eBay

woothy · ‎03-04-2019

I am very frustrated & really need to vent. I primarily sell quilt stencils which are very light, in fact the items weigh more than the envelopes they ship in. There are three areas driving me crazy. 50% of my business is via mobile/vs computer. The eBay app does not have a place to request a total for multiple items. So I get emails saying they can't request but I have to write back to figure out if they are using the app & let them know they need to go to a regular browser. Back & forth emails takes time. Second issue is that if a customer buys multiple items & one happens to have been marked down, the system tells them that they have already received a discount & therefore can't get a combined shipping discount. They usually pay in full & I end up doing a refund. More time wasted. Then USPS changes from flat rate to zone shipping. In the past I would offer flat rate discount where they only paid an additional $.50 for each additional item. The calculated discount options available don't work for me due to the weight of my items vs the weight of my envelopes. And to top off everything I get the new seller update with the everything going to GTC. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. Thanks for letting me vent & if the powers that be read this HELP.

yanquita · ‎03-06-2019

I sympathize. I didn't realize until today how wonky calculated shipping is. I always used flat rate charges before the USPS Zoned First Class happened.

I sell leaflets with an item weight of 3 ounces. 2 ounces of that is packaging, so I have a calculated shipping rule to subtract 2 oz for each additional item. This works fine for up to 5 items.

But increase the order to 6 leaflets. eBay's code sees an 18-oz package and goes crazy. It apparently sees an 18-ounce order that exceeds First Class weight limits. It then breaks up the order into 2 "virtual" packages, and applies the calculated shipping rule for each package. It puts 1 item and 2 additional items in each package. So the buyer loses a single item discount.

However, the logic problem gets worse as the order item/weight goes up. For example, eBay calculates the shipping for an 8 item order as two 4 item packages, each with a shipping weight of 6 oz. Each of these "virtual" packages cost $3.18/zone 1 for a total shipping charge of $6.36. Please note the actual cost for this 8-item order should be 10 oz (one 3 oz item and seven @ 1 oz.) or $3.82/Zone 1.

For the life of me, I can't understand why eBay's shipping calculator doesn't grasp that sellers use the "discounted shipping rule" to remove the cost of packaging weight from multiple item orders.

Now should I insert language in each listing to advise that the automatic shipping discounts fail after a 5 item order....? That's pitiful.