Lost another combined shipping order.

[musicyouneed]

Well just lost another combined shipping order for 8 CD's to Hong Kong because of not being able to combine shipping or buyer to request invoice.  He made it to .ca and got to the confirm and pay but he wanted to have the agreed upon shipping showing.  I even called ebay on this one and they walked me through how to set it up but it didn't work.  So far I have lost 3 bulk orders worth over $500 over the past 3 months.  

Rather than ebay fiddling with the discussion boards and adding banners, get the things fixed that make us both money.  

[i.am.vivian]

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@musicyouneed wrote:

Rather than ebay fiddling with the discussion boards and adding banners, get the things fixed that make us both money.  

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I was just thinking that.   🙂   That stupid, childish "romper-room-kiddie-korral-sticker-fun" thing is going to show up on eBay Canada next, no way around it.  Not once have I ever seen a post where the writer bemoaned the absence of juvenile sticky-play-labels.  But we will get this instead of what all the adult sellers really need. 

The only thing I can suggest is contact your buyer and be as cheerful and enthusiastic as you can when you offer an alternative, like putting up a "collection" listing of just their items with the total.  Tell the buyer the listing number, use their ID in the title and in the body say it is a private listing for "User X". 

Offer to send a PayPal invoice listing all the items for sale and the total.  If the buyer hesitates then you can remind them that PP buyer protection is as good or even better than eBay's. 

Don't give up without flinging all you've got at it. 

[musicyouneed]

I tried.  I told him that I would repay the overage or for him to contact ebay to see if they could help.   I haven't heard from him since, so I assume, it was too much hassle and he has given up.  

Ebay needs to figure out if they are wanting to make money or not, then look at each barrier to that and fix it.  Find out from the sellers and buyers the issues and concentrate on those things, forget about the programmers that want to add banners etc.  

The .com boards are awful, I can tell you that I will not be on them, if .ca goes that way, I'll have a lot more free time.

[i.am.vivian]

Don't give up.  Others here will add some excellent suggestions as well.  And if your buyer thinks you might be having him on you can always send him some links to ALL the fury on the boards here about how the cart doesn't work properly, including the Board Hour one.  For that much money you've got to do all you can.  If it were me I would make it my mission!   🙂

[rose-dee]

I am truly sorry to hear you lost this sale.  Things are not going well these days on eBay for a lot of us as it is, and losing a multi-item sale over inability of the buyer to easily check out and pay is outrageous.  

EBay doesn't seem to consider this aspect of their site a priority, for some reason I've never been able to fathom.  I've been banging on this drum (the inability of buyers to request a total for a combined order) for weeks now, with still no news.  

The .com/.ca cart disconnect has been going on for well over 2 years.  Nothing has ever been done about that.  Put the two issues together and it's no wonder we're losing our buyers.  We lose sales, eBay loses money, why is that not a priority for them?

[momcqueen]

How do you have your items set-up to combine postage by rules? Mine do flawlessly no matter what odd items I throw into the ebay.ca cart together, barring some oddity where Free Shipping is offered by glitch where no such free shipping offer exists. It took me three years, however, to get the combined shipping arranged by calculated rules of trial and error to be like this. 

Ideally, your buyer should never need to Request Total and just use the Shopping Cart to get the correct postage displayed for them. Certainly, you cannot buy online like that anywhere other than ebay. Buyers want to be able to add items to their cart and pay, period. 

[musicyouneed]

Hi MJ, because I am using another service other than Canada Post, which also goes by weight, I have to know the CD's he is purchasing and weigh them out with a box and then can let him know what it would cost.  The actual cost would be $24 Canadian.  All that I wanted to happen was he would put them in his cart and request an invoice and I would change the shipping amounts to $24.  I called ebay and they walked me through what they thought would work but we know now it didn't work.  

It is not a standard buy 1 for regular price and add $2 more for another item.  Mine depends on weight and country.  

Ebay, what is so hard about that?   Just let us send an invoice with the correct shipping. 

[i.am.vivian]

If the buyer were to "Request total", then agree to "Commit to buy", would you not be able to send an adjusted invoice for them to pay once that happened?  That's how it used to work.  Its just that to get the combined invoice the buyer had to agree to buy them all first.  They couldn't wait to see the combined invoice and say no thanks. 

Why doesn't your buyer agree to buy, then?

[i.am.vivian]

Oh, I take that back.  Sorry.  You've got Immediate Payment Required. That explains it.   Ignore that last one.  🙂 

[musicyouneed]

No I took off immediate payment on all the items he wanted so we could do it.

[i.am.vivian]

This is the Board Hour answer about IPR and Request Total:

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/October-26th-2016-Weekly-Session/m-p/355210#M5297

there are certain situations (limitations) when a buyer won't be able to request a total:

• The seller has set up a discount profile.
• The items are on sale.
• The seller doesn't accept combined payments.
• The item has immediate payment required.
• There is only one item in the cart.
• The item(s) already have free shipping.

