If you buy or sell on ebay you should read this
After a 2 year long battle with ebay over the cart and combined shipping here is the problem and why. AND the only way it will change is if you call up and express your feelings and request that it be changed...Now you will have to follow along closely and in the order as presented to begin to understand the hows and whys...
Step 1 . A buyer comes to your store and finds a number of items he wants and put them in the cart...so far so good...but he has finished and is looking for a way to request a combined total, but he either has no button OR if the button is present and he pushes it...it blocks him for requesting the combined shipping! and here is where it goes down hill..Since it has been blocked it automatically does not allow any notices to be sent to the seller!!!!(virtually making this buyer and his items unknown to the seller)..the pop up gives the reason for being blocked as the item(s) offer a discount and cannot be combined....and here is what ebay considers a discount---any item listed with the "make offer" in the listing...any item listed with Bulk qtys offered....and any listing where a buyer may send a message and you send him back a response with an offer lower than the "Buy It Now" price.!!!!. SO stay with me now....now you have a buyer setting there with a cart with a couple hundred dollars(I have this issue right now) and since everything is blocked I as a buyer have no idea the seller exists and is trying to spend money in my store(or your store) SO. the buyer is going to do 1 of 2 things, he will either get tired of waiting for you the buyer to respond(as he assumes you know what is going on in your store...OR he messages you (which would be the 1st time you would know the buyer exists)....He asks me to combine his order, not understanding I cannot see his order. I try to explain to him about the cart, but since it is so screwed up, I am not confident(until today) at telling him the hows and whys as an answer. (when he calls ebay he gets the same old "it is the sellers fault" cow patty....) So this particular buyer and I have went back and forth about a dozen times with screen shots etc. and he has one item that he bought a qty of 2 which being small was about .50 cents cheaper than the buy it now price...Now a rough figure of fees ebay would have collect would be somewhere in the neighbor hood of 30.00+ dollars on the entire order, but ebay feels compelled to cause you to lose a sale (either known or known via his message) and them 30.00 in fees over a .50 cent discount!!!! again call me crazy......so if it is known ebay suggests that you try to convince the buyer to just pay the overcharged shipping(in this case at least 50.00 over what it should be) and that I being the seller should refund him....(would that not be avoiding an ebay "Policy"? which is against "Policy" lol) I have pressed ebay on answering the logic behind this insanity and they have none or one they do not want you know) I am not that trusting as a buyer to extremely overpay on shipping and HOPES the seller will refund me! Me personally I would simply walk away and laugh thinking the seller tried ripping me off on shipping!
But if I go back and create an entirely new listing with the buy it now price of what the sellers bulk order would have equaled then everything is fine and the sun will shine! So please tell me the logic if part a sells for 10cents or discounted to 9cents? it is the same part? Yes., does it weigh any more or less because it is a penny cheaper? No....will it fit in a box with the other items he wants? Yes....Does the post office care? No. AND MOST OF ALL is it providing good customer service and a "positive ebay buyer experience" NO...and you the seller will get the blame, bad word of mouth and if by chance does pay for it and turns right around and leaves you a neg feedback and dings your star ratings on reasonable shipping, which over time adds up and causes ebay to...guess what? raise your fees and restrict your account...and NONE of which was your fault nor deserved! Now some of you are setting there thinking my cart works fine! No it does not, you just do not know about the buyers who walk away going somewhere else because ebay never indicated to you they existed! I had an ebay team leader create a live cart and proved every aspect I described above, she is also a seller and was unaware of this. So ebay will tell you this is not high on their priority list to do because not a lot of people call and complain about it....well no kidding how does a seller call up to complain about losing a sale he never knew about from the start, unless of course you are Houdini...ebay wrapped that up nice and neat..can't call in and hold their feet to the fire if you do not know about it....well now you know! and now you know what to do...and how to make it a high priority issue. Yes it has taken me 2+ years to piece the bread crumbs together, countless calls to ebay, and since Oct 2023 have over 300 documented cases where buyers were blocked and had to message me. As I set here writing this a thought occurred "If a particular order where no discounts etc were offered or applied...when one combines shipping is that not giving a discount? Anyhow if you want to take the risk out of losing sales and possibly repeat buyers and even a possible negative feedback...call in and call often...or set back and continue to pay ebay to hinder your sales....
