@musicyouneed wrote:
I emailed the buyer on the 30th and he did not respond so I am assuming that he was no longer interested.
However, that is a great idea. If someone is interested again in combined shipping order, I will cancel the listings and relist them as a group with the correct shipping on whatever ebay they want ebay.ca or ebay.com. A little more work, but if I can keep my combined shipping orders coming. I will do whatever.
Thanks for all the help.
Yes, that's exactly what I'd suggest too, it's fairly easy to do, and buyers can check out quickly on their own. It also helps to avoid having to pay unnecessary FVFs on the excess (refunded) shipping.
By the way, the problem you've encountered is a known bug that the eBay rep, Raphael, has on his investigative list. I asked him to look into this weeks ago, but so far no further word.
Experienced buyers know and understand the "Commit to Buy/Request Total" procedure, so it seems very confusing for them when that doesn't function as it used to. I've run into this dead-end problem twice now myself as a buyer in the last couple of months, very frustrating. In both cases I had to email the seller to tally up the total with combined shipping and send me a revised invoice (these were purchases on .com). I suspect eBay has been monkeying around with the checkout system again and may have disabled "Request Total", whether deliberately or inadvertently, who knows?
I do not think sellers should be obliged to use calculated shipping just because eBay isn't doing its job properly. It is eBay's responsibility to ensure that buyers can check out seamlessly -- otherwise what are we paying them for?
Flat rate shipping works best for many sellers because it permits direct seller control and management over shipping rates, including reducing or subsidizing selected rates to specific destinations for a period of time.
Of course, if you're listing on .com as I do, calculated shipping isn't available to Canadian sellers anyway
I want to bring this issue up again this week with Raphael -- it's critical because we don't know how many buyers are not contacting us when they run into the dead end at checkout. Fortunately your buyer had the good sense to communicate with you!
This problem just compounds the .com/.ca cart disconnect if you're listing on both .com and .ca and your buyers are purchasing from .com.
You know, come to think of it, eBay has never really had an efficient checkout system in the 15 years I've been on this site. I recall even in the "old days" sellers pleading in their listings that buyers NOT use the eBay checkout system! Do you think eBay might finally be able to fix it? I don't know, but in the meantime I've had to take other steps to ensure my buyers can pay easily.
