find out from my customer was how difficult she found the workaround, i.e. a bit of an opinion poll.

Is there a workaround on .com? I assumed the buyer had purchased 3 items separately since you had to refund some of the shipping but maybe that isn't the case?

I know that on .ca you can back out of a transaction after you have bought it and go on to buy another one but on .com, it seems that the item is not 'bought' until it is paid for so backing out doesn't seem to be an option unless there is another way that I'm missing. If your buyer was able to pay for all 3 items at once though, then there is obviously is some sort of 'workaround'

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-31-2014

This started happening long before there was a cart on .ca.

Actually I don't think that is so. The checkout process, as far as combined/multiple purchases was concerned, was working perfectly for me for several months prior to the introduction of the cart on eBay.ca.

That could be the way that things worked out in your category as its possible that there was no immediate payment required until around the time the cart was introduced on .ca. But I know that for some buyers & sellers, once the cart on .com was introduced immediate payment was required unless the cart was used. Since the cart does not work on .com for items listed on .ca, there was no way to combine items in those categories.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see how the .ca cart would affect an item on .com as when you are shopping on that site, you are putting items into the .com cart...not the .ca cart.

Obviously if your combined shipping rules are not working in the .ca cart when shopping on .ca then there must be some sort of problem with the cart in that respect. But unlike the .com cart...the cart here is able to add items from other sites which have carts so in that way, this one is actually more sophisticated than the one on .com and the on the UK site.

rose-dee · ‎01-01-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
Yes, I am aware of what the problem is from the .com side. What I was hoping to find out from my customer was how difficult she found the workaround, i.e. a bit of an opinion poll.

Is there a workaround on .com? I assumed the buyer had purchased 3 items separately since you had to refund some of the shipping but maybe that isn't the case?

I know that on .ca you can back out of a transaction after you have bought it and go on to buy another one but on .com, it seems that the item is not 'bought' until it is paid for so backing out doesn't seem to be an option unless there is another way that I'm missing. If your buyer was able to pay for all 3 items at once though, then there is obviously is some sort of 'workaround'

Yes, and that's what I'm hoping she'll be able to tell me, along with how much of a hassle it actually was for her to make the purchase. Any way you look at it, it's not a very satisfactory situation for Canadian sellers.

rose-dee · ‎01-01-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
This started happening long before there was a cart on .ca.
Actually I don't think that is so. The checkout process, as far as combined/multiple purchases was concerned, was working perfectly for me for several months prior to the introduction of the cart on eBay.ca.

That could be the way that things worked out in your category as its possible that there was no immediate payment required until around the time the cart was introduced on .ca. But I know that for some buyers & sellers, once the cart on .com was introduced immediate payment was required unless the cart was used. Since the cart does not work on .com for items listed on .ca, there was no way to combine items in those categories.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see how the .ca cart would affect an item on .com as when you are shopping on that site, you are putting items into the .com cart...not the .ca cart.

Obviously if your combined shipping rules are not working in the .ca cart when shopping on .ca then there must be some sort of problem with the cart in that respect. But unlike the .com cart...the cart here is able to add items from other sites which have carts so in that way, this one is actually more sophisticated than the one on .com and the on the UK site.

All I know 'pj' is that before that little cart icon started appearing at the top of eBay.ca pages, I had a number of multiple/combined purchases from U.S. buyers (including those generated by my automated rule) that worked perfectly.

After that point I've had none, except for an occasional European buyer. It's a mess that needs to be fixed.