You can't request a total because ...

[luisin]

Often, I need an article definitely, and while I'm at the sellers page, I go and look for all those minutiae I might need in the workshop, those gazillion things like M6 stainless bolts, a few 3W LED's, a bit of shrink tube, some switches, whatever. YOU NAME IT. Many of these add-on items are listed for a Dollar, end the items weigh a few grams, absolutely nothing that would blow the seller's shipping budget.
However, if I just add a handful of LED's at a price of $0.99, the seller asks for another $ 3.60 shipment.  That makes sense, if the LED's would be the only thing I'm ordering. But it is an add-on to the primary order. In the magnitude of literally a few grams of additional shipment weight.

My primary interest for this order was for some 8 temperature controller modules, they had a volume discount factored in. Those little other things could easily be added by the seller after determining a reasonable shipping fee, but I cannot ask for a reasonable shipping fee for 15-20 different additional things I might need.

"You can't request a total because the seller has already offered a discount for these items."

That line has kept me from ordering a lot of low-priced items because of base shipment prices. I bet the seller is interested in selling, but OTOH, I'm not interested in contacting the seller explicitly, making a listing of the items I'm interested in, waiting to hear what they have to say, etcetc. Too dramatic.

>>>> You can't request a total because the seller has already offered a discount for these items <<<<

That thing has to go away, IMHO.

[pburn]

That is a known problem with eBay's checkout system.

I would suggest you contact the seller via eBay messaging, explain what you're experiencing, and ask them if they offer combined shipping on their discounted items. There's a good chance they aren't even aware that interested parties are receiving that message.

On the other hand, if the seller is already offering a discount, it's possible they won't discount the shipping, too.

You won't know until you ask.

[mudshark61369]

@luisin,

First you need to determine if the seller offers combined shipping, and if they do they should tell you how to do that someplace in the listing. Sellers are not required to combine shipping.   In many cases if a seller does not set up combined shipping rules,

Ex; Buy 1 item pay $X,  for each additional add $y ea. The checkout system will not combine for you.  

If the seller does state that they combine shipping and these are buy it now items what you can do is commit to buy from the listing pages. Then you can send the seller a message from one of the listings which will appear in one box on your purchase history asking for a combined shipping invoice to be sent to you.

I see you do a lot of purchasing from chinese sellers and while they will often send multiple orders in one box, many will not combine shipping when they do that.