Are these buyers asking for what I think they’re asking for?
Summary: iamalwaysright shares their experience with buyers misunderstanding combined shipping discounts. They describe receiving frequent messages questioning why shipping is charged per item instead of a single overall charge. annadryl suggests it might be due to buyers not understanding transaction fees. go-bad-chicken explains their strategy of distributing shipping costs across items to avoid losses from returns, while authentic*vintage recommends finding a way to fairly combine shipping to encourage more sales. mam98031 outlines their approach of communicating overpayment details and offering partial refunds due to transaction fees.
All my listings have combined shipping discounts. For instance, it might advertise $10 shipping and $3 shipping for each additional item, WITHIN THE SAME ORDER. I can’t believe I had buyers try to buy a second item after receiving their first to claim as their “additional item” to get $3 shipping on it. Pbbbt 😛
Anyway, I’m not writing about those buyers. I’m writing about the ones who message me about shipping multiple items, but word their messages in an “interesting” way. My most recent one says “At checkout, why is there shipping charges on each item instead of 1 overall shipping cost if I order multiple?”
I get the same type of message about 2-3 times a month. All complaining why there is a shipping charge for each item versus one overall charge. Am I missing something here? Granted that I don’t know what buyers see at checkout or how eBay shows the shipping cost in there. But hypothetically does it even really matter if you’re being charged $10, $3, $3, $3 individually for shipping instead of one overall shipping charge of $19?
Or am I misunderstanding and these buyers are just making a pathetic attempt to ask for free shipping for the additional items?
I always end up ignoring these messages. How would you reply to them?
12345jamesstamps
·1 week ago'If you are accidentally overcharged for shipping I will refund the overcharge.'
I refund shipping in combined orders all the time with international buyers.
I do it even if the buyers don't ask...that's how you get repeat buyers.
mam98031
·1 week agoI have something about this stated in ALL my listings. Some may like this and some not, but it has worked for me for many years.
When I get a buyer that has paid separately for multiple items, I send them an message something like this:
Thank you for choosing to shop with me. I have received your payments, thank you. Please be advised that you have overpaid me for the S&H. I do have instructions for buyers stated in all of my listings so that you can get the best discount possible on the S&H. I will issue a refund back to you for your overpayment. However, it won't be as good as it could have been if you had of paid in a single payment for all times. There are fixed fees on each payment that are non-refundable to sellers even when I refund you when multiple payments are involved. This is also explained in my listings.
Because there are fees that I can’t get refunded even if I refund you, it will decrease the amount I can refund you on your overpayment of shipping. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you again for choosing to shop with me. I hope you will come back again
sometime.
authentic*vintage
·2 weeks agoI would come up with a way to combine shipping fairly so that when buyers add to cart, they are accurately charged shipping costs to encourage multiple purchases.. I would love to have your problem where there are so many buyers doing this.
go-bad-chicken
·2 weeks agoI always tell them its because if charge you $19 on the one item out of the four and you then decide to return that one item and keep the other three then I end up loosing all of my outbound shipping costs. But If I spread out the outbound shipping cost across all four items and you choose to return one i only loose approximately 25% of my outbound shipping costs. Plain and simple.
annadryl
·2 weeks agoMost buyers probably don't know that separate paid transactions have separate overall fees, whereas combined sales combine some of them.
You could try to explain this, or not. Many buyers put you in the same seller category as Amz.
They might not know that, or they might not care. It is what it is.