OK, eBay's IDIOT programming just cost me $39 in sales...

[sin-n-dex]

Customer contacts me, wants three coins. They're on her watch list, I send her offers. She wanted to buy them as a gift for someone.

She messages me that when she gets my offers it makes her "check out" instead of adding to the cart, and it's charging her the full shipping amount on each of the three coins instead of letting her get combined shipping.

I tried and tried to explain what's going on (how eBay is forcing this, has nothing to do with my store), and that no one knows why it picks some customers and not others to make the checkout button appear instead of adding to cart.

Well she likely doesn't trust I'll refund since from what I hear from my customers, many sellers do not refund anything even when they overcharge things like shipping... so now she's not buying the coins, and I just lost a $39 all because EBAY doesn't understand about people wanting to buy multiple items and combine shipping.

Who are they to decide if I want the customer to check out now or not? I don't have that enabled in my store, there's no immediate payment required, so if the customer wants to put it in their cart and request an invoice, I say to eBay "let them do just that".

C.

[mam98031]

IDK why we can't have civil conversations without calling others names.  The title of this thread is a good example.  It is totally unnecessary and is not needed to get a point across.  We can be civil here.

[sin-n-dex]

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@mam98031 wrote:

IDK why we can't have civil conversations without calling others names.  The title of this thread is a good example.  It is totally unnecessary and is not needed to get a point across.  We can be civil here.

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"Idiot programming" is not calling a person a name. It's describing the fact that simple programming won't allow combining and requesting total when offers are sent out. It's not a reference to any person.

C.

[sextons-sweet-deals]

if your potential buyer is in another country and your using eBay international shipping, I don't believe combined shipping is an option.

Not sure why but must be some history on transactions issues that eBay has observed. Each international order needs to be treated separately. 

[sin-n-dex]

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@sextons-sweet-deals wrote:

if your potential buyer is in another country and your using eBay international shipping, I don't believe combined shipping is an option.

Not sure why but must be some history on transactions issues that eBay has observed. Each international order needs to be treated separately. 

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The $39 sale I lost was US. The reference to international order was a different thread (where I mailed the wrong package, so it wasn't going to come back). I'm also not signed up for EIS, so there should be no issues with combining in the event it is an international sale (including Canada).

I've moved on from that, I'll try to remember next time that I should make a single listing, but as it was pointed out, sometimes we do that and the buyer disappears after that extra work.

C.

[mam98031]

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

IDK why we can't have civil conversations without calling others names.  The title of this thread is a good example.  It is totally unnecessary and is not needed to get a point across.  We can be civil here.

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"Idiot programming" is not calling a person a name. It's describing the fact that simple programming won't allow combining and requesting total when offers are sent out. It's not a reference to any person.

C.

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You may want to tap dance around that statement.  But most will know you are calling the programmers idiots.

If you feel you understand coding and structuring a program for a site the size of Ebay, then notify Ebay you are willing to help.

I make no claims that I know how to program and certainly not how to keep new or updated programming from affecting areas of the site not intended.

In the specific upgrade that you'd like to see, Ebay is working on this, or so I've been told.  

[mam98031]

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@sextons-sweet-deals wrote:

if your potential buyer is in another country and your using eBay international shipping, I don't believe combined shipping is an option.

Not sure why but must be some history on transactions issues that eBay has observed. Each international order needs to be treated separately. 

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They fixed that option in December 2023.

Combined shipping is now available with eBay International Shipping

 

 seller_news_team

Staff

(0feedbacks) View listings

Options

‎12-06-2023 12:47 PM

Our international shipping program, eBay International Shipping, keeps getting better! Sellers have been asking for combined shipping – the ability to package multiple items from one order in one shipment – and we are excited to announce it is now available. Combined shipping enables buyers to purchase multiple items from one seller and pay reduced shipping costs. 

If you are currently enrolled in eBay International Shipping, there’s nothing you need to do. Your eligible listings will be updated automatically, and combined shipment orders will display like they do for any other domestic order. Simply combine and ship to the domestic eBay International Shipping hub, and you’re done. 

