eBay

aanewport · ‎07-12-2024

From the Summer seller update:

As a seller, can I still offer combined shipping for multiple items purchased by the same buyer?

You can still combine multiple purchases from the same buyer in a single shipment, but please be aware that a buyer may be automatically charged for shipping costs for each individual item when payments are processed. In these situations, you can send buyers a refund for any excess shipping charges if you offer combined shipping discounts. In the meantime, we are actively working on solutions that reduce the likelihood of this occurring.

I sell the majority of my items through best offer. Whether a buyer accepts an offer or I accept an offer it will automatically show as sold on my end. Until recently! Now, there is some sort of glitch that is happening. In one case, (on July 2) I accepted 22 offers a buyer sent to me, 15 items show as sold and I could not find the other 7 items. I went to the items and they were still active and showing as "pending". This has never happened before. The only way around this is for the buyer to request combined shipping on a laptop or desktop because app, phone or ebay classic site on mobile do not let buyers request combined shipping. My hands are tied because those 7 items were not showing up in "my ebay sold".

Same thing happened again a few days ago. Buyer sends me three offers - I accept all three - one shows up in "my ebay sold" the other two are in what I am calling "ebay limbo" they will let now let me send an invoice for all three because the other two items are "pending". This particular buyer did not have a laptop or desktop (or access to one) so three separate payments were made.

My issue with this is that eBay is making it more and more difficult to combine shipping to one buyer. My belief is that they are trying to make that extra .30 or .40 per transaction and let us (buyers and sellers) deal with the excess shipping costs. If I sell 2000 items to buyers who purchase multiple items at once and they pay separately, then in the course of a year, eBay makes a minimum of $600/year off of me by making it more difficult to combine shipping.

Am I the only one who has seen the "pending" issue. This month is the first time I have seen this happen.

dbfolks166mt · ‎07-12-2024

I don't have a lot of multiple item sales or purchase a lot of multiple items that would qualify for combined shipping but as long as I have been selling combined shipping has always been glitches but I have never been able to find a consistent pattern. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't I just tend to go with the flow of the moment rather than destroy what is left of my brain trying to figure it out.

I still report the issue when and if I hit it but it seems to be an elusive bug to eBay as well.

ittybitnot · ‎07-12-2024

My hands are tied because those 7 items were not showing up in "my ebay sold".

@aanewport

Were any of these by chance counter offers that you sent? eBay has changed these to appear like "you sent an offer", and the buyer is basically not notified or even aware you counter offered or accepted a counter offer.

All offers that you, the seller sends, show up to the buyer as "Immediate Payment Required", there is no "accept" on the buyer end, you can't send an invoice or combine items for one shipping cost. These remain for sale until paid for. All of these have to be paid individually and YES you are charged the non-refundable 30 or 40 cents for each transaction fee as well. I would also say YES they want the extra money, but also it provides them a higher count for their GMV stats.

I see you don't use the "pre-payment" requirement for offers. Those two settings (now renamed buyer rules) were the best combined shipping killers eBay has ever come up with. That you turned them off will help some because as a seller you can "accept" and you can send a combined order/invoice for only ONE 40 cent charge. However, not possible anymore if a counter offer is involved, or you send offers on your own. Your lack of auto-pay setting blocks have no effect on this activity. When set to YES, they do a great job of turning away PAYING buyers, however.

Its has been over three years now that app users have been asking for a "request total" button in their cart. Even as a computer user, even when I have one, half the time it throws an error message. I have to agree that this whole mess does little to disway non-paying buyers, but to actually make more money for eBay.

sin-n-dex · ‎07-12-2024

I started a whole thread about this a few months ago.

@ittybitnot summed it up perfectly.

C.

ittybitnot · ‎07-12-2024

@aanewport

To summarize:

A) Buyers can no long "accept" an offer you send. They are now BIN/immediate payment/cannot be combined. They have to be paid individually.

B) When a buyer sends YOU and offer you can accept. On a good day these will go to the cart, or the buyer can view them in their purchase history. These will be able to be combined for one shipping price/invoice. But cannot be combined with anything in column A above.

C) When a buyer sends you and offer and you send a counter offer, it becomes BIN/immediate payment required and cannot be combined for one shipping price. The buyer is not notified. These cannot be combined with any activity in column A or B. Each requires a separate payment as well.

D) If you require a payment upfront, in order to make an offer if the buyer is unaware what that form they had to fill out was for, you could accept all 15 of their offers and their card or PayPal would be billed 15 separate times with shipping included at $3.50 each. That would be $52.50 for shipping of 15 cards.
You could refund part of that, but you have to take a bit out of each of the individual payments, and you still owe eBay .40 x 15 = $6 instead of just 40 cents.

aanewport · ‎07-12-2024

Thank you for the detailed explanation! You explained better than 4 eBay reps and 1 eBay supervisor have explained it to me over the past week of me calling and complaining. And did I mention that customer service hung up on me twice in that time frame?

ittybitnot · ‎07-12-2024

@aanewport

The part about offers you send being IPR, is the latest development. They have been switching back and for for months and NOBODY from eBay would explain anything. The information we have is by both buyers and sellers sharing information and specifically screen shots of both seller and buyer sides of the situation. Don't be surprised if it changes again. But right now eBay is busy enrolling buyer IDs into forced compliance in order to BID......They turned it off for a while, but now it is full steam ahead. Again, it only works for those sellers that keep those "Buyer Rules" Win ten auctions, you get billed ten times at full price. All because of some non-paying buyer issue? I think not.

What I don't know is if someone BINs a fixed price listing (that does not have immediate payment required) AND they send you an offer that you accept, can these be combined for one invoice/shipping cost?

If you ever have that happen, let us know.