For listings that still require the Buyer to pay for the shipping, but don't have the shipping rates calculated automatically through eBay (which is more common for items requiring LTL truck freight), the Seller must manually add the shipping to an order after the Buyer has committed to their purchase.
Prior to the Seller having done so, the Buyer can also use a separate prompt on the desktop version of the website to 'Request Total', which would send a system-generated message to the Seller, notifying him/her that the Buyer is requesting an invoice (w/ a link to do so). While that would be a redundant feature on it's own, the prompt also includes a text entry field for the Buyer to add in their own personal message to send with it. That field is often utilized to request combined shipping on orders with multiple items, or to reaffirm the contact details, shipping instructions, and/or accessorial requirements for delivery (the latter of which can have a huge impact on LTL pricing). However, even though this Request Total prompt on desktop is still in place, the system-generated messages — and more importantly, the custom messages Buyers include with them — are no longer going through to our account.
While I don't recall exactly when we last received them, it would have been sometime around the beginning of the year when the refresh for the invoicing system went live. And that was partially why we never caught it — we just assumed the feature was phased out with the refresh, until a disgruntled Buyer inadvertently brought it to our attention again last month. They called up stating they had sent us the information for their commercial shipping address and multiple total requests, even though we hadn't received a single message from their account. Another customer mentioned the same thing a few days later, and I reverified this afternoon that the issue still persists as of this typing.
So tl;dr: for Buyers who are wondering why Sellers are not responding to their total requests — and for Sellers who do invoiced shipping that have noticed an uptick in hung orders from seemingly unresponsive Buyers — just note that the lack of responsiveness could very well be unintentional.
