eBay Shipping Calculator is hopelessly broken...

[obtanium_enterprises]

For calculated-rate shipping, for combined orders, configured to simply add all item weights, with (for example) all items offering USPS FCP and USPS Priority...

When the total weight exceeds 16 ounces, the calculator DIVIDES the "combined" order into MULTIPLE "packages" of up to 16 ounces each, then sums the total calculated postage, and then presents that amount as the "combined shipping" amount to the buyer for their "combined" order...

This is so FAR BEYOND COLOSSALLY-MORONIC that no words in any language, including Klingon and Dalek, exist to accurately describe how moronic this is. The road scholar (not to be confused with Rhodes Scholar) who figured out that method of operation must have earned at least a hundred Darwin Awards so far. BUT IT GETS WORSE...

If a potential buyer adds a bunch of so-configured items into their cart, and then views their cart, the above-calculated amount is presented as THE "combined" shipping cost; there is NO OPTION and NO ALTERNATIVE next to the specified amount. Yes, even though every item in their cart is configured for FCP and PM, only the "combined" (chuckling) FCP postage is presented. So, at this point the potential buyer has four options:

1. Grudgingly pay the inflated "combined" shipping.

2. Commit to buy, then request a total from the seller.

3. Change the shipping option for EVERY ITEM IN THEIR CART to PM, which is truckloads of fun when their cart holds a few dozen items.

4. Empty their cart and buy elsewhere.

I suspect #4 is the most popular among buyers.

eBay, in their INFINITE wisdom, could have AT LEAST PRESENTED the PM option to the buyer so they could manually select it. Of course automatically selecting and presenting the lower-priced option instead would likely tax the processing power of eBay's gerbils beyond humane limits, but that would have been nice to do for the potential buyer. We all know how much eBay hates buyers though.

Previously, I thought only government practiced this level of colossal stupidity. You really do learn something new every day. SO when might eBay fix this, if they can even understand it's a serious problem? (That was a rhetorical question.)

PS- I haven't tested it, but I believe the same moronity happens with international shipments when the weight limit for FCP is exceeded; the calculator doesn't transition to PM, or even display available options the buyer can select manually.

[obtanium_enterprises]

PPS- And one more thng... On the buyer's cart page, the presented shipping amount is at the bottom right, while the essentially-useless request-total-from-seller link is at the top right. Which BLITHERING IDIOT in eBay figured that one out? (Again, rhetorical.)

[obtanium_enterprises]

I've reported this to eBay YET AGAIN because it STILL wasn't in their list of site issues...

After walking the eBay rep through duplicating the issues, more precisely, here's how it's hopelessly broken:

Item/listing configuration: Weight is 1 ounce; shipping selections are USPS First Class Package and USPS Priority Mail; default shipping is USPS First Class Package.

Combined shipping configuration: Add all item weights.

Shipping configuration: Offering USPS retail rates. (Issue also occurs with discount rates.)

In their Cart and in Checkout, buyers will see the item price or total of all item prices plus postage as follows...

1 to 4 ounces total: $3.50

5 to 8 ounces: $3.75

9 ounces: $4.10

10 ounces: $4.45

11 ounces: $4.80

12 ounces: $5.15

13 ounces: $5.50

14 to 16 ounces: The one pound Priority Mail rate ($6.70 to $10.60, depending upon zone)

17 to 20 ounces: $3.50 PLUS the one pound PM rate.

21 to 24 ounces: $3.75 PLUS the one pound PM rate.

25 ounces: $4.10 PLUS the one pound PM rate.

26 ounces: $4.45 PLUS the one pound PM rate.

27 ounces: $4.80 PLUS the one pound PM rate.

28 ounces: $5.15 PLUS the one pound PM rate.

29 ounces: $5.50 PLUS the one pound PM rate.

30 to 32 ounces: 2X (double) the one pound PM rate (NOT the 2-pound PM rate.)

33 to 36 ounces: $3.50 PLUS 2X the one pound PM rate.

37 to 40 ounces: $3.75 PLUS 2X the one pound PM rate.

41 ounces: $4.10 PLUS 2X the one pound PM rate.

