How long do I wait for an invoice? (Buyer)
added some items to my cart, all from the same seller (ebay shop/3rd party seller) and clicked the â€request totalâ€-button to get a combined shipping cost for my order. It’s been a day now and I still haven’t heard back from the seller. The items are all still in my cart and I’m â€commited to buy†them it says. Ebay even sent me a mail for every item in my cart, telling me I have to complete the order and make a payment before Saturday 22nd.
So I’m a bit confused now, do I need to checkout my cart as is? Or for how long do I need to wait for an invoice before I can consider myself not commited to buy? It’s no fun having to wait for days just to complete your order, and I’m kind of itching to look somewhere else…
20 comments
moneyfingers84
OP3 years agoSo I finally got my invoice sent to me today. Not a lot of shipping cost reduction, and the estimated shipping time was actually extended a fair bit than what was specified in the item listings, so my experience so far has been so-so tbh. But I'm looking forward to receiving my shipment and hoping the items are as described 🙂
moneyfingers84
OP3 years agoOh, so apparently only US sellers can apply for that and my seller is from France. So I guess all good then?
ms.rodriguez*
·3 years agoI just noticed that you are in Sweden. If the seller is in the Ebay international program, it's not possible to combine the items. The only way to combine is to communicate with the seller. They have to agree to cancel the sales( with buyer requested). Then they need to write up a new listing with the items that you want. The price would be the sum of the items. THe shipping would based on the size of the box and the weight. The seller then does a 'PRIVATE LISTING" especially for you. He tells you when the ad will start and then you buy it. You will need to know the shipping to the Ebay center. The seller can NOT tell you what the shipping cost will be from the Ebay international center to your country. You will ONLY know that when you see the new private listing. It's a pain in the neck.
Hopefully your seller can accomodate you. I did this twice earlier this year for 2 different Canadian buyers. The ad was easy to rewrite since the items were tiny HO scale Wiking cars. So the ad was easy to write. I was fortunnate that the buyer understood the program and he understood English. Goodluck.
moneyfingers84
OP3 years agoOk I didn't know about that and it sounds indeed like a real pain in the neck... can I avoid this if I just checkout my items as is? I mean I don't think it's big cut in shipping fee anyways, and I really really don't want to have to jump through all those hoops...
ms.rodriguez*
·3 years agoLook at your items carefully. Are they heavy? Are they breakable or fragile items? If yes, it's possible that the seller can't or won't combine. Sometimes, a bigger box will have a surcharge because its more than a cubic foot and it will be more expensive to ship 2 items this way than in 2 separate boxes. I say email the seller directly and politely ask them if it's possible to combine the items into 1 package. If yes, ask them to send you an invoice. Give them another 24 hours.
moneyfingers84
OP3 years agoThat's very fair, but even so I think they should tell me if that is the case. Every one of their listings says to ask them for an updated invoice with combined shipping fee.
But yes, I have sent a message their way and currently waiting for a reply. Hopefully I'll get one tomorrow or I may just checkout and pay all of the shipping. Maybe they'd be open to refund me the difference afterwards.
12345jamesstamps
·3 years agoMy International Buyers will send an invoice and I usually get back to them in a day. And then my buyers pay. I also notice when my buyers send me an invoice it has the words"committed to buy". I guess it means their credit card will get charged if they don't pay in 3 days....I have that hooked up for a 3 day time frame. Whether or not the seller gives you the discount shipping I guess you still will get charged.
moneyfingers84
OP3 years agoWell I don't have any payment info set up on ebay afaik, so they can't charge me anything as is.
But I think I'm gonna give it one more day and then just checkout my cart, discount shipping be damned.
asset_liquidators
·3 years agoCan you remove items from your cart? If so, just remove all the items and you can move on to look somewhere else. I am sure there are plenty of other sellers who would want the business.
moneyfingers84
OP3 years agoI can't unfortunately, the option to remove is greyed out because I'm commited to buy already.
"You can't remove items that you've already committed to buy. Please go to checkout and pay. If you want to cancel this, visit Customer Service."
asset_liquidators
·3 years agoThat's unfortunate. I use carts on other sites all the time and you can remove items at any time prior to paying.
pjcdn2005
·3 years agoAs soon as the buyer clicks on 'request total' in the cart, they have committed to buy so even if they can remove the items from their cart, they could still get an unpaid item strike.
pjcdn2005
·3 years ago"committed to buy' doesn't mean that it will be automatically charged to the buyer. It just means that that have official purchased the item which means that they can get an unpaid strike in they don't pay.
moneyfingers84
OP3 years agoEbay is literally bombarding my e-mail with new reminders now too…
I don’t understand, will an invoice be sent directly from the 3rd party shop seller? Will I know once I get it, or are these messages from ebay â€itâ€? But if it is, then the shipping fee hasn’t been adjusted at all.
redmodelt
·3 years agoWe cannot see the messages or what you bought so would not know if from 3rd party shipper. You are contacting other buyers and sellers here, not eBay. Not all items are combinable and might depend on size of item if it can combine. The 3rd party would be a drop shipper not the actual seller, so the seller might be waiting for cost from them.
Just a note, if you did click to buy, you have 96 hours to pay, clock starting when you did. If not paid in that amount of time, seller can report for nonpayment. Because you are buying several items, you might get a strike for nonpayment for each of the item, 2 strikes in 12 months will prevent you from buying from many sellers. I am saying might, because I don't really know what could happen in your situation.
moneyfingers84
OP3 years agoI had the options to "buy now" or "place in my shopping cart", I did the second since I wanted to purchase a few different items from the same seller. So they're now sitting in my cart but they all say "committed to buy" on all of the items (commiting after I requested the total)
I dunno, maybe I'm being super impatient here, but waiting for shipment is one thing, waiting to complete your purchase is unheard of ^-^ I wish there was some system that automatically adjusted shipping fees.
and yeah, all these reminders from ebay are annoying asf... it's like spam
mtgraves7984
·3 years agoEbay is literally bombarding my e-mail with new reminders now too…
@moneyfingers84
Yep... eBay does that. They are not from your seller... eBay reminders don't know of each seller's policies and only see the total of your 'purchased' items. The reminders are annoying, but I'd ignore them for now and keep trying your seller.
redmodelt
·3 years agoDid you actually click the buy button or are they just sitting in your cart?
Not all sellers offer combined shipping, if they did, you should have seen the items combined on one invoice when you paid. If you did not see that notation in the listing they probably don't and you should be paying each invoice.
mtgraves7984
·3 years agoDoes the seller offer a lower combined shipping cost? I ask because I wonder if that's why you are awaiting an invoice. If the seller does, I'd be wanting an invoice, too. But, I'd also be open to a refund of the difference in cost afterward...
This is a good question. With "some items" risking Unpaid Item strikes, your non-payment would put you on many sellers' BBLs. I'd give the seller a bit more time, or reach out and ask the seller what their MO is, I suppose. Good luck.
moneyfingers84
OP3 years agoThank you for the replies. I did send them a message earlier today too, still awaiting reply.
The items are currently sitting in my cart, and I’ve clicked the â€request totalâ€-button twice now. They have this in their item descriptions, so they do atleast offer combined shipping;
â€Save your money by combining shipping fee.
Drag goods to you cart then ask us for updated invoice before payment.â€
I don’t think I’ll be saving much on it though so… but I guess I’ll just keep waiting for an invoice for now.