thelongball
·2 years agoYou can quit defending yourself as you are 100 % correct and the others that say its been broke for along time are also correct as it has. Its been broke ever since they allowed offers to be negotiated. It is not only lost sales for the seller, it is for eBay too. Now with eBay getting all the transaction fees from the multiple purchases, they more than make up in getting their money. It will fall on deaf ears forever. So we just have to get over it and do what we can control. Your putting yourself thru a ton of stress which isn't healthy. Sometimes blowing off steam is good. This isn't the place to do it though as it seems that someone always says your in the wrong. That just heats you up more and again its not healthy. All we can do is complain to eBay not each other. Your rants and long winded post would be time better spent in listing more items. Again worry about what you can control in life.
broto_64
·2 years agoYeh that's way too much for me.
I'm a simple person, you want 1 or 2 or more, Free shipping, no offers, no nonsense, done.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years agoBeing a relatively low volume seller of long tail items, I can generally find a way to make a combined sale even when the system is uncooperative.
Even when the request invoice button is missing by buyers will pay the multiple shipping charges and wait for me to refund the difference, which I do write after I print the label.
As for the situation in which the buyer makes offers on multiple items, I do not advise them to try to combine shipping. I tell them I am definitely going to handle it by refund. I hate when a buyer says I'll give you $xxx for 10 items. Usually I refuse the offer, but sometimes I accept if they are not a cheapskate.
quicksilverdiecast
OP2 years agoHowever if the cart worked properly, as it once did, you would not have to refund anyone anything, nor would you have to waste the time looking for 20-30 item numbers and do all the work figuring it out...It is designed for the buyer to make his best offer(s) through the cart....As I said before ebay is clueless when it comes to combined shipping...and all those shipping rules you create you can toss out the window now as the carriers all are using a dimensional box size now example: a combined order weighing 10 oz in a 2x6x9 dimension prices out at one figure however if the dimensions were 10 oz in a 6x6x9 is different in cost.
So tell me how many box accurate dimension are you going to need in a store with 4,000 listings from 3x5" 1oz to 45lbs 28x10x30 and everything in between including having the option of buying 2 or more of any 1 item(s)... You cannot! They only way is for the seller to pull the entire order and see how best to safely pack it...then enter the correct accurate dimensions and send the completed request back to the seller. Very simple and easy to do....vs going back and forth with buyers and refunds etc plus if the cart actually worked right and notified sellers there was a buyer with items you could also salvage that sale, otherwise unless that buyer messages you, he will after a point of time just leave and never come back...
How did it get this way? 1 ebay failing to test the aspects and effects it will have on the platform. 2 In such a big hurry to try to keep up with amazon and throw a phone app against the wall BUT WITHOUT A REQUEST BUTTON of multiple item sales....3. Ebay has crammed so many different marketing angles with strings attached to the shopping cart that the cart was not designed nor able to cope with it all.
When you have a shopping cart the basic common sense idea is for buyers to put item(s) into the cart and to request a combined shipping total....otherwise what use is a cart...it is not a storage bin...that is what the "save to watching" area is for. It is so screwed up now that if a buyer comes in and finds an item listed with a buy it now/make offer listing and the buyer makes an offer I accept it...and he wants 3 different items he has given offers on and I accepted.....so that is step one....nothing strange...so now he want to deal with shipping and wants all items combined into one parcel....again common sense should rule here...BUT NOPE ebay says you cannot discount and item twice!!!!!!!????? and blocks both buyer and seller from going any further and in doing so makes it impossible to complete the sale....money lost caused by ebay whom you are paying to defeat your transactions due to stupidity. So unless your buyer wants to pay shipping on each item and ship each item by itself. Example: 5 different decals that will combined weigh 1 oz which will be roughly 4.50-5.50 ground advantage(this would be 99.8% of buyers would think and choose) VS ebays way of thinking that the buyer should pay each items costs added together., now the buyer is asked to pay 5 x $5.00 which now equals 20.00 and a box and labels and packing etc(certainly not "green" by any stretch) and now the buyer is over charged 15.00.... Yes there are a number of workarounds this stupidity but all of them are time very consuming, and if you have brisk sales a buyers items may be spread out on the sold board and can be missed easily when figuring out the total shipping and amount to refund...and like the person suggested go through all the item numbers and put together a total to see if you can match the buyers offer(I will not do that period) or you can get each item number and create a new listing entirely. All of which are time consuming and very easy to make a mistake....where on the other the other hand if the cart actually worked (with logical common sense) everyone sales would pick up and the buyer would "have a good ebay experience" What is needed is a command string to be dropped into the cart string that blocks ebays blocks. Ebay survived 20+ years without needing a cart and combined shipping worked perfect.