And, if you are not currently enrolled, don’t forget the benefits of selling around the globe to millions of buyers with eBay International Shipping: 

• It’s easy to ship to our domestic hub 
• eBay manages and pays for returns 
• Seller protections have been improved 
• No international selling fee 

Smart Ship Tip: Opt-in to eBay International Shipping by following these simple instructions: login and go to “Account Settings”, choose “Shipping Preferences”, and select “Enroll” next to “eBay International Shipping”. 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/Combined-shipping-is-now-available-with-eBay-Internation...

[sin-n-dex]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

IDK why we can't have civil conversations without calling others names.  The title of this thread is a good example.  It is totally unnecessary and is not needed to get a point across.  We can be civil here.

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"Idiot programming" is not calling a person a name. It's describing the fact that simple programming won't allow combining and requesting total when offers are sent out. It's not a reference to any person.

C.

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You may want to tap dance around that statement.  But most will know you are calling the programmers idiots.

If you feel you understand coding and structuring a program for a site the size of Ebay, then notify Ebay you are willing to help.

I make no claims that I know how to program and certainly not how to keep new or updated programming from affecting areas of the site not intended.

In the specific upgrade that you'd like to see, Ebay is working on this, or so I've been told.  

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I work in a corporation, the programmers just do what they're told. If they're told to code it a certain way, that's what they'll do. They don't have creative control to decide how the system is going to work, they get a plan with structure and follow it. It's not the programmers' fault if it doesn't work, it's the fault of the entity that designed it to be that way (which is why it's "idiot programming" not "idiot programmers").

My ex husband is a programmer and got many bad instructions for designing things that didn't work very well. He's not an idiot and knows how to properly code, but his superiors wanted it done a certain way, so he had to do it that way. So thus why it's called "idiot programming".

Also my exhusband and I talk at length about the short comings of the website and he explains things to me, so while I'm not knowledgeable enough to help fix it, I know enough to understand how it should work and what's not working.

C.

[campanaelia]

@mam98031 

Did they ever program the exclusion list to work for the auto-pay option yet?

It's been almost 6 months since I was first told they were going to work on that.

That would've helped the OP in this situation.

[a_c_green]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

IDK why we can't have civil conversations without calling others names.  The title of this thread is a good example.  It is totally unnecessary and is not needed to get a point across.  We can be civil here.

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"Idiot programming" is not calling a person a name. It's describing the fact that simple programming won't allow combining and requesting total when offers are sent out. It's not a reference to any person.

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You may want to tap dance around that statement.  But most will know you are calling the programmers idiots.  

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I'm not into tap-dancing, but it's perfectly possible to have an idiotic decision or three when writing code, and some can be idiotic design decisions while others are idiotic coding errors. As no one person is being singled out here (odds are the source code was written by some long-forgotten contract programmer anyway), I don't see an issue there.

The bigger complaint is that once a process shortcoming of any kind is found, it takes an eternity to get it addressed, and in many cases it is never addressed. In the interim between when the problem is reported and when the problem is resolved, there is generally zero communication with the outside world, and in cases where it actually repaired, there is no announcement of the fact; it just gets noticed eventually by users.

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@mam98031 wrote:
If you feel you understand coding and structuring a program for a site the size of Ebay, then notify Ebay you are willing to help.

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I assure you that we (other IT professionals and myself) have done that on many occasions. I generally add my contact info if I'm making a problem report. Tech Support was my actual job for decades, at a subsidiary of a major software company that you have heard of.

To this day, I've had precisely one reply back and subsequent phone conversation, following a bug I reported in which changing the start time of a scheduled listing would inadvertently lose the user's time zone offset relative to Pacific time. I had a very pleasant conversation with a programming manager (name long forgotten now) where we stepped through how to reproduce the bug, he saw it as described, and it was fixed within a couple of weeks or so. There are a few others here who are in back-channel contact with eBay a lot more often, but I'll leave it to them to describe how many fixes they've achieved.

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@mam98031 wrote:
I make no claims that I know how to program and certainly not how to keep new or updated programming from affecting areas of the site not intended. 

