Could'nt combine shipping, now what?

[wheel4716]

I sold two stamps sets (two separate listings) to the same person. Due to an error I made when creating the listing, the system will not allow me to create a single invoice for the transaction. I phoned Ebay, and they said that the only remedy is for the buyer to pay for the two separate transactions, and then I refund the difference. I always print my shipping labels on line, but does this mean I have to ship them separately, and then refund the difference? I'm assuming that is the case.

Thanks

[pierrelebel]

" Due to an error I made when creating the listing,"

What was the error?

You can still combine many winning bids on one invoice, even if "combined shipping" is not offered in the listings as long as

- the buyer has not paid

- and both listings are on the same eBay site with the same currency.

[wheel4716]

I've tried everyway that I know of, can you explain more please how to do this. I would like to do it before they pay.

Thanks

[rose-dee]

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@wheel4716 wrote:

 I phoned Ebay, and they said that the only remedy is for the buyer to pay for the two separate transactions, and then I refund the difference. I always print my shipping labels on line, but does this mean I have to ship them separately, and then refund the difference? I'm assuming that is the case.

---

Do the online Paypal label using one of the items (you definitely don't have to ship them separately), and then refund your buyer for any excess shipping paid.  If this is going outside Canada, make sure you include both items' details on the customs declaration screen.   

I have to do this constantly with multi-item purchases of items I've listed on eBay Canada.  If your buyer was in the U.S. (or anybody else buying on .com),  you've probably encountered the ".com cart disconnect".  There is never going to be a fix for it -- or so we're told -- so refunding excess shipping is one option.  

If you're a persistent type, you can call eBay afterward and try to get your FVFs on shipping refunded, but good luck -- eBay is making money every time a seller makes these refunds, so I doubt they want to give it all back. 

[wheel4716]

The error was, when I was creating a shipping rule for combined shipping in the listing, I failed to complete the process correctly, in other words I neglected to click on "next"

I listed it on ebay.ca in USD, the buyer is in the US. If there is a way to combine them, please tell me how.

Thanks

[wheel4716]

Thank you! I will try that.

[maximus7001]

You can edit the shipping price a single invoice.

So why not calculate the difference then send them one regular new invoice for 1 item  then on the 2nd item send them a new revised invoice with the shipping adjusted to reflect your combined discount. Then ship both items together. If you are using paypal shipping you can add in a second item, value and total$ value for customs and insurance purposes as required. 

If each item is a different currency then this is the only way besides partial refund. Partial refunds for this reason may anger buyers. It would anger me.

[rose-dee · Accepted solution]

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@wheel4716 wrote:

The error was, when I was creating a shipping rule for combined shipping in the listing, I failed to complete the process correctly, in other words I neglected to click on "next"

I listed it on ebay.ca in USD, the buyer is in the US. If there is a way to combine them, please tell me how.

---

No, if your buyer is in the U.S. (so was most likely logged onto .com when he purchased) you will not be able to combine his orders, no matter what you do. 

If your buyer seems particularly friendly and cooperative, you can ask him to try logging onto eBay.ca.  There is no guarantee, but he might be able to combine his order at his end before paying.  However, if you didn't complete your combined shipping rule properly, he may get the two items into one order, but still won't get the automatic discount.  You should be able to alter the invoice at your end though, to reduce the shipping. 

Alternatively, and probably the easiest option is to just ask him to pay the total and tell him you'll refund the excess shipping amount once you've calculated the combined postage.  Explain apologetically that the .com system and the .ca system don't "communicate" when it comes to combining orders and leave it at that.  The explanation is far more complex, but that's the gist of it.  When you have a moment, you might want to read through this similar current thread:  http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/help-with-multi-order/m-p/323827#U323827. 

Nothing you do when setting up your combined shipping rules will resolve this problem.  Combining will only work (as Pierre said above), when the buyer and seller are on the same eBay site.  

This is a very longstanding problem that eBay has no interest in solving because it affects Canadian sellers. In short, it's a mess. We just have to use one of the less than satisfactory "workarounds" (see the thread I linked above). 

[wheel4716]

I'm sorry, I tried but I don't understand (I'm old, and I have MS 😉 how to do that.

[pierrelebel]

"If there is a way to combine them, please tell me how"

You can try something simple:  If you still have the message sent to you by eBay at time of transaction confirmation, you should see a link "Send Invoice".  This should open up an invoice to the buyer and may give you the option to include other items

or

Go to your 'Selling Manager" (or "My eBay Selling") and click on "Send Invoice".  Again eBay will open an invoice form and may give you the option to include other items.

or

Go to the listing page for one of the sold item.  You will find a link near the top "Send Invoice"   Again eBay will open an invoice form and may give you the option to include other items.

If none of these three methods work, please come back and let us know.

[rose-dee]

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@maximus7001 wrote:

So why not calculate the difference then send them one regular new invoice for 1 item  then on the 2nd item send them a new revised invoice with the shipping adjusted to reflect your combined discount. Then ship both items together. If you are using paypal shipping you can add in a second item, value and total$ value for customs and insurance purposes as required. 

If each item is a different currency then this is the only way besides partial refund. Partial refunds for this reason may anger buyers. It would anger me.

---

This sounds far too complicated to me, and I think far more likely to confuse and upset a buyer.  It's simplest to just do a partial refund for the excess shipping on one of the items and leave the orders uncombined, as they were.  Usually I use the one that has the largest shipping amount to do the partial refund. 