Onto International shipping using EiS I think we all know, both buyers and sellers, what a nightmare it was to get item(s) combined....and scared MANY international buyers away with outrageous shipping charges....well somehow that all has changed as a few days ago I had an international order where there was 5 different items and I about fell off the chair when I check the shipping costs as it was like within 50cents of being accurate...Who and how it was combined I have no idea, but as far as combining and coming up with an amount for the buyer is stunning! So now the International side works as it should and the USA side is fubarred...
sin-n-dex
·2 years ago@quicksilverdiecast
You're preaching to the choir. I called eBay about this shopping cart issue in 2015 and was promised in 2015 it would be "fixed soon". They obviously are not going to fix it, if almost 10 years later it's still broken.
It's best to find other solutions to the issue, because eBay isn't going to provide any solutions.
C.
steady2304
·2 years ago@quicksilverdiecast
How many of these long winded posts are you going to make before you figure out it is a seller setup problem and not a shopping cart problem. You do not have any combined shipping rules set for multiple purchases.
Here is a screenshot from my listings and one from yours also. The 1:43's I have a calculated shipping rule of add all weights and subtract 5 oz from each extra car. The 1:72 planes I have a flat shipping rule of 1st Plane is $8.00 each extra is $4.00 each.
As you can see if set up properly the cart will display the correct shipping discount. My buyers don't have to contact me to get a proper shipping quote.
Your cart on the top and my cart on the bottom. Big difference.
quicksilverdiecast
OP2 years agoRespectfully, As many long winded posts as it takes....I have had ebay techs go over my store and all have agreed the number of shipping rules based on the number of various variables would be infinite, not to mention confusing. If all I sold was based on a nice neat size like selling CD's and DVD's that would be beneficial...
And with the recent change in the way ebay-USPS-determines the cost of shipping based on box dimensions where 1" more can make a big difference as well as possibly costing you more to ship than what you charged...when the seller has the ability to determine the actual dimensions and weight AND if it can be safely shipped together you only need one shipping rule....the one where a seller can accurately determine it.
When you start adding this rule or that rule each step along the way is a chance for mistakes, which can be costly. Understanding people is likened to water....both take the path of least resistance....Am I glad the cart seems to work for you ABSOLUTELY! but it also is not Cart friendly to most buyers and sellers..
I have also had a number of transactions where a buyer has chose and committed to buying numerous items....was NOT forced to pay for them(how and why?), ebay sent an action needed notice, as well as it showing up on my sold item list with a "send invoice" notice. I click it on and it brings up all the buyers items with check boxes in front of each item(so I can determine if it safely can be shipped with the other items) I pull package and enter dimensions and whatever materials required to safely pack and ship and insure if needed enter the totals and send the invoice...for the buyer to pay...so it can and does work and simple for everyone...
twk
·2 years agoI totally understand what you are saying and have run in to it as a buyer. To add insult to injury, the total in your cart shows you paying full shipping for each item in the total. Combined shipping can generally knock 2, 3 and even more off the total shipping costs; sometimes the pieces can be sent in the same box for the same shipping price..
I have also contacted eBay on this but to no avail.
quicksilverdiecast
OP2 years agoadd this to the "it makes zero sense" column...I just had a buyer who made an offer on 3 different diecast cars, I accepted each offer and in the sold listings it showed 3 uncombined unpaid items and a "send invoice" below the the record number, so I hit the send invoice button and it brought up his 3 items and I combined the shipping and sent it back the the buyer he paid it and it will ship in the morning....so how can you have it both ways?
ittybitnot
·2 years agoI accepted each offer and in the sold listings it showed 3 uncombined unpaid items and a "send invoice" below the the record number, so I hit the send invoice button and it brought up his 3 items and I combined the shipping and sent it back the the buyer he paid it and it will ship in the morning.
