Without going over your specific transaction to understand what transpired, I will advise you of some other interesting things that the SELLERS do NOT do, but EBAY has caused. Follow the example below please:
(This applies to all sellers)
(from a sellers ability) A buyer comes to your store and wants to purchase multiple items from you and selects the items which end up in EBAYS shopping cart. Keep in mind the seller is totally unaware of your existence because ebay does NOT let the seller know nor see the sellers items in the cart!
Assuming the items are NOT tagged with immediate payment, and that the seller allows for combined shipping, it is Ebay who using their faulty system of combining items- fact is they DO NOT combine shipping! They ADD each items ship cost to the next item's ship cost. (simple example you buy 2 Different decals, which weigh very little and falls into the 1st class USPS category. Each decal by itself would be 1st class and cost 4-5.00 for shipping. So since both decals together still weigh less than USPS 1st class lowest shipping cost, meaning that given the chance the seller can combine shipping and in most cases would still be 4-5.00....HOWEVER ebays idea of combined shipping is 4-5.00 + 4-5.00 = a "Combined total of $8-10.00" which is not what the real world considers combined.
The problem here is the shopping cart #1. in order for a buyer to request a new total the buyer has to find and hit the request button, (here is where it starts to go downhill) ebay will NOT let the buyer hit the button until he commits AND pays for the items in the cart. (again the seller is unaware this is all going on) Once a buyer makes payment(if he does) ebay's policy blocks sellers from making any changes to the transaction(this aspect is a GOOD policy for both buyer and seller). Now it is pointless to be forced to make payment before being able to hit the request button, as the seller(if he could see and was aware of this transaction) has his hands tied and blocked by ebay from making any changes. This is on any transaction NOT using a phone app purchase...that goes even further down the rabbit hole as on phone app purchases no matter how hard a buyer attempts to find the request button they cannot, because there is NONE!.
Again keep in mind the seller is totally unaware of all the above is being attempted, the ONLY times a seller is made aware of a buyer attempting to purchase multiple items is A. if the buyer actually messages the seller concerning his items. Or B. the buyer goes ahead and pays the EBAY determined total, which then appears on the sellers, seller hub as a paid transaction and to ship it, again keep in mind that ebay prevents any changes once a buyer has paid for the transaction. All the while most sellers would gladly combined shipping as it is only good customer service as well as common sense.
Now these are the facts as it has taken me awhile to connect the dots to see what is happening and why, much of the information has been from the buyers who have messaged me trying to figure it out, as well as my 27 years experience of being an ebay seller. Upon calling ebay repeatedly concerning this issue the answer ranged from absurd to hi level techs admitting they have a problem. I will in ebay defense say that in the last couple days I have gotten email messages that a buyer has requested combined shipping, yet it still does NOT show up on the sellers seller hub on the "items eligible for combined shipping" tab.
In the case of sellers being unaware of the above issues with the cart, they will never know how many lost sales were caused by this, unless the buyer actually messages the seller to inquire, if he does not the cart sets in limbo forever and the buyer will go elsewhere to buy the items he wanted, and most likely blame the seller and never be back as a return customer!
There is no work around for the seller anywhere to salvage the transaction, I would encourage all buyers to contact the sellers in regards to this so they can attempt to help you and provide the buyer a good experience.
So before you begin firing arrows unfairly at the seller consider the above issue and redirect you aim.
On a side note the aspect of a seller being able to combine a buyers items was straight forward and simple, with the ONLY hang up being if the buyer had paid for any of the items he wanted to combine BEFORE the cart was invented and tossed into the system.....the old adage of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" applies here. Times are getting hard and everyone is trying their best to save a dollar everywhere they can.
evry1nositswindy • seller since 2013
