Whatever you guys are doing you need to stop

[quicksilverdiecast]

So I have a customer who since ebay no longer allows combined shipping...he sends me a list of item numbers to create a new listing with all the items he wants into one package...(thanks ebay) so as I am dropping the items numbers into the search box at the top so it brings up the item he wants...I paste the item #363448104244 and it brings up my item and directly below is a new addition I have not seen before and before I click on my own item there is a line that states "Related:3947912    3947412    3942336"  so out of curiosity I click them on and as far as being related to...lol not even a speck of a chance....the ONLY thing they are related to is the fact they are on ebay PERIOD. So the diecast car is related to an electronic control module eh? 

[broto_64]

Yes sir, welcome to the new and improved experience, please remember this the next time you see something praising the greatness of "AI."

[richard1rst]

Another alternative comes to mind.

Create a private coupon (that no one else on eBay can see) with the terms being "This coupon is worth X number of dollars if the order is larger than Y number of dollars. Then the buyer simply puts everything in his cart, clicks apply coupon and pays the reduced cash balance. You know - sort of like the ebay shipping supply coupons we get every quarter.

Something about the darkness and the candle comes to mind.

[nuclearomen]

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@quicksilverdiecast wrote:

So I have a customer who since ebay no longer allows combined shipping...

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sure they do lol, have your buyer add all the items they wish into the cart then checkout, all items will be in one order / one shipping. Also, if they happen to make multiple orders just use the Bulk Shipping feature and combine them into one shipment yourself, however, that will cost you processing fee for every order they make. 

[dalar_6661]

Seems like all eBay ever does is hire complete morons.

[laststopgeneralstore]

Combined shipping is actually very accessible. One really easy way you could've done it and saved yourself a bunch of time(if you have a store), just create a promotion for it. That's what I have. Buy 2 or more and they ship for $13.99.

In a pinch you could've just made one to whatever specifications you want and boom your done.

Even easier, have the buyer send you offers of 1 penny less than it's listed for, accept those offer, combined the items & send an invoice.

You're really making something so easy out to be very difficult all while wasting time on things that are completely irrelevant to what you're actually trying to achieve.

[slippinjimmy]

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@laststopgeneralstore wrote:

Combined shipping is actually very accessible. One really easy way you could've done it and saved yourself a bunch of time(if you have a store), just create a promotion for it. That's what I have. Buy 2 or more and they ship for $13.99.

In a pinch you could've just made one to whatever specifications you want and boom your done.

Even easier, have the buyer send you offers of 1 penny less than it's listed for, accept those offer, combined the items & send an invoice.

You're really making something so easy out to be very difficult all while wasting time on things that are completely irrelevant to what you're actually trying to achieve.

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eBay's combined shipping rules are ok and even work just fine for some sellers, depends on what and were you sell.

For me they do not work well for a variety of reasons, it's especially a problem for International combined.

My solutions are either customs orders or assure buyer they will promptly get a refund for overpaid shipping, the refund system ik since fees are now refunded on partials unlike prior to Spring 2022. Still, nothing was easier that simply allowing buyers to buy (fixed price) without being forced into checkout or always having the commitment to buy/request total function that worked perfectly until around 2012 when eBay started interfering with that process.

[foster9]

I have had issues with a buyer trying to request total on his Mobile App. A new buyer that

has only a phone and no desktop/laptop. Only way around it was for the buyer to purchase

all items and then I refund the shipping after adjustment.

[winterpalace25]

I recently wanted to combine shipping for two books that the buyer bought and paid for. I googled my question and got the official eBay answer. It clearly stated how to do it when the buyer had not yet paid, and when the buyer had paid. I chose the buyer paid, and got clear instructions for weighing the total package for one order, and putting that tracking number on both orders. I was pleased with the clarity of the instructions 

[quicksilverdiecast]

Foster, that is not how it is supposed to work, unfortunately they keep trying to add this and that and the cart was not designed to operate the way they are trying to make it. It has not worked properly since day one..