@quicksilverdiecast
The reason that worked is because you dispensed with the requirement to have the buyer put up a payment source in order to make an offer. Had you not, the buyer would have been auto-billed for each item, full price shipping on each. There would be no "request total" and no ability for you to send an invoice because they were already paid for.
What you are describing with the cart is NOTHING NEW. It has been that way for years, eBay knows, and have insisted for years that all is good and it is "working as intended". Sellers are told buyers are too stupid to use the cart and that is why all this nonsense is occurring.
It is to eBay's advantage NOT to have combined shipping for one invoice. They make more money, have a higher sold count for investors if combined shipping is thwarted. One item of many in a buyer's cart that is "marked down", or one that is IPR, auction wins combined with fixed price, items of a different shipping class, yada, yada, etc. can cause an error message in the cart. Mobile users STILL TO THIS DAY cannot request a total since there is no option in the mobile app after YEARS and more YEARS of requesting this.
I have had occasions where the "request total" button threw an error message for my multiple auction wins from the same seller. I have purchased from this same seller for years. The seller advertises combined shipping for auction wins over five days. But NOOOOOO...as I buyer I get "THIS SELLER DOES NOT COMBINE SHIPPING".....well, they did yesterday, and they did last week, and for the last two years...LOL...
As mentioned above the setting to "require a buyer to put up a payment source in order to make an offer, or even to bid" were both combined shipping killers, all in the name of stopping non-payers. LOL...got rid of a lot of PAYERS as well.
The plan is now to have all SELLER GENERATED offers be "immediate payment required". Guess what? No combined shipping is the result.
eBay recently had some campaign going on where they were encouraging sellers to offer lower shipping i.e. the ebay discounted price to buyers. eBay actually had people calling sellers on the phone preaching the (basically non-existent) virtues of this plan. All along eBay HAS had the opportunity to save buyers on shipping....it is called COMBINED SHIPPING, yet they seem to be doing their best to get rid of it. They said more than once that their plan was taking longer than expected because they had to "train buyers who were accustomed for 20 years to expect it" or some such......
Follow the money. Always.
gamersbaystore
·2 years agoCombined shipping works perfectly fine for me, I assume you didn't set it up right.
Go to summary, account, shipping preferences, scroll down to combined payments and shipping. Then make sure allow combined shipping is enabled.
Then you need to set up the flat, calculated, or promotional shipping rules within the same dialog box and name each one so you can reference them later.
Then go to your shipping policy in question and under "Apply My Flat Shipping Rule", click the drop down box and select the shipping rule you plan to use with that particular shipping policy. And Voila, it Works!
I have separate rules for various types of products. For instance, I charge a $1 shipping for each additional DVD they purchase.
ittybitnot
·2 years agoCombined shipping works perfectly fine for me, I assume you didn't set it up right.
@gamersbaystore
If you had these items available, I wanted to purchase:
a sweater
pair of socks
two books
a powder compact
a necklace
and a DVD
(Total weight of product packed is 2 lbs./9 oz.)
What is the shipping rule you would make that would apply to this order?
All anyone wants is the ability to put the products in one box, weigh it up, and send the buyer an invoice. Nobody is insisting it be done automatically, only that the opportunity to do it is not continuously thwarted. Why is that so hard? If the 'necklace' was on sale, the buyer would be prohibited from requesting, and a combined invoice not allowed.
theteamsetguy
·2 years ago@ittybitnot ,
My combined shipping rules are set up based on the approximate weight of the item.
I don't usually sell individual item weighing more than 5 pounds.
I have a different combined shipping rule for each of the following:
1. Items weighing less than 8 ounces
2. Items 8 ounces to 1 pound
3. Items weighing 1 to 2 pounds
4. Items weighing 2 to 3 pounds
5. Items weighing 3 to 4 pounds
6. Items weighing 4 to 5 pounds
I assign the rule to the item when I do the listing.
pjcdn2005
·2 years agoWhen he accepted the offer he had committed to buy which is why you you could send the invoice. When a buyer is able click on request a total in the cart they have also committed to buy so you are able to send an invoice. Unfortunately, buyers are not always able to request a total in the cart.