42 ounces: $4.45 PLUS 2X the one pound PM rate.

43 ounces: $4.80 PLUS 2X the one pound PM rate.

44 ounces: $5.15 PLUS 2X the one pound PM rate.

45 ounces: $5.50 PLUS 2X the one pound PM rate.

46 to 48 ounces: 3X (triple) the one pound PM rate (NOT the 3-pound PM rate.)

49 to 52 ounces: $3.50 plus 3X the one pound PM rate.

(and so on)

A. Clearly, eBay recognizes that "over 13 ounces" is too heavy for First Class Retail, so it adopts the Priority Mail postage, but it doesn't automatically convert the buyer's order over to Priority.

B. Instead of truly combining a buyer's order, postage-wise eBay de-combines it into multiple "packages" of up to one pound.

C. To truly convert to Priority, the buyer must manually change the shipping option OF EVERY ITEM IN THEIR CART/CHECKOUT to Priority, otherwise their order is essentially NOT COMBINED, which completely and absolutely defeats the whole purpose.

D. Adding insult to injury, the ONLY "total shipping cost" even DISPLAYED to the buyer is the (nonsensical) First Class amount.

E. Whoever coded this moronity of a functionality should be BANNED FOR LIFE from having anything to do with computers, let alone eBay.

F. For sellers, if you configure your listings to offer both FCP and PM, and sum weights for combined shipping, now you know why either buyers aren't buying or are unhappy about your "high" shipping costs.

THANK YOU EBAY!!!!!  WELL DONE!!!!!  BRILLIANT!!!!!

[dtexley3]

brian@ebay  Another example of broken code in the shipping calculator.

[obtanium_enterprises]

And now the ADDITIONAL moronity with the shipping calculator...

If you configure your listings to include a handling fee, and the selected shipping method is USPS First Class Package, whether using retail or discount rates:

A. If a buyer adds one item (any in-stock quantity thereof) to their cart, or directly checks-out, the handling fee is correctly added. HOWEVER, if the buyer adds two DIFFERENT items to their cart, the handling fee is REMOVED. (I haven't tested to confirm that Checkout doesn't include the handling fee, just that it's removed in the cart.)

B. If a buyer adds enough of whatever item(s) to their cart such that the total weight goes over 16 ounces, the handling fee is DUPLICATED FOR EACH ADDITIONAL up-to-16-ounce "de-combined" First Class package created by the moronic shipping calculator. (Functionality as detailed above.)

C. Further adding insult to injury, in "Site Preferences: Offer combined payments and shipping: Calculated shipping rule: Specify a handling cost for an order:" it's only possible to add a blanket handling fee covering both domestic and international orders. In listing creation, it's possible to include different handling fees for domestic and international. So, as a temporary workaround, while a seller could include their domestic per-order handling fee in "Specify a handling cost for an order" it's not possible to include their international handling fee; only their domestic handling fee will be applied to a buyer's order.

D. My desire is to include ONE per-order handling fee, whether one item is being purchased or several, for my applicable domestic or international fee to be included, NOT for fees to be removed or duplicated. However, there may very well be sellers desiring that the listing-specified handling fee be applied to all items, or perhaps to all items plus the combined-per-order handling fee. OR, perhaps a seller might want to waive all handling fees, or whatever, BUT such functionality is not possible. Clearly, NO FORETHOUGHT WHATSOEVER WENT INTO CODING THE SHIPPING CALCULATOR AND THESE FEE OPTIONS.

BRILLIANT!!!!!!  I STAND IN UTTER AWE!!!!!!

Now, does anyone wonder how many years it'll take eBay to properly and completely fix this moronic mess?

[obtanium_enterprises]

I had asked a friend abroad to test the international shipping calculator for the same issues, and he reported that it's similarly-broken...

For lightweight and/or low value items I offer both international USPS First Class and Priority as options. He reports that the internatioal calculator also creates multiple virtual First Class packages, postage cost wise, rather than transitioning the supposedly-combined order into one Priority package. As ANYONE can imagine, this HUGELY-inflates shipping cost presented to international buyers.

