System Issue with Shipping Charges for 'Promoted' Items

[ngm-18]

Does anyone know how to notify eBay of a System Flaw?  I have brought this specific attention to eBay over the phone on 2 occasions without results.

Specifically, I 'promote' all of my fixed priced items.  I also have setup my sales to either provide free shipping on orders in excess of $20, or, cap shipping at $3.49 for orders less than $20 - regardless of the number of items that are ordered/paid for in a single transaction.  The problem is that the eBay system disregards both of these shipping fee settings for promoted listings AND DOES NOT ALLOW THE BUYER TO REQUEST AN ADJUSTED INVOICE.

Though it is frustrating that the system doesn't seem to acknowledge my shipping fee settings, it is more than annoying that the buyer cannot contact me to ask for a revised invoice.  Instead, the buyer is told that their purchase has already been discounted and as such, they cannot ask for any additional discounts.  Which isn't even the case.  Rather, I - the seller - am taking a discount on what I make so as to pay eBay to promote my listings.

Further it is downright humiliating that for the poor buyer wanting to buy multiple items from me - all of which are promoted - are being charged $3.49 in shipping fees for EACH ITEM that they buy in a single transaction.  This has me spending a lot of time jumping over to PayPal to refund the excess postage, and, writing an apology email to the buyers for the shortcomings of the eBay system.

More importantly, I am left wondering how many sales am I actually losing by paying eBay to promote my items because the buyer(s) simply refuses to pay the GROSSLY EXCESSIVE POSTAGE CHARGES and simply cancels their orders and walk(s) away while thinking that I am trying to gouge them.  Latest example happened today - buyer buys 11 Lincoln pennies for a total of $13.99, and, is charged $38.39 in shipping charges (11 x $3.49) - all in a single order.  I am actually shocked that the buyer acquiesced and paid for the order.

The fix to this problem is really simple - LET BUYERS ALWAYS REQUEST ADJUSTED INVOICES - the seller doesn't need to feel compelled to adjust every invoice - only those that obviously do not make sense to any rational thinking being (a system is only as smart as it's code, which is only as smart as the coder...) Though the eBay system often seems to be run by bots - eBay should give us sellers a bit more credit - we're not bots, we want to sell, we want to make money and make money for eBay too.  This said, why is it so hard to us to help eBay help themselves???

Sorry to rant here - but, I have come to find this board the ONLY place through which an issue MIGHT get noticed by eBay and resolved... If someone knows of a back channel - please do share.  I am tired of placing calls to customer service and getting no results... Thanks!!

[dtexley3]

@ngm-18 

Once you have a shipping discount setup, guess what.... wait for it.... eBay disables the Request Total button "because a discount was already applied".    I've been complaining about this for 3 years so rant away, it doesn't seem to matter.

brian@ebay Two posts about the same poor design.  Again, remove the blocks on the Request Total, it causes far more headaches than it helps.

[3eyedfishcatcher]

I have not been getting invoice requests for several months which would be about the same time I started promoted listings. I have had multiple purchases but buyers paid full shipping up front so I had to combine and issue a partial refund. I had seen some postings about store promotions blocking the invoice request so I turned off my in house sales I had been running. Then I got a message from a buyer having issues. Before I could I could direct him to call ebay to look into the issue he just went ahead and paid. However the 2 items he bought were not found by the buyer through promoted listings so that puts a hole in your theory. The items were less than 1 day old and the only items in his cart so most likely it was a browser issue. I added multiple items of yours to a cart and your in store sale blocked the combined shipping. I was able to find some promoted listings of yours but they were auctions so I could not add them to cart to test your theory of the promoted listings blocking combined shipping.

[3eyedfishcatcher]

Well now that things are not freezing as bad I guess I can continue …… I would like to test your theory about promoted listings blocking the request for a invoice but ebays emergency update to allow sellers to pay their invoices seams to be slowing every thing down and right now I do not want to spend hours trying to get a few listings to load to find multiple listings of yours that are being promoted and do not have in house sales running. However perhaps later but as I said I had a buyer who could not send the request and he located the listings the old fashioned way. That does not mean there are more than 1 issue. I did  have 1 request a few days ago and the 2 items were not located via promoted listings. The 2 items were actively being promoted so just having the item promoted does not cause the issue. My guess would be for the most part its a browser or device issue on the users end but if they have had multiple items sitting in carts for days on end depending on the sellers settings as to if they allow combined shipping and when they require payment this could effect things making it hard to tell what is the root cause of the issue. Perhaps after 1 day on not paying move items from buyers carts to their watched list were they should be so when they are ready to pay they can add them fresh so no time limit would be a issue. Perhaps split the setting for when you require payment between auctions and buy now items. This is after all originally a auction setting for sellers with buyer bidding on multiple items so they can pay after all auctions have ended. So keep the setting for auctions and by default allow buy now items to be set to 1 week or so but that still indorses the bad trend of using a cart for a watched item list in the hopes of getting a price discount. At the minimum if multiple items from multiple sellers are in a cart then sort the items 1st buy what currently can be combined so the buyer can know which group can be messaged for their invoices and what group will need to be paid for separately that way they will not have to blindly guess which sellers item or items are causing the problem instead of being left in the dark.