As others have said, the cart has never worked properly even though eBay says that it is working as intended. They are unlikely to change their mind just because you post about it over and over. You would be further ahead to work with what we have available and use combined shipping rules or promotional discounts.
kensgiftshop
·2 years agoIf your buyers want to combine shipping, don't do offers or give discounts.
It's the way it's set up, if they are already getting a discount, why do they need another one?
I do free shipping and never had a problem with buyers being able to buy.
quicksilverdiecast
OP2 years agoExplain to me what difference the item price makes and how it would affect the ability to combine shipping. And there is no such things as free shipping....you have to jack up your prices to pad the shipping costs in the item price, and USPS has not declared a ship free holiday......
quicksilverdiecast
OP2 years agoI will be happy to compare stores and sales with you....at which produces sales...
In regards to how many discounts do they need....well that depends on if you are serious at building a good repeat customer base or not...whether they need a discount or not is irrelevant! and apple to oranges!
They are 2 entirely different aspects of doing business, the first aspect is the item itself and how one does business..
Example: sellers point of view: I have an item, new/used/whatever, and I want to sell it...I know how much I have invested in it, regardless of the "Value", I do my homework and research the item and trends and determine a fair price that most likely generate a sale...again Example: I have item A that I have 5.00 in and research shows on average it will sell in the 12.00 area with most being sold at 15.00...So I list and describe it in detail and place the price at 14.00 or "best offer" plus shipping, with a best offer floor at 11.99. So it is what I will call competitively priced, and I want to move it....a couple days later a buyer makes an offer of 13.00 and I accept it. I now have made 8.00 more than what it cost me. The buyer proceeds to find more items he wants to buy regardless of being a set price or offer...and put all his items into the cart, Now at this point each item he has in his "order" was offered at the price I determined, best offer or buy it now, so I am happy and he is happy. Did you never hear the saying at what a successful sales consists of? It is where two people come together and determine a fair price between them, there is no other way...and if you being the seller look at the big picture overall you either work that way or your items may end up celebrating birthdays before they sell! So this is the first aspect of a successfully run business in my experience.
The 2nd aspect: (Of which I place myself in the buyers place) As common sense would dictate, when one purchases a number of items on line, let us say from Amazon, where the buyer is offered a number of combined shipping options, based on when and if you wanted it all shipped as one parcel or numerous parcels which affects to combined shipping total one way or the other.(No I do not expect ebay to work particular way) but I being the buyer, I have the option to choose what suits me best. (So back to ebay's issue)
Being the buyer and as almost anyone would look at logically at saving money on an order with numerous items, I would normally want all shipped at one time...why? #1. to save money overall, rather than paying to have each item ship by itself. #2. Lessens the risk of one or more of the items to be damaged or even stolen or lost or even end up taking USPS scenic route between depots. #3. Less work on the buyers end at keeping track of numerous packaged items. #4. From a "Green" point of view I am sure they could find a way to apply greenhouse gases or carbon footprint on each item being shipped by itself rather than in one parcel..#5. I have NOT noticed any of the carriers costs of shipping decrease(but even they offer a common sense way of combined shipping, it is called a flat rate box...(ebay offers flat rate boxes from USPS except for the fact you can only put 1 item in it! Unlike the Postal service "total" weight limit and if it fits it ships(regardless of how many items)...
So now you have both aspects of providing good common sense Customer Service, where everyone involved wins...I win., ebay wins with fees as well as itself providing good Customer Service for both myself and the buyer by making the transaction easy to accomplish in turn creating a potential return buyer, and most of all the buyer wins and gets a great deal(rather than ebays way of blocking sales due to how one chooses to ship for this reason or another of which no explanation is offered)...especially in this economy where saving as much as possible makes a difference....If you think my way of thinking is cockeyed, step on over to my store and take a look at the feedbacks and sales, which on a good weekend generates anywhere from 40-100 (successfully) sold items and a 27 year average of 99.9% +...I also am NOT complaining about lack of sales (they even went up 9+% in the last 31days) BUT I could be doing a WHOLE lot better (as you could as well) if ebay did not hinder or create unneeded issues....For those who are just starting out or even have been in business an OUTSTANDING book to read is Napoleon Hill's "Laws of Success" which teaches you how to be successful...if you become successful the money will follow.