"I reported this problem in 2015 and was promised a ticket would be open and it would be fixed soon.
I've given up on them fixing it. I have to explain to buyers why eBay's shopping cart doesn't work (sometimes), many people pay too much and get partial refunds. At least if I give the partial refund once, they trust me enough to shop again."
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I as well have repeatedly reported this since they stuffed the cart in there. Walked a number of upper level techs thru it and everytime they see and understand it and recreated it yet do nothing to fix it.
The 2nd issue with it is as you explained about the buyers who trust you to refund the overage. In the first place we should not have to do what once was able to be done, and can easily be fixed. And the percentage of buyers here on ebay who already dislike many aspects, is very small when it comes to just paying ridiculous shipping charges and HOPE the seller is honest and will refund them...I always insert myself and ask what would I do....anything that may involve money, regardless of the amount, I am skeptical....even with ones where the transaction for just 1 item went smoothly you have to keep an eye on. I do not like second guessing anything when it comes to a transaction involving money and the faith in the one who is selling it...(This is where feedback comes into play which ebay has screwed up as well and misleads due to lack of transparency)....
You state
I've given up on them fixing it. I have to explain to buyers why eBay's shopping cart doesn't work (sometimes), many people pay too much and get partial refunds. At least if I give the partial refund once, they trust me enough to shop again."
That is well and fine....but how do you explain it to those whom you never knew was there and simply walked away? You can't and you have just now lost a sale....how many sales will you or have you lost...you will never know as ebay will NEVER tell you, as they know their phones will begin lighting up....so ebay skates , and you take the heat and the loss and rub salt in the wound you are paying ebay to hinder your sales.....call me crazy.....
On the buyers end of overpaying and being refunded aspect you are only winning a partial percentage of sales....Let me asking you this....I am a buyer at your store and have found 6 different items and put them in my cart...and then try to figure out what steps need to be taken, but can find no clear understanding, so as anyone of common sense would think being in your store with your cart that YOU the seller would have some kind of notice and just wait until you provide and answer or direction or assume that YOU can combine my order(that is what the cart is there in the first place isn't it, why else would you need a cart). Well after awhile Me, being the customer, gets tired of waiting for YOU to respond, and figure that YOU are either ignoring me or will not combine shipping...and upon abandoning the cart I would blame you and most likely never come back as well as any kind of positive review to others by word of mouth...YET ALL THIS TIME you the seller have NO idea I had a cart nor would you have ever known you just lost that sale....NOW in your overview in the seller hub there is a box column with the header "ORDERS", at the bottom of that box the last ine states "Orders eligible for combined purchases " now one would think, ebay leaves you to assume, as no clear instruction are provided, that it would indicate as intended to work it would have indicated to the seller, there was a buyer waiting for his order to be combined.....with that being said NEVER ONCE HAS IT INDICATED ANYTHING EVER!!!!!! even though there have been a FEW who managed to get the items onto my sold items unpaid so I can actually combine the order accurately and still was never indicated as intended. Apparently more noise needs to be made by more sellers, so that ebay pays attention and fixes it.