[3eyedfishcatcher]

I was finally able to look through your listings but every one of your listings have some kind of in house sale blocking the invoice request. I was able to find a seller in a different category who had promoted listings. I was able to add multiple items from that seller and the request option was not greyed out. For the most part if there are and discounts, sales, or free shipping offers it does blocked the request but a item being located through promoted listings can be added to a cart as long as the other items do not have any kind of sale or deal associated with that listing.

[ngm-18]

Hi thank you for your ideas... I would like to challenge a couple of them...

1) I do not believe that buyers can see which items I am promoting (promoting is different than having them on sale/markdown.  Promoted items are where I am giving a percentage of the sale to 'promote' the item (having the item show up on the screen when a buyer looks at someone else's similar item).

2) I do not believe that you could have put auction items that are being promoted into a cart because eBay only allows GTC items to be promoted. 

This said, I have run across tons of bugs on the eBay system, so, I too am going to run some tests on item setup to see if in fact I can now promote an auction item, and, I am going to look at my current auction items to see if any of them are in fact showing that they are being promoted.

[ngm-18]

Yes, I currently have a 'start of summer' sale underway for most of my GTC items.  And, all of my items are signed up for being promoted.  This 2x 'event', however, isn't the cause of the inability to ask for a revised invoice, nor, is it the reason that eBay is charging a shipping charge for each item.  I know this, because, the first time it happened, I wasn't running any sales event.

All of this being said, what I do not understand is why eBay feels compelled to 'help' me out by not allowing the buyer to request a revised invoice... I am smart enough to determine if a revision is appropriate, or not.  Sometimes I am left feeling that eBay is too smart for their own good.  Not only are they probably hurting my sales with this issue, but, they are also hurting themselves as they only make the addition promotional money off of what actually sells.  Multiply my issue by the millions of sellers attempting to do the same thing and eBay is potentially losing millions due to unnecessary code to begin with... Just my perspective on things.  I have always been a big fan of the KISS principle when it comes to code - Keep It Simple, Stupid! 😉

[3eyedfishcatcher]

It is not easy to find promoted items in a search by its self but when you pull up a listing that is promoted bellow the listings details it will show you similar items being promoted. I pulled up your listings then looked bellow through the similar listings till I found more from you then added them to the cart however as all of your buy now items have promotions running with either discounted price or free shipping none of your items could be tested. I tried other coin sellers but as most of you have similar things going on I had to go to a different category to find a seller with multiple promoted listings. I was able to add multiple promoted listings from the same seller and get a invoice option. It did take some time but I was able to do it. The main issue I noticed other than sales or free shipping was when other sellers did not allow combined shipping or required immediate payment. 

At first I found your auction items being promoted as I opened a auction item first. Of course I was not able to add auction items to a cart as I said I could not in the 1st post. Ebay was freezing up so it took some time till I could look through the rest of your items after excluding option items. After that all I had to do was pull up a buy now item then find more of your listings in the promoted listings at the bottom of the page. Those listings are always promoted as ebay will not promote someone who is not paying them. 

If I wanted to I guess I could search social media sites promoting ebay items by your listings tittles but as you have a promotional offer on all of your items that would be a waste of time. IT looks like in your case it is the in house sales and deals blocking the invoice request. 

As far as promoting auction items I do not do auctions but since ebay had yours and other auction items in the promoted section I would assume its possible. I really do not think it is promoted listing causing the issue. However you are right just because you are running a sale does not mean the buyer should not be able to request a invoice up front so they do not get over charged for shipping and so the seller will not have to go to  Paypal to correct the issue.

[3eyedfishcatcher]

The simple answer to me would mean the sellers site preferences playa bigger part than they used to. Then if the seller has any kind of sale or deal that compound the issue further. After running all those gauntlets if the user is on a older device or browser that ebay is not fixing issues immediately or at least in a timely manor then this also is causing problems. 

The simple fix would be to allow every buyer to request combined shipping no matter what. Then let the seller review the order and decide what if any items can be combined then return a invoice to the buyer with the possible shipping options. 

[ngm-18]

I couldn't agree more!  And... a BIG THANK YOU for taking the time to do all of the research and write up of your efforts.  It is greatly appreciated.  Let's hope that someone within eBay will earn their pay today and follow this string and deliver the solution that will solve the problem... Let all buyers feel free to ask for a revised invoice, and, all seller's use their own best judgement as to which requested adjusted invoices are worthy of an adjustment.  I suspect this solution will work like a charm resulting in buyers getting what they want, sellers selling more, and, eBay making more... Everyone wins, no one loses.  What could be better???