Auctions and Combined Shipping "Exciting News, Sellers"

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/Exciting-News-for-Auction-Sellers-Who-Offer-Combined-Shi...

As I recall, this was mentioned in the last Seller Update, but without any real details. We now have the details

[wastingtime101]

There was a whole video presentation at the Nov Seller Check In:

[somanypostcards]

I personally consider this an extremely complicated and AWFUL update for many reasons:

1.  It requires sellers to "require buyers to provide a payment method before they place a bid.”  Many buyers object to this.  I try to please my buyers and keep their transactions simple.

2.  It limits payment to 7 days from the time the first auction is won.  Some sellers have opted for longer payment windows to maximize combined shipping on multiple sales.

3.  It emphasizes auctions in buyer notifications, whereas combined sales can be all auctions, a mix of auctions and buy it now items, or all buy it now items.

4.  The complexity is astounding.  Let buyers win auctions and place buy it now items in their shopping carts and provide payment info when they check out.  If the seller provides combined shipping, then automatically combine all sales at check out.  There is no need for sellers to send invoices if a buyer wins a 2nd auction.   There is no need to tell buyers to "select Shop more, ship together to delay payment on their winning Auction for up to 7 days."   Also not necessary is "In the buyer’s Shopping Cart, the option to request combined shipping." 

[carlmarxx]

Ebay keep's  missing   problem  that sellers need to send the invoice's out .    

[chubbycatcollectibles]

I don't know why they can't just leave things alone.  They just keep making selling worse and worse.

[carlmarxx]

I have  talked with couple of U.S. Supervisor rep's   on  how tired  we Seller's are of  company  butting   in with  these stupid  once size fit's all  bandage  fix's  ! that aren't needed   like  auto pay  auctions  and   offers  w/ payment required .Because of lazy  seller's  that don't use the seller tools  ebay  setup  to  lower  none payments by the buyers .  :i.e.  Use  BIN with IPR = Payment required  Only !   in those high risk  category's   that have none paying buyer problems   Don't   Make  offer   or auction listing's.  

[dbfolks166mt]

I have  talked with couple of U.S. Supervisor rep's   on  how tired  we Seller's are of  company  butting   in with  these stupid  once size fit's all  bandage  fix's  ! that aren't needed   like  auto pay  auctions  and   offers  w/ payment required .Because of lazy  seller's  that don't use the seller tools  ebay  setup  to  lower  none payments by the buyers .  :i.e.  Use  BIN with IPR = Payment required  Only !   in those high risk  category's   that have none paying buyer problems   Don't   Make  offer   or auction listing's.  

     I actually see little difference between the IPR for BIN and the auto-pay for auctions or offers it is essentially the same thing from a functional perspective. Remember, it was the sellers who screamed for years about the non-paying buyers. EBay didn't butt in they attempted to come up with a solution to reduce the non-paying buyers, which they have. Yes it needs some tweaking to work out the kinks.

     There have always been issues with combined shipping and this is an attempt by eBay to provide a solution. I think the solution may be a little complex and hopefully testing shakes out the bugs. I am also wondering if this will apply to the EIS program and the ability to do combined shipping. 

      There are pro's and con's to both the BIN and auction format not one size fits all. 

[carlmarxx]

BIN w/IPR   isn't same thing  , other then no combined  problems  ,which you are correct  .       however   it  is  option  where as ebay  can't  push it  on it's sellers   with out asking .  

[campanaelia]

What a can of worms this is. Auto-pay for combined shipping that allow 7 days to shop more cancelled my first item after 96 hours

I just created a thread in the buyers forum regarding this with more details and response from facebook reps

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Auto-pay-for-combined-shipping-that-allow-7-days-to-shop-more/m...

[ittybitnot]

@campanaelia 

For those sellers that turned off the buyer rules and run AUCTIONS, eBay advertises for you in a rather vague manner....that this seller does not require an upfront payment source.   It will not be displayed for fixed price/make offer listings.  The arrow points to "SAVE WITH COMBINED SHIPPING".  This was just a random example I pulled when researching.  I thought it was a function of the link provided by @my-cottage-books-and-antiques  in the OP, but extensive experimentation suggests otherwise.  If you run auctions, check your own listings and see if it is there if you still retain the buyer rule that requires a buyer to put up a payment source in order to make a bid or not. 