What is screwing it up is the algorism that does not understand how to separate the many different marketing options they throw at. It cannot separate a buy it now item when numerous items are in the cart...ebay gives you many different ways to market your items with promotions, bulk discounts where is you buy more than 1 it takes a % off, accepting best offers. The cart does not have the "brains" to sort it out. Not to mention they do not have it figured out yet to work with phone apps where there may be a request button or not. So instead of it understanding what is in the cart it begins to "lose a grip" and considers everything in the cart as having items where "offers" where accepted (when there was no offers) and for what reason on this earth ebay has decided if an offer is taken on an item it cannot be combined....Let that sink in for a minute and ask your self exactly what the difference is with an item that is sold at the buy it now price(no offers even as an option on the item) or the very same item that did have offers offered and a buy accepts the offer. The ONLY difference is the price...which should have NO bearing on being able to combine an order for a buyer. BUT if I go in and revise the item to match the buyers offered price...it is good to go.......call me crazy.....Now for those who want to climb on the bus and tell me my store setting need changed....as the numerous times the high level techs reviewed and check my settings they have found them to be correctly set. After 27 years here I think I have a handle of things. Which is why the header of "you guys" as ebay needs to stop tossing stuff against the wall and start cleaning(removing some of the garbage) off the wall or scrap the cart entirely and go back to the way it was...which was so simple to coin a phrase "even a caveman could do it" vs now "even ebay can't do it"...

I have a screen shot a buyer sent me of his cart with 3 items each at 4oz. and the cart shows shipping at 63.00...even sent with out a discount shipping would be 12oz which should still be roughly 8.00-10.00 depending on dimension and zip code. I have 2 more buyers wanting items, one over a 100.00 and another around 20.00 ready to buy but have no way to combine or request a total....the only way it can be done is invoice them thru pp properly.  In the 63.00 shipping case in order to salvage the sale I had to create a new listing with the items in it as a pkg deal with proper shipping applied and made the sale....in his case I was lucky he messaged me as for the ones who do not message and just go elsewhere those are lost sales caused by ebay....the cart works great if a buyer buys one item...or a bulk listing...after that it does not when it comes to properly combine shipping (ebay needs to stay out of the micro managing combine shipping and simply let the seller do it, since the seller knows his product and how to combine and ship it properly)

See the cart does not have the "brains" to try to figure out what ebay throws at it and it goes wacky and defaults back to simply adding all the items together rather than combining it...so I tried an experiment an took an item with a lot of qty and set it up for bulk discount with where a buyer , the more he bought the cheaper that item would get and presto the shipping came out perfect on that single item, but pick another item offer price or not and the cart blocks it from being combined...there are at least 4-5 issues with the cart that the sellers have no idea is going on and each results in seller losing sales and sellers do not even know it.

I have a file of documented transactions for different buyers who have messaged me and have went ahead an paid the forced overcharge where it was so out of line a refund had to be issued that file numbers close to 200 and ones ebay cannot ignore nor say the cart works perfect....it does not.

In the overview of your seller hub in the block with the header that says "Orders" at the bottom of the list is a line that says "eligible for combine shipping". Yesterday with a Team Leader tech(on the phone for an hour) he created a live cart and put items in it from my store to see if the process would duplicate. He went thru the steps with the cart which should have shown up and indicated there was 1 order "eligible" it did not(nor ever has) basically a dead link...now this also creates a problem where a buyer if he can get that far with the cart as the tech did, he would set there waiting for you, the seller, to send him back a total, yet you have no indication he is even there with money in hand ready to buy...so if you are like me as a buyer you are only going to wait so long or you think the seller is ignoring you in either case you will go somewhere else...all the while the seller just lost a sale and did not even know it. Even if the buyer messages you you still have no way of completing the transaction as there still is nothing on your end to process. That is the 1st problem

[quicksilverdiecast]