I don't know why a buyer would be angry to get money back if that simple procedure is used.  I've never had a buyer complain, and I've been making partial refunds like this for excess shipping for well over a year (ever since the "cart disconnect" first began).  Of course, I always send a personal note to explain that .ca and .com don't completely mesh, and I make the refund immediately upon the buyer paying.  

Besides, if the OP is selling stamps he probably has a mature and reasonable buyer demographic. 

[wheel4716]

Thank you! They (buyer) still hasn't paid or answered any of my emails regarding the situation. I don't think I should refund any money until they have paid for both items? I would have considered doing this if they had communicated. I just recently started selling again, and it has been a learning experience!

[rose-dee]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

"If there is a way to combine them, please tell me how"

You can try something simple:  If you still have the message sent to you by eBay at time of transaction confirmation, you should see a link "Send Invoice".  This should open up an invoice to the buyer and may give you the option to include other items

or

Go to your 'Selling Manager" (or "My eBay Selling") and click on "Send Invoice".  Again eBay will open an invoice form and may give you the option to include other items.

or

Go to the listing page for one of the sold item.  You will find a link near the top "Send Invoice"   Again eBay will open an invoice form and may give you the option to include other items. 

---

I'm afraid the OP will find that he will never get an option to include other items if he's selling on .ca and his buyer is buying on .com, regardless of which invoicing option he uses.  

To the OP:  The alternative to the suggestion I made above (to contact the buyer and confirm the total price and assure him of a partial refund) is to send a manually-created invoice from Paypal showing both items with the reduced total shipping, then mark both items on eBay as "Paid" once the buyer pays.  This is a simple choice if the buyer isn't communicating with you.  Don't refund until he pays! 

[wheel4716]

Thank you! I will try that. I REALLY appreciate the assistance!

[pierrelebel]

"I'm afraid the OP will find that he will never get an option to include other items if he's selling on .ca and his buyer is buying on .com, regardless of which invoicing option he uses.  "

From my own experiences before my retirement, I never had any problem combining several items on one invoice as long as the buyer had not paid and the items were listed on the same site in the same currency - regardless of where they were.

[pjcdn2005]

No, if your buyer is in the U.S. (so was most likely logged onto .com when he purchased) you will not be able to combine his orders, no matter what you do. 

That's not true at all. The items have been sold already but not paid for so the seller should be able to send out an invoice with a corrected shipping cost. This has nothing to do with the cart.

wheel4716 -  I'm not sure if customer service is correct about the problem being with your site preferences.

Normally when the same customer has bought 2 items there is a send invoice link just above the two items in your selling activity.

If you click on that send invoice both transactions will come up and you can change the shipping amount. Do not click on recalculate as that will set the shipping amount back to the original amount.

Then send the invoice.

If the two transactions don't come up together, you might be able to click on the box in front of them and then click on send invoice. I can't try this as I don't have any unpaid items right now so I'm just guessing.

Edit...I didn't see Pierre's post until I had already posted. It sounds as if his solution is similar to mine and it should hopefully work.

[rose-dee]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

No, if your buyer is in the U.S. (so was most likely logged onto .com when he purchased) you will not be able to combine his orders, no matter what you do. 

That's not true at all. The items have been sold already but not paid for so the seller should be able to send out an invoice with a corrected shipping cost. This has nothing to do with the cart.

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I don't know about you, but I've never been able to get unpaid orders to combine at my end for several months now.  Maybe I'm going from the wrong drop-down spot, but believe me, it's been a big annoyance, and I either end up having to send a Paypal invoice or communicate with the buyer to pay for each item separately.  It wouldn't be the first time I've seen sellers report that they can do things others can't, even though the options appear to be there for both. 

I get very, very few multi-item orders from Canadian buyers at all, so I can't say whether this would work when buyer and seller are both in Canada. 

[wheel4716]

Unfortunately the "send invoice" link will only bring up one item at a time. I did click on one of them, and "print the label",just to see what would be my options. Could I not just change the package weight and dimensions to the combined total, and try it that way?

[pierrelebel]

" the "send invoice" link will only bring up one item at a time"

Did you try all three methods suggested earlier?

[maggiebvintage2010]

My experience has been the same as "pierrelebel" - multiple purchases of any auction items listed on the same ebay site (in this case .ca) can be combined by buyers purchasing from any site (.ca, .com, etc) as long as the items have not been paid for, and are listed in the same currency (in this case USD).

Much of the very good information and advice given in this thread applies only to "Buy It Now" listings, combining invoices for those types of listings has different problems. 

Your buyer only won these auctions last evening just after 6pm, from bids placed on Thursday.   You have not stipulated any payment times in the listings.  They have also received messages from eBay.  Don't inundate them with more messages.  It's the weekend - they may not look at eBay again for a few days.

Try the 3 methods suggested by Pierre again.  Note what steps you take.  Look carefully at the invoice that is generated.  I have never had any problems with this.  My qualifying multiple auction sales (and purchases) have never failed to combine on one invoice using any of these steps.  You should have the total shipping cost figured out before you try to combine invoices.  You can change the original shipping amount to the combined amount very easily. This should result in significant savings for the buyer of these rubber stamp sets.  If you are not able to succeed with any of these methods, come back to the boards and explain exactly what you tried to do - someone should be able to help you.

You want to be able to combine these sales because your own savings on final value fees for shipping will be significant compared to the sale price of the items.  If all else fails, you can send a combined invoice through PayPal, but don't try that yet.