[i.am.vivian]

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@musicyouneed wrote:

No I took off immediate payment on all the items he wanted so we could do it.

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Oh OK.  But he hasn't "Committed to buy".  If there is no IPR on any and he commits to buy, you then send an invoice with the reduced shipping fee.  Just enter the amount and send.  Your buyer obviously doesn't trust you.  

Have you told him that once he commits to buy you will be able to send an adjusted invoice with the agreed ship fee? 

[musicyouneed]

After he sent me the email with the picture of the the "check out". This is what I wrote:

"Hi _____, just do confirm and pay and I will repay the over amount of the shipping back to you. Or you could call ebay and ask them what to do."

I don't know what happened, that was on the 23rd.  Then on the 25th I emailed him and asked him if he was still interested in purchasing the CD's.  I haven't heard anything.  He was quite keen at one point, we emailed back and forth about 5 or 6 times.  

Oh well, another sale lost. 

[gillian1023]

I also have lost a few sales due to the buyer not being able to ask for an invoice and being made to pay for each one separately. I do not have my settings set for immediate payment. It is so frustrating...for sellers and buyers! 😞

[momcqueen]

That problem may be specific to an ebay.com Shopping Cart incompatibility with ebay.ca listings. The Shopping Cart on ebay.com and the Shopping Basket on ebay.co.uk are proprietary, meaning they only accept listings created within their own sites. All others get Buy It Now but not Add to Cart. Whereas the Shopping carts on global sites like ebay.ca and elsewhere are universal. Music says he/she had them listed on ebay.ca so that cannot have been the same problem. There is some other kind of bug right now which is disallowing Request Total for some reason they are trying to pinpoint or reverse.

But that doesn't fix the problem that a buyer should be able to add to cart and pay without having to Request Total at all. 

I know none of you want to hear this but you really must find a way to set up your listings with shipping specs and rules that combine correctly every time so that your buyers can have a seamless shopping experience and checkout without stopping to ask you for an invoice. Browse, add to cart, pay and leave. Like other e-tailers. I too swore it could not be done for my own items but I kept working at it and working at it until I made the rules apply so that it could. It was worth it. 

[gillian1023]

My sales were all on ebay.ca and bought on ebay.ca by Canadians. (Except one UK).

And I sell books, magazines and records. They are all different sizes and weights, so I can't add in listings what 2nd or 3rd item will ship for.

Anyway, my days of selling are slowly coming to an end. I don't intend to spend all my free time trying to work my listings around eBay's glitches and problems. I will stick around until the New Year, and then close up.

[i.am.vivian]

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@musicyouneed wrote:

@After he sent me the email with the picture of the the "check out". This is what I wrote:

"Hi _____, just do confirm and pay and I will repay the over amount of the shipping back to you. Or you could call ebay and ask them what to do."

I don't know what happened, that was on the 23rd.  Then on the 25th I emailed him and asked him if he was still interested in purchasing the CD's.  I haven't heard anything.  He was quite keen at one point, we emailed back and forth about 5 or 6 times.  

Oh well, another sale lost. 

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This will probably be of no help this late in the game.  You just posted this today on the 29th but if on the 23rd  I had been in that situation, rather than basically tell the buyer to buy at full price and wait for a promised refund or else sort it out somehow himself, once I could not make a quick easy invoice I would have made up a listing with his 8 items.  Maybe laid them out in an attractive fan-like pattern, or lay them all out in tiles.  Then a quick itemizing of all 8 discs (title, artist, and condition) with the correct shipping fee, call it Private Listing for Buyer X, then give him both the item number plus the link to click on that takes him right to the listing. 

Then all the buyer has to do from the email is click the link, click buy, click pay, and the whole problem is solved.  For that much money I would be racking my brain to come up with a way to quickly get the buyer to buy as soon and as easily as possible. 

The fault might be "the cart disconnect" but knowing that doesn't put money in my wallet and my brain works to always find a way around a troublesome problem or obstacle.  I can't fix the eBay checkout problem, so then, How can I fix this immediate situation so that I and everyone else ends up happy? 

[momcqueen]

If a seller uses calculated shipping and enters a size and weight for each item and a shipping rule to add those together (minus your average box size and weight) then you get eerily accurate postage tallies every time no matter the combination of items.

[momcqueen]

It requires one to think like a major e-tailer. They don't have buyers standing by while they manually tally shipping costs; it's programmed. It can be done even with the limitations of the eBay shopping cart. And our kind-of-clunky shipping rules.

[i.am.vivian]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:
If a seller uses calculated shipping and enters a size and weight for each item and a shipping rule to add those together (minus your average box size and weight) then you get eerily accurate postage tallies every time no matter the combination of items.

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Of course, and I was not discounting what you said earlier.  Just that when a person is faced with a troubling situation, find the quickest easiest way around it.  If I had 8 CDs to go, I'd quickly assemble a one-stop listing with an easy-find link to click and buy.