API to combine multiple orders from same buyer, same address?
tl;dr API to combine same customer/address orders.
I often (daily) get customers that order 1 thing, checkout completely, order another, checkout completely, etc. They are more elderly and don't all understand the concept of a cart. I offer free shipping. When filling orders on the website, I can group the same customer/address, COMBINE them and checkout. To my knowledge, I can't ship ONE of the orders, and then post that same tracking to other orders. The system won't allow the "reuse" of that tracking number (even though it's not being reused).
I want to have my web backend bring in orders from eBay and allow me to much more easily deal with orders on my system. But is there an API that would allow me to COMBINE orders? And if not, how would I do that? I sell 4 ounce media products. If I ship 1, it's $4.47. If I ship 4 together, still $4.47. Apart $17.88.
ardonis-2000
·3 months agoI am not sure whether this problem is solvable.
The seller can only combine purchases *before* payment is made. For this purpose, there is—for example—the `SendInvoice` function in the Trading API. However, this requires, among other things, the TransactionIDs of the individual purchases (which are not particularly easy to obtain).
Orders are generated the moment the buyer pays. Once created, they can no longer be edited. The checkout process automatically combines purchases if a shipping discount is available. However, I do not know if it does this in cases where the original shipping costs are zero (i.e., free shipping). Furthermore, the buyer must add the items to their shopping cart rather than clicking "Buy It Now."
Setting up a shipping discount *could* solve the problem, as the system would then automatically group the items for the orders. However, it remains questionable whether the buyer might still end up purchasing and paying for each item individually.