Combined shipping

[bluedaisyclippings]

Whenever a customer wants to buy multiple items from me, with combined shipping, they say they can't buy first and wait for me to weigh together and send an invoice. They tell me the ebay system makes them pay first. When I call ebay, they say, it should work for them, buying without paying. I've had the same problem for so long. Have any of you ever been able to do this? There has to be a better way than having them pay and issuing a refund. They hate that. I also don't want to spend a bunch of time cancelling listings and trying to combine them. Sometimes there are too many photos and I might need those if they complain about the contents they were expecting. I must be just missing a setting somewhere or something?

I'd really appreciate any advice.

[regs43 · Accepted solution]

As long as you DON'T have immediate payment on your listings turned on it should work.

I always explain to customers

1. Use a computer if possible as it is easier to work with for this

2. click the "buy it now button" on the first listing interested in

3. if ebay tries to take you to the payment page, back out of the payment page and do not pay, as you have already commited to purchase the item and it will be shown in your ebay cart and purchased section

4. repeat step 2 and 3 for the second item you wish to purchase

5. go to the ebay cart or your purchase page and you should see both items waiting to be paid

6. message seller to combine if the "request total" button doesnt work

Something like this should work, yes its annoying but pretty much the only option

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@bluedaisyclippings wrote:

Whenever a customer wants to buy multiple items from me, with combined shipping, they say they can't buy first and wait for me to weigh together and send an invoice. They tell me the ebay system makes them pay first. When I call ebay, they say, it should work for them, buying without paying. I've had the same problem for so long. Have any of you ever been able to do this? There has to be a better way than having them pay and issuing a refund. They hate that. I also don't want to spend a bunch of time cancelling listings and trying to combine them. Sometimes there are too many photos and I might need those if they complain about the contents they were expecting. I must be just missing a setting somewhere or something?

I'd really appreciate any advice.

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@bluedaisyclippings 

The request invoice does seem to be working. It's been ages (several years since) since the last time i got 1. Got 1 the other day. Showed up like this: See below.

At first thought it was another kind of request but it was for 2 items. I was able to send combined and split. (2 items for letter over weight limit). They paid in 1 payment and was able to ship separate. 

As a suggestion, when/if you do send out a revised invoice, request a copy for yourself and confirm the revised amount does NOT zero out. This has happened to a few sellers(Including myself) in the past on occasion. The copy for yourself will give you a few seconds to confirm prior to buyer paying. 

-Lotz

Action needed: Please send buyer total amount due

Order Details

Invoice Request

[bluedaisyclippings]

Thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate it 🙂

[bluedaisyclippings]

Thank you so much for this. I'm going to copy it and save it to send to customers who ask for my help. I can't thank you enough 🙂

[ricarmic]

THX @regs43 I like that wording, I've "stolen" it for myself too!!!

[doc_scribe]

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

The request invoice does seem to be working. It's been ages (several years since) since the last time i got 1. Got 1 the other day. Showed up like this: See below.

At first thought it was another kind of request but it was for 2 items. I was able to send combined and split. (2 items for letter over weight limit). They paid in 1 payment and was able to ship separate. 

As a suggestion, when/if you do send out a revised invoice, request a copy for yourself and confirm the revised amount does NOT zero out. This has happened to a few sellers(Including myself) in the past on occasion. The copy for yourself will give you a few seconds to confirm prior to buyer paying. 

-Lotz

Action needed: Please send buyer total amount due

Order Details

Invoice Request

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Just echoing my thanks for both yours and @regs43 tips here.

However, I am having a 'not-enough-java-yet' moment trying to understand your caution re: "amount zeroing out." Do you have a few extra minutes to either explain, or ideally show a redacted example of what to look for/look out for at this stage of the Request Invoice process?

