Is there anyway to use combined shipping for international shipments?

[musicyouneed]

Currently on .ca I have set it up for Canada it is 2.50 for each additional item.  I would like to set that up for the US and I am not sure how to do it.  Because the US has media mail it is only $1.00 for each additional item.  I am tired of having to refund buyers the extra shipping.  

Combined shipping discounts

Offering shipping discounts to buyers is a great way of encouraging them to buy multiple items from you. When you offer combined shipping discounts, buyers see the message "Save on shipping" in your listing. Learn more

Apply my flat shipping rule

Apply my promotional shipping rule.

[kawartha-ephemera]

So, for ebay.ca you've already created a discount rule for Canadians which you enable in the domestic shipping details section of the listing form .... correct?

Since you're proposing different discount pricing for U.S. buyers than you allow for Canadians, you'll need to create another "rule" to use exclusively for your American buyers. Once you've created the new rule you'll see it available for selection within the international shipping details section .

If you list on both .com and .ca it will be necessary to repeat the rule creation process on .com or vice versa.

[musicyouneed]

I looked and couldn't find the rule, do you know where I would find it?

---

@kawartha-ephemera wrote:
So, for ebay.ca you've already created a discount rule for Canadians which you enable in the domestic shipping details section of the listing form .... correct?

Since you're proposing different discount pricing for U.S. buyers than you allow for Canadians, you'll need to create another "rule" to use exclusively for your American buyers. Once you've created the new rule you'll see it available for selection within the international shipping details section .

If you list on both .com and .ca it will be necessary to repeat the rule creation process on .com or vice versa.

---

[pjcdn2005]

You set up your rules on the following page 

https://cgi5.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SellerShippingPreferences

Once you have international rules set up you will see that on your listing form you will have the option to use that rule for international sales. 
However....I’m not sure if it is possible to show that you want to set up and use a different combined shipping rule to the US than to another country such as the UK.    You may want to charge $1 to the US but much more for other countries.Perhaps someone else knows if that is possible.

[kawartha-ephemera · Accepted solution]

@musicyouneed  The process for setting up these combined shipping rules is not intuitive at all. I'll try to explain the process as clearly as I can manage.

First step. Go to shipping preferences, locate the flat rate rule line, click edit as seen circled in green below.

Second step. The rule creation box should now be open. Before we begin creating rules we must decide what sort of rules they will be, add an amount for each additional, subtract an amount for each additional etc. Use the drop-down menu located underneath "Select rules for flat shipping costs on combined purchases" to select the type of rule to be created.

Once the type of rule has been selected, click on the blue "Add profile" link to begin. Fill in an amount and then give the new rule a name. Click Save. The newly created rule now appears in list form.

Note; if the amount entered was 0.00 the free shipping box is ticked by default, this can be confusing, remember that in this context free shipping refers only to items 2, 3, 4, 5 etc added to the cart, a single item's rate will still be invoiced, the highest rate among the items in the cart will be the rate applied.

In order to have the ability add or subtract differing amounts to the standard Domestic and International rates it is necessary to create a minimum of 2 rules, perhaps more.

If this ability is needed simply continue adding rules by using the "Add profile" link to create additional rules as seen in the next screenshot.

Third Step. Now we are ready to attach a rule or rules to a listing. In the screenshot of ebay's advanced listing form provided below, note the line "Combined shipping discounts" and below is a checkbox followed by "Apply my flat shipping rule with profile name". Be sure to fill the checkbox, when ticked a dropdown menu appears containing a list of the flat rate combined shipping profiles created in Step two.

In the first of two screenshots below notice that for Domestic shipping (Green) I have selected Add 0.00 for each additional item, for International (Red) I have selected Add 1.00 

The second screenshot shows the combined shipping profiles available in the drop-down menu.

Hope this has been helpful.

[teenytrinkets]

Wow... amazing! Thank you so much - I've always been too intimidated to do combined shipping, and I think I'll be overhauling some of my more popular items soon to improve multiple sales to one buyer!

Question: will the flat shipping rule work for multiples of the same item?

[kawartha-ephemera]

Hmmm ... if you mean quantities of 2 or more units added to the cart from one listing, then I honestly cannot state that these rules will work. I almost never create listings with a quantity of more than one. Testing that scenario would be very easy to do though.

All you'd need to do is attach a rule to a multi-quantity listing then add a couple units to the cart. If the shipping rate displayed in the cart is simply double that for a single unit the rules don't work for multi-quantity listings.

[kawartha-ephemera]

@teenytrinkets  Your question got me to wondering the answer.

So, I created a test listing with rules attached and with a quantity of 2, submitted it and then logged off the site. Searched for and found my little test listing, added a quantity of 2 to my cart. The flat rate combined shipping rules functioned exactly as they should.

My answer to your question is yes!

[pjcdn2005]

@kawartha-ephemera 

So if a seller is listing on .ca, they can or cannot have two different rules on international locations on one listing such as one rule for the US and another for overseas?

[kawartha-ephemera]

---

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

@kawartha-ephemera 

So if a seller is listing on .ca, they can or cannot have two different rules on international locations on one listing such as one rule for the US and another for overseas?

---

No, it is not possible, it would be great if we were able to in International details

... Add 1.00 for the U.S.

... and also Add 2.00 to the Rest of the World

... but there is no way of enabling that that I have found.

A partial remedy for this shortcoming is to Add x.xx to the flat rate for the Rest of the World.  Add as much as can be gotten by with without being outlandlishly high for a single item, but at the same time when combined with the Add x.xx each additional amount is enough to cover the actual shipping cost of 2 or 3 similar items.

My experience has been this strategy works well with lettermail shipments of ephemera items. Should an overseas buyer come along with a 10 item order the larger gross sale should be more than enough to cover any potential shipping charge shortfall.

Those 0.30 per item transaction savings also add up ... 2.70 on a 10 item order ... only 0.45 if on a micro payment account. 

[musicyouneed]

Thank you so much.  Your explanation was excellent, just what I needed.  I set up combined shipping for US buyers on .ca and Cdn buyers on .com.  Currently I am not selling internationally other than the US so it will work well for me.  I do quite a few refunds every month for combined shipping.