The silence of eBay's response so far is deafening, as if this were all just a huge nothingburger. Excessive shipping cost deters buyers; deterring buyers deters sales; deterring sales eliminates eBay's commissions on those sales; thus this affects eBay's bottom line... Yet, not even crickets do we hear.

Nice.

[obtanium_enterprises]

It gets even worse...

This is what was presented to my buyer, and to me when I went to combine his items into one order; note the astronomical shipping amount quoted by eBay for USPS Priority to my zone-1:

The first item weighs 4 ounces.

The second item weighs 5 ounces; total of 10 ounces.

The third item weighs 1 ounce; total of 2 ounces.

Because of rounding weights up, the actual total package weight is 15.8 ounces.

For USPS First Class Package (retail rate, plus small per-order handling) eBay correctly added the weights and adopted the Priority postage rate. For USPS Priority...eBay did what exactly...fall even deeper into a stupor???

[obtanium_enterprises]

Yesterday I received this message from a potential buyer...

"...I want to buy 10 pcs but the shipping costs rises too much for me..."

...which is a DIRECT CONSEQUENCE of the hopelessly broken shipping calculator that eBay is way too busy rolling out "site improvements" to fix. No, there's nothing whatsoever to the silly rumor that the broken shipping calculator negatively affects sales.

[obtanium_enterprises]

Today's examples of eBay's hopelessly broken shipping calculator...

1. Buyer requested an invoice, perhaps because they wanted the items shipped via Priority Mail, because eBay's hopelessly broken shipping calculator presented them with the following; does anyone see a problem here:

We see that eBay's shipping calculator correctly computed the First Class shipping, but, HELLO, what's up with that Priority Mail quote?????????  Really, eBay?

2. As if #1 wasn't moronic enough, we have the following fine example of eBay-moronity to add to the colossal multitude of eBay screw-ups:

In this most-glorious example of eBay-moronity, both shipping amounts are local telephone numbers. Yeah, that looks about right. Fortunately the buyer was trusting enough to check out and request an invoice for this just-under-two-pound package... Which I then was able to fit into a flat rate padded envie... Which leads us to the next issue.

3. After consolidating the above-purchases into one shipment, eBay thinks it was shipped "free." Considering all of the other moronic unprofessional code running on the eBay site, I guess this shouldn't be unexpected:

Thing is, this is a mindlessly-simple thing to do code-wise, BUT EBAY HAS MANAGED TO SCREW IT UP TOO!!!  So the question is, with eBay's exhibited level of coding moronity, does anyone expect the pathetically-coded shipping calculator to EVER be fixed?

Yeah, REAL-soon... LMAO!

And we're all wondering why our sales have fallen off of a cliff, and why we have so many abandoned carts... How/why could that possibly be??? With eBay being all-sorry like they are.

[obtanium_enterprises]

The latest addition is an oldie-but-goodie... I first reported this to eBay in early 2017...

On listing pages, at the top, to the right of "Shipping:" the only amount displayed is the cost of the FIRST defined shipping method; the potential buyer has to click on "See details" or the "Shipping and payments" tab to discover less expensive and/or alternative shipping methods. The problems with this are:

1. If any of the alternative methods are less expensive, the potential buyer won't see them unless they look elsewhere; it's much more likely that they'll buy elsewhere. The alternatives should be listed, or at least the least expensive should be listed and mention of other methods should be added.

2. In a multi-quantity listing, #1 above is exascerbated if a potential buyer selects to buy more than one piece; as I've detailed in previous posts, the shipping calculator may create multiple virtual "packages" for the primary shipping method, or do other strange and wonderful things.

3. In a multi-quantity listing with flat rate shipping specified, the shipping cost for additional quantities should be displayed at the top next to "Shipping:" so the incentive to purchase more is advertised to potential buyers; currently they must click on "See details" or the "Shipping and payments" tab to discover this.

eBay loves to babble on about how buyers are very concerned with shipping cost, but then eBay does nothing whatsoever to present it, and present it accurately, to potential buyers; eBay's moronic miraculous cure-all is "offer free shipping" -- duh, uh, huh-huh, huh, uhh. Brilliant!