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Well, that's what peer review (of the new code) and QA/integration testing is intended to achieve. In too many instances, we'll see forehead-slapping mishaps with a new release that make you wonder whether anyone tested anything before allowing the new code into Production use.

[a_c_green]

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@a_c_green wrote:

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@fern*wood wrote:

I never understand why some of my buyers can request an invoice and others tell me they have to pay for each item.  I don't have IPR on my listings (husband does, but only my items are involved) so why can some do it and others can't?

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Just as a data point, over in my buying account I'm currently waiting to hear back from a seller about combining the Shipping on a couple of auctions that I won. The payment page lists both auctions to be paid, but simply totals up the separate Shipping charges for each, even though they're so small and lightweight that they could travel together in the same box (or padded envelope) without even going into the next price point. There was a button there for requesting a combined shipping invoice, and it worked (I copied myself on the message just to be sure), although the seller has yet to reply, or send the requested invoice, or anything... 🙄

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I'm happy to report that the seller finally resurfaced last night, sending me an invoice that combined the Shipping costs and applied a discount, and I promptly paid this morning. All good.

[mam98031]

All is fine, we can disagree.  That doesn't have to become a problem or issue.  We see things a bit differently, again which is fine.

[sin-n-dex]

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@mam98031 wrote:

All is fine, we can disagree.  That doesn't have to become a problem or issue.  We see things a bit differently, again which is fine.

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Fair enough.

I'm all for civil conversation, but I get very frustrated sometimes when things don't work out and I voice my frustration using certain types of language (often things I can't post here, so I try to be careful to mind my words in the forum).

I'm sure I could have used better words to express myself, but like any seller in this forum, I don't like it when technical problems cost money.

C.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

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@ittybitnot wrote:

 I send her offers.

@sin-n-dex 

Just so you know, in one of eBay's recent updates, they decided to ROLL OUT the latest 'enhancement' that makes all seller generated offers IPR.  This was after all that other drama where they turned accepted offers into 'you sent an offer' that caused so much confusion for both buyers and sellers.  I don't even think the different screens that were sent at random as we had discussed previously will be used.  It will be pay or don't get it, or better pay INDIVIDUALLY or don't get it would be more accurate.   Though the buyer can choose their payment source, there will be no opportunity to combine items for one invoice. 

The inability to combine makes more money for eBay with individual transaction fees (30 0r 40 cents each instead of one fee for a combined order), and increases their number of items sold count for their GMV stats.  

Based on your feedback, we’re extending these improvements to seller-initiated offers. When potential buyers are interested in your offer, they’ll be taken directly to checkout and, in order to accept the offer and secure the item, they’ll need to successfully complete payment.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/2024-Winter-Seller-Update/Reduce-unpaid-items-when-sending-offers-to-b...

Not sure if it is YOUR (un)lucky day or the buyer's  for this "improvement" to hit at this time. 

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Which means that we can no longer send offers and combine shipping once they accept (but don't pay) the offers.

Thanks ebay. I'd LOVE to know who sent the FB saying the IPR on offers was such a great idea.

[ittybitnot]

Did they ever program the exclusion list to work for the auto-pay option yet? That would've helped the OP in this situation.

@campanaelia 

The OP removed the option from the buyer managements page that resulted in an auto-pay situation for buyers a long time ago.  This is a new "enhancement" rolling out  designed to cut down on non-payers.  All seller generated offers will be "immediate payment required".....no opportunity to combine or invoice.  The requirement on the OP's account remains in the NO setting as per the screen shot provided upthread. 

[ittybitnot]

Which means that we can no longer send offers and combine shipping once they accept (but don't pay) 

@toomuchstuffagain35 

There is no "accept" button presented to the buyer in this scenario.   It is pay now, or you don't get it, decline, or ignore.  @sin-n-dex  did a good job a few months back posting screen shots regarding this.  She would send offers.  The same buyer would get a few of them.  Some of them the same buyer could accept (proceed as normal/get an invoice/and pay a combined shipping price) and others sent at the same time required the same buyer to  play the game of  immediate payments separately.  It appears eBay has decided on the latter option with no "accept" feature.