I think we all signed up here both buyers and sellers expecting a functional platform and one that aids in making buyers/sellers transactions as easy and trouble free as possible....but what we get is nightmare after nightmare....then they try squeeze more out of us,,,they play games with whose items get exposure more than others. They fail to understand that due to their continual updates and changes in an attempt to keep up with competing platforms, that it only serves to confuse both buyers and sellers....Both of whom just get used to for the most part the system of the day and end up not being able to accomplish what needed to be addressed....things appear and disappear never to found again.....Their failure to keep this simple...due to basic human instinct of following the path of least resistance...they make it hard for both buyers and sellers to contact customer service to be able to figure out their latest disaster(not to mention that almost all online BIG companies that do huge volumes and the amount of buyers and sellers one would think that customer service would be easy and 24/7........sellers have to figure out and develop work arounds to avoid being micro managed....in order to generate sale, complete successfully transactions. They flood your item listing with your competitors listings...(any wonder why you get so many cancellations and NPB's because they see it for a few cents cheaper somewhere else. They cry about having so many calls to customer service they cannot handle it....well if you didn't create the mess you would not have so many calls in the first place. Being a stock holder I expect the best bang for my investment buck, but when I see the many issues of losing sales and more and more of you can't do this or that....and becoming unfriendly to users...Don't get me wrong I am loyal to ebay  and have been for the past 27 years...but I am beginning to feel like I purchased a ticket on the Titanic....

[brightlightbookseller]

I for one enjoy @inhawaii 's snark, and I think I'm not alone in that.

[quicksilverdiecast]

That will work that way...the key is ebay is forcing buyers to pay for the items before they can go any further, if a buyer manages to select items and not pay for them you have a pretty good chance to combine the items.

However ebay has overloaded the shopping cart with all kinds of strings to the point it confuses the carts "Brains" and starts doing wacky things with items and how they were classified....meaning...a buy it now item at a set price when more than one item or more is in the cart and if there is a request button...well if one item is a set buy it now and the other was an accepted offer...it starts changing numbers it shows to the buyer(I have a couple buyers who sent screen shots) . This is caused by ebay micro managing as well as throwing out polices that have no explanation,(they won't tell you)  but here is one that is as clear as mud and based on zero common sense...a buyer puts 1 buy it now set price item in the cart and 1 item that is where it is "Make Offer" ebay slams on the brakes and says nope you cannot combine shipping on items with offers and prevents any further attempts at discounting shipping!  So when I ask the reasoning behind this and what the difference in the item is....there is NO difference in the item only the sold price at whatever the seller accepted. Ebay had no answer other than it is the policy...which in turn causes issues with the cart trying to figure it out and just kicks into default. More and more issues with the cart keep cropping up as it deteriorates...hopefully soon to the point of just not working at all, so it can be removed and return back to sellers controlling combined shipping....which can be done anyhow with a few workarounds that take a lot more time to salvage the sale.if you know there is one...so here is today's malfunction reported by a buyer whom ebay will not..... well you can read his message

"Hello, will you accept an offer of $2? I can't send the offer because eBay isn't allowing it, can you change the listing price to this value if it's viable for you?".....now this item, as I just checked it to be sure, and it is set up correctly and listed with a "Make offer" of which the base line offer that will be accepted is 1.98...so ebay is blocking his 2.00 offer. Now this buyer has a 171 feedbacks, so he is not a noobie. But here again ebay gets in the middle and is hindering sales.  The other aspect and this affects each and everyone of you! IF the buyer had not messaged me asking how he can spend his money with me and simply went away because the cart failed YOU NOR I WOULD HAVE NEVER KNOWN THAT EBAY COST YOU A LOST SALE! regardless of the price or item...as ebay does not breathe a word to sellers..about buyers with items who abandoned the cart and went elsewhere....you say why? Think about it, if they did notify you it would only create more work for ebay as sellers and buyers alike would begin calling customer service to fix it....and they do not know how at this point...so they choose to let it quietly slip away with only the buyer knowing he could not buy the item he wanted...When you call in to ebay and try to get some kind of action they say it is not an issue as very few call in concerning this issue....and do know why very few call in...simply because if you the seller have no idea a buyer was blocked from purchasing from you, so what would you have reason to call in for...