[regs43]

Basiclly if you enter $20.00 in to the shipping cost line, what can happen is sometimes when it sends to the customer it wont update and it sends as $0.00 and not the $20.00 you entered. Its happened a time or two to me over the years, just another one of the many issues with ebay, this kind of thing happens on the new listing tool as well, you type something it looks good and then it didnt save!

[doc_scribe]

Ahhhhh yes...I have seen that happen with the New Listing Tool too, and it does seem very unpredictable. I've also seen it happen with already unchecked boxes suddenly re-appearing as checked in a dropdown.

Whenever listing field entries do not appear to 'take' first try, I simply re-enter any missing value(s), then pause for the system to catch up before proceeding. 

BTW, does this revised Invoice form include a refresh/recalculate button? If not, it should.

[kawartha-ephemera]

Even though I have flat rate combined shipping setup every so often I receive one of those Action Needed messages. Looks like they've changed the wording a little bit lately, but basically the same. Request invoice has always seemed to work for my customers, unless they're using the app. I have never enabled immediate payment required.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@doc_scribe wrote:

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

The request invoice does seem to be working. It's been ages (several years since) since the last time i got 1. Got 1 the other day. Showed up like this: See below.

At first thought it was another kind of request but it was for 2 items. I was able to send combined and split. (2 items for letter over weight limit). They paid in 1 payment and was able to ship separate. 

As a suggestion, when/if you do send out a revised invoice, request a copy for yourself and confirm the revised amount does NOT zero out. This has happened to a few sellers(Including myself) in the past on occasion. The copy for yourself will give you a few seconds to confirm prior to buyer paying. 

-Lotz

Action needed: Please send buyer total amount due

Order Details

Invoice Request

---

Just echoing my thanks for both yours and @regs43 tips here.

However, I am having a 'not-enough-java-yet' moment trying to understand your caution re: "amount zeroing out." Do you have a few extra minutes to either explain, or ideally show a redacted example of what to look for/look out for at this stage of the Request Invoice process?

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@doc_scribe 

I'm not sure why it happens. Just that it has happened.  Has happened to me, it's been reported to me by 1 other person plus have seen reports of this happening on the dot com discussion board. You will fill in the revised shipping. Even preview and everything looks fine. When it sends the amount you inserted zeros out. The customer then pays with no shipping amount. Very little you can do after the fact. In your mind you know you updated it with correct amount. Not sure if it would make a difference adding a 2nd shipping option to the revised invoice. In my situation the buyer and myself discussed an amount and that was the amount I inserted. They got the zero amount and paid immediately. (This happened several months ago so do not have a screenshot. Just know I had no choice but to eat the discrepancy. I do know if you type in for shipping 10.000 it will zero and you need to re-enter 10.00 and from a reverse perspective if you include a discount the Minus - symbol is required in the amount )

I don't recall seeing a re-calculate button.

-Lotz

[pjcdn2005]

@bluedaisyclippings 

@bluedaisyclippings 

That may work sometimes but ebay often requires immediate payment on listings even if the seller doesn't. They have been doing that for quite a few years although it doesn't appear to affect every listing. I just tried clicking on buy it now on one of each of your listings and each time it just brought me to checkout.  In order for that to work the next step would have been a 'commit to buy' button and there was nothing like that..just a make payment button.  After I backed out, neither item showed up in my cart.

If the  items are added to the cart and the buyer is using a PC there is a request total button on the cart that they can use to ask for an invoice.  The seller has to have enabled comined payments in their seller preferences and can't be using immediate payment required.  It is supposed to work though if only ebay is the one requiring immediate payment.  Also, none of the items can on sale or the request total button won't work. It is definitely not a user friendly cart and ebay seems to think it is supposed to work that way.

[doc_scribe]

Do you have a business rule that might be overriding your Shipping Discount @lotzofuniquegoodies?

What happens if you apply the equivalent of your Shipping discount to the Item price instead? Dollar-wise, the new transaction total would be the same for the Buyer, maybe just warranting a quick note...