I don't know if a buyer can tell if  they can put off payment for seven days, until they cough up the payment source for auto-pay.  

[campanaelia]

@ittybitnot 

The seller this happened to me with today required the payment and shipping info before bidding and had the green banner at the top showing it will be processed using the payment method pre-selected. But it seems if a seller retains the UPI setting for the 96 hours it will cancel for non-payment even though the buyer provided a guaranteed payment method that would take place in 7 days. This was my first time using this new auto-pay with combined shipping. It will also be my last.

I had communicated with my seller after winning the first item and were both on the same page about the 7 days with the pre-payment. One would think the 96 hour UPI assistant would only still apply to buyers not in the auto-pay group.

When I reached out to facebook reps I was told the following,

"For sellers that offer combined shipping, the automatic payment on auctions can be delayed for up to 7 days. This is the default setting, and they don’t have any way to adjust that timeframe. However, sellers don’t have to wait for 7 days, and can cancel an order as unpaid after 4 calendar days."

"If it will take more than 4 days for payment, we recommend letting the seller know, and they can add you to their exemption list (if they have automatic cancellations set up)."

Which is false since the exemption list does not apply to the UPI assistant.

[ittybitnot]

When I reached out to facebook reps I was told the following,

@campanaelia 

Well isn't that "special"..... buyer can select the new "7 day thing" and get non-payment strikes as a result before the seven days are up.  Wonder why you weren't auto-billed instead?  eBay would have made some bank.  

Thank you for sharing your experience.  I will make sure it is never mine as well.  

[campanaelia]

---

@ittybitnot wrote:

When I reached out to facebook reps I was told the following,

@campanaelia 

Wonder why you weren't auto-billed instead?  eBay would have made some bank.

---

@ittybitnot 

That's what I don't understand, if a buyer has to enter their payment info before placing a bid there should be no way the item doesn't get paid, and get a UPI strike.

According to the video in the 2nd post, the 96 hours rule only applies if the auto-payment fails

Also besides losing my first item, I never bid on the other 3 today because I was so annoyed. Out of the other 3 items today, one sold with one bidder and the other 2 were unsold. So this whole fiasco cost ebay more than one sale. I also had to waste my time appealing the UPI strike. Facebook reps told me there was no strike, so it was probably removed as a courtesy since I always pay.

[ittybitnot]

eBay/Kafka Mini Series

Season 39, Episode 1 Exciting News

Chances are subsequent episodes will be streaming around here shortly. 

[campanaelia]

---

@campanaelia wrote:

@ittybitnot 

The seller this happened to me with today required the payment and shipping info before bidding and had the green banner at the top showing it will be processed using the payment method pre-selected. But it seems if a seller retains the UPI setting for the 96 hours it will cancel for non-payment even though the buyer provided a guaranteed payment method that would take place in 7 days. This was my first time using this new auto-pay with combined shipping. It will also be my last.

I had communicated with my seller after winning the first item and were both on the same page about the 7 days with the pre-payment. One would think the 96 hour UPI assistant would only still apply to buyers not in the auto-pay group.

When I reached out to facebook reps I was told the following,

"For sellers that offer combined shipping, the automatic payment on auctions can be delayed for up to 7 days. This is the default setting, and they don’t have any way to adjust that timeframe. However, sellers don’t have to wait for 7 days, and can cancel an order as unpaid after 4 calendar days."

"If it will take more than 4 days for payment, we recommend letting the seller know, and they can add you to their exemption list (if they have automatic cancellations set up)."

Which is false since the exemption list does not apply to the UPI assistant.

---

@wastingtime101 

Since you seem to know a lot about this , is this true what the ebay facebook rep stated in messenger? Or was this some kind of glitch that happened to me? According to the video you posted , which I watched before doing this, the 96 hours rule only kicks in if the auto-payment fails, I was hoping to get some clarity on this in the forums.