[bluedaisyclippings]

Thank you very much for checking with my listings. I looked at my settings and yes I do have combined payments and shipping selected. I've also called ebay a bunch of times about this over the years and they have double checked my settings. Maybe PC vs the app is key? I hope so. It sure is frustrating. It's crazy that ebay doesn't want to fix this for us. I wish one of the ebay movers and shakers would come to my store and try to buy multiple things from me. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@doc_scribe wrote:

Do you have a business rule that might be overriding your Shipping Discount @lotzofuniquegoodies?

What happens if you apply the equivalent of your Shipping discount to the Item price instead? Dollar-wise, the new transaction total would be the same for the Buyer, maybe just warranting a quick note...

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@doc_scribe 

Nope. No business rules in place. I haven't been that daring. I think its just something that can happen due to eBay work in progress changes and updates so not an always.

-Lotz

[kawartha-ephemera]

My advice to buyers like this would be to encourage them to if possible use a Desktop computer, or a device capable of running the desktop version of the site. Ask them to use the Add to Cart button for each item they're wanting to purchase, when they're finished shopping they could hopefully use the Request Total button. Just now I added several of your clippings offerings to the cart on my Desktop PC, a live Request Total button was definitely available.  Buyers are able to use the cart in the eBay App but there's not a Request Total button in the App version, I tested that as well.

A far better solution might be to setup a few flat rate discount rules to automatically calculate the combined rate for your buyers. I had only a quick look around but it seems to me your type of product should work pretty well for U.S and Canada. International would be more problematic, but there are strategies, workarounds for that part.  You're already using flat rate shipping, just add a few discount rules so that when your buyers use the cart their combined rate auto calculates. Desktop users who add multiple items to their cart are shown the discounted shipping rate before they commit to buy. I'm not sure about the App, buyers might not be able to see shipping discounts in the same way, I expect though that all items that are discount eligible will be swept on to a single invoice just the same. I've never tested that on the app but I'm guessing it works that way. I don't have very many buyers that don't use the cart, but it still happens occassionaly. 

[regs43]

What kind of shipping discount are you looking to offer, you could likely automate it. I looked at some of your listings and it looks like mostly magizine clippings? if so, you should be able to create some flat rate shipping rules and once thats done if 2 items are added to the cart by a buyer it will apply the discount right away in the cart. Thus they will never need to contact you and can shop with ease!

https://www.ebay.ca/ship/prf

In this section you would need to click on the "Flat shipping rule" section and edit that.

Here you would create your rules, I have 8 different rules based on what is being combined

You could for example create a rule lets say "clippings 50grams" so if the listing your doing is 50 grams or less it would apply to this category. You then need to decied how much extra a 50gram listing would cost for shipping and then you assign a value to charge for that rule. For this example lets say 75cents

example

clipping lot 1 costs $6.00 + $2.00sh and then buyer adds clipping lot 2 for $5.00 to the ebay cart. The cart would add the $5.00 auction price and then the discount you assigned in the rules of 75cents

Customer would see $11+$2.75sh in the ebay cart and could pay right away and never need to message you

This is the kind of thing most sports card sellers impliments

To APPLY the rule to your listings you do need to edit them all and assign a rule to each listing (you can do this in bulk in the hub). Its found in the listing near the shiping section and just select the rule you want to apply and save

Combined shipping discounts

Apply my flat shipping rule with profile name

Just something to consider

[bluedaisyclippings]

Thank you very much for your advice. I really appreciate your time 🙂 I wish I had been inputting the proper weight of each listing. When it's Lettermail, I just leave it at ie. 99 grams for each one that would be under 100 grams, rather than the actual weight. I'm going to start adjusting them in batches so they are the actual weight.  

[bluedaisyclippings]

Thank you very much. This is great advice 🙂

[pjcdn2005]

If you are using a flat rate for shipping there is no reason to enter the weight unless it is for your own information.  You can set up flat rate shipping rules without a weight.  You only need a weight in the listing itself it you are using